Bill Braden

Mr. Speaker, through the course of this analysis and this work, will the Minister bring to the attention of the public and this Assembly any estimates or any projections on what some of those costs may be? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That sounds very progressive. I know one of things that was of concern when we were putting this bill together was the ability across all the communities to put this into effect. Can the Minister give us some sense that, indeed, all of our communities will be able to act on at least some part of this new initiative? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize that today is the first day of Waste Reduction Week in Canada. The majority of the people here in the NWT would probably claim to be environmentally friendly. It is something that certainly fits our lifestyle and our image, but I am wondering, Mr. Speaker, if we really looked at ourselves, do we really demonstrate that our personal lifestyles and our choices and our habits prove this? I look around this Assembly, Mr. Speaker; there is a lot of horsepower here, but there is a lot of horsepower out in the parking lot, too. You should go and have a look...

Could the Minister give a little more history on these files? Over what period of time were contributions made? Was this a one-year occurrence or were there multiple years involved and what were those years? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, thank you. I would like to follow up on some issues raised regarding Income Support. Sir, this is with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Dent. These are chronic issues and it has had an effect on, certainly not all, but a substantive number of clients on an ongoing basis. We have so many rules in place regarding clawbacks and income levels, timelines and deadlines, and repetitive and sometimes very invasive reporting requirements, and it amounts really to controlling, not helping these people. What are we doing, or are we doing anything, Mr. Speaker, to...

Thank you. Those are acceptable answers. In this particular case the Minister advised the committee that of this $119,651, $12,391 was for a “utilization plan.” I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman, $112,000. That’s a lot of money. That’s a big piece of work, and yet it’s just gone? It’s never performed? Even way back then, four years ago, when obviously our processes weren’t as tight as we would like them to be, that’s still a big pile of money to lose. At what level within the department should we be going back and saying where were you guys? Was someone asleep at the switch? I am digging up...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Good morning. Mr. Speaker, the income support system in the North is one that’s received recognition for its philosophy, for its approach, and for its effectiveness. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, we know that for an estimated 80 percent, or about three-quarters of the clients who come onto this system, it does work very well. It is intended to be a temporary hand-up to help people get on their feet, get re-established and into the community and working on their own.

However, Mr. Speaker, there are some people -- and I would suggest that it’s about one-quarter of the clients --...

Northern Addictions Services indeed had a troubled history. Would the Minister be able to advise, with this organization, what their history of monitoring and accounting and providing for other government contributions? I know there were substantial contributions that went into this organization. Did they have a good history? Was this an exception? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. This is a very difficult forum in which to exchange this kind of information and I am not going to drill down into this any further. What I wanted to do, Mr. Chairman, for the record and the people who are looking and listening to this kind of thing, is to show that over the course of time, the Minister has suggested about three years, maybe four, that this government was involved in some fairly significant contributions to a business. Over the course of time, we kept putting money into something that really wasn’t showing it could get through the start-up difficulties...

Okay. So we are up into several hundred thousand dollars of contributions to this organization. I guess, Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask was a substantial amount of this paid back or recovered through the organization? Thank you.