Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just following up on my Member’s statement, a direction was given to the government to create a policy in terms of providing funding to non-government organizations for their infrastructure needs. I will ask the Deputy Premier – who also is the Minister of Education whom this came to, so he’s well versed in this policy that we’re talking about today – has the government undertaken this work to create such a policy that we can fund non-government organizations for the infrastructure they need who do good work on behalf of government? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Honourable Deputy Premier, Mr. Lafferty.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Executive and also Finance are working on a draft policy on publicly funding privately owned infrastructure. Once there’s an approval for referral, it will be presented to a standing committee for their review and also for their comments. The plan is to have the policy rated for review by next session. So that is the overall plan, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.
There is a concern because I know there were a lot of non-government organizations who were looking at this House when we actually approved a non-government organization for the infrastructure needs. It’s taken over two years to get this policy in place.
Is there any opportunity to speed up the process so it comes to committee… Or can I ask the Minister, with the draft policy that he’s working on, can that policy be given to committee to give any input right now to speed up the process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Part of the plan was to introduce that in the next session, but I can commit to the Member I will find out the status of where the actual draft policy is at. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
As I mentioned, we do have a lot of NGOs out in the territory who do great work on behalf of the Northwest Territories. As I mentioned earlier, the NWT SPCA who takes wild, I won’t say wild, but stray dogs from the communities and putting them into their compound but it’s getting filled up, also shelters who are sheltering homeless and people who are battling addictions. In the meantime, while we are creating this policy – obviously there’s a policy coming – can any NGOs apply for funding for infrastructure needs from now until when we see this policy come into the next session? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The NGOs, obviously, can apply for programming we have within GNWT. This particular focus is on having a policy in place to deal with private funding for public infrastructure. That is in a draft format and will be ready for next session, but I will get the status on that.
With respect to accessing other programs or infrastructure funds, there is a venue for that, as well, within GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m quite aware of some of the programs that are available that NGOs can actually utilize, but can the Deputy Premier clarify what programs the government has right now that NGOs can access for their infrastructure needs as he stated in his last remarks? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I committed in this House, I will be providing the latest status on the draft policy on infrastructure. At the same time, we will provide those various different types of programming, funding that’s available for NGOs within the GNWT. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
