Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister responsible for the Anti-Poverty Strategy. I mentioned in my statement that I would be asking him for an update. That’s my first question.
Can the Minister advise where we’re at in terms of our Anti-Poverty Strategy and Action Plan, what we are doing, what we have done and what we are doing? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, the GNWT established an advisory committee to help us lead and prepare the development of a territorial action plan. They have been working throughout the summer, they’ve been working on a number of different initiatives, including the development of a plan and they’re hoping to bring the draft plan to a roundtable that we’re planning for December.
Also, over the summer with the participation of this advisory committee, the GNWT allocated the $500,000 that was supported by this Assembly to support the different anti-poverty initiatives. We had 18 applications; we supported 14 of those. Thank you.
Thanks to Minister Abernethy for that response. I think I and many others are looking forward to seeing the action plan finally come to the public.
I mentioned in my statement about a report from 2013, and there’s a number of recommendations in that report. One of them is that there is a need for a federal northern food security innovation fund, and the intent of that fund is to help jumpstart and sustain community-based, community-led food initiatives across the North. This is something which, I think, definitely needs to be addressed.
I’d like to know whether or not the Minister, when he talks with his federal counterparts, if he ever raises the issue of food insecurity in the North, particularly in the NWT. Thank you.
Thank you. That wasn’t actually one of the agenda items on the last Health Minister’s meetings that was in Banff earlier this summer, but it’s certainly an initiative and certainly an important topic, and I’d be happy to raise it with my territorial counterparts to see if we can get a little bit of a northern wave on this one. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I think it’s really an important topic and I think it’s probably a much bigger issue in Nunavut than it is here in the NWT, but we definitely have our problems here.
Another recommendation that was from this report talked about food programs for breakfast, school breakfast programs. My brain is still dead from yesterday, I guess. Breakfast programs in schools is something which the GNWT has put some emphasis on. I believe it is one of the things that is being considered by the Anti-Poverty Strategy Working Group.
I’d like to know from the Minister if that is indeed correct and if there will be a focus on providing adequate funding and adequate resources to run school breakfast programs. Thank you.
Thank you. In the action plan, the territorial response for the framework, there was some money identified by the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to put towards food initiatives. I will get the specifics and share that with the Member, but I will also point out that in the $500,000 that we allocated a number of the initiatives that we did support were based on food security. We had a healthy living application that was submitted, we had Growing Gameti’s Wellness that was supported, which actually supported the largest community garden outside of regional centres, there’s a community soup kitchen in Liidlii K’ue. We also supported the Inuvik Community Kitchen Program and Taste Makers nutrition education program. So a number of the initiatives that were supported fall clearly under one of the five pillars of anti-poverty and we have been supporting food security. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister again. It kind of leads into my last question. Another recommendation from the report was that there needs to be an investment within infrastructure within the communities related to food security and provision of foods, specifically construction of community-identified resources as community centres and/or community freezers. So I’d like to say to the Minister, I’m really glad that we have this $500,000 that is being used.
Is it intended that this $500,000 will be an annual amount, and will it be eligible to be spent on things such as community freezers and centres to help increase food security? Thank you.
Thank you. The $500,000 is part of the base, so it will be available every year. It’s application-based. So we are open to any application that comes in. The catch is the applications have to fall clearly within one of the five pillars identified within the framework to improve the lives of people throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
