Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had talked about needs for youth, and I am kind of reminded of a discussion that I had with the elders and one elder in particular. He was kind of wondering why land claims and big concepts take so much time. At the end of the discussion he said, well, perhaps you’re forgetting about the little issues. My question is to the Minister responsible for Youth, in terms of my statement, in terms of the news for youth.
Can the Minister provide a reply of hope to youth such as Zachary Lesage and Alvin Minoza, who are asking for help to establish an arena or an area for skateboarding, a BMX track and a play zone for paintball?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Youth, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a government, we have a lot of programs that are designed specifically for our youth. Unfortunately, the capital part of it is not a part of the support that we give to our youth. We have a number of programs, and I think the Member pointed them out before, Youth Ambassadors and all the programs we have. If there is a desire by the youth in the community to have a piece of infrastructure, I would advise them to go speak to their local government, who have the authority to distribute the funds in the community.
I have to say that in many of the communities I have visited, they have taken advantage of responsibility of the infrastructure dollars; I was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of money that they put towards youth facilities in their particular community. Again, I would advise the youth to go speak to their community government.
I was kind of expecting an answer like that. Recently, the K’atlodeeche First Nation took their own steps to establish an ice rink for their youth on the reserve, but they need help.
How are this Minister and the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs that are responsible for youth going to help the reserve establish the rink before at least the winter sets in?
I have been explaining for a number of years now, since I got the MACA portfolio, that since the New Deal, a lot of the responsibility has gone to the communities as far as infrastructure goes. We debated the Municipal and Community Affairs infrastructure budget yesterday, $28 million. Unfortunately, none of that money is in MACA’s coffers. All the money is distributed to communities because the communities have the ability to determine what some of their priorities are. Not only do they have the ability, they also now have the financing to do it. If it’s a community rink in any one of the communities, then looking at some of the capital plans, as far as some of the community goes, I’ve seen a few of them have identified in their capital plans outdoor skating rinks. The opportunity is there for the community to do that. As the Minister responsible for Youth, a lot of our youth dollars, our programming dollars, we try to get our youth out to as many events as possible. A lot of our money is program dollars, it’s not infrastructure dollars.
I think I had a moment of epiphany here, because what the Minister is telling me is that those responsibilities have been downloaded to those communities and they have the ultimate say. This is like devolution.
What obligations do the department and the Minister have in terms of meeting the needs of youth that are calling into these simple needs of establishing a BMX track or skating rink? What kind of obligations would the department continue to maintain? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe we’ve downloaded the responsibility on to the communities. I think communities have embraced the new responsibility they have. In many of my meetings with the communities and meetings with the NWT Association of Communities, they have pointed out the fact that they do like the New Deal, it was called at the time, where a lot of the responsibilities were devolved on to the communities. They weren’t downloaded. I just wanted to make that point again.
It’s a tough question to answer, because when we’re talking about the infrastructure, I’ve been saying it here for the last five years, that the communities have the authority and the ability to make infrastructure decisions because they have all the money. Again, the money that we have and when we debate the O and M budget, you will notice there is a lot of money in there specifically for youth, the youth programming, and there is all different areas of youth programming that we have. As far as contributing through the youth programs to a BMX track, I don’t even know if that’s possible. I have to find out. Again, I will point out the fact that the communities have the responsibility, one that they have embraced, to determine what some of their priorities are. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
I have a simple question that youth have posed to me. Through myself, and asking the Minister on their behalf, for Zachary and Alvin in Fort Providence, who are asking for a BMX track and also an area to play their paintball, would the Minister and the department help them? Is it a yes or no? They’re listening right now.
Mr. Speaker, I said that I will check and see if… I doubt that there is any infrastructure money in our youth programming dollars that we allocate through this Legislative Assembly. If it’s one that Members on the other side, when we do the debate during the O and M budget, if it’s something that they feel strongly about, then it’s their prerogative to raise it.
Again – I keep harping on this and I will continue to keep harping on this – the communities have the responsibility to determine what some of their priorities are. When you see one community respond to the youth of that community and build a youth centre because the youth in the community have asked for it, then they have taken that responsibility. When you have another community in the High Arctic that listen to the voice of the youth that wanted a youth centre to drop in, they determined that was one of their priorities.
I would encourage the youth in Fort Providence to speak to their local leadership that do have the responsibility for allocating some of these dollars, present their case to them and then the community itself will make that determination. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
