Bill Braden

I guess to the aspect of accountability, Mr. Chairman, the Minister offered that the staff person who would have made these decisions is no longer at the department, and I don’t want to suggest that I or committee is out here on a headhunting expedition. It’s not our practice to bring forward the names of staff or go in that kind of direction. In the area of accountability, when things like this go off the rails, to what degree -- Minister Roland has talked to us about a third-party accountability framework -- are we going to be holding our own people accountable for the monitoring and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This gets us part way into the area that I would like to explore. The Minister is quite correct. You know it is in our policies and the limitations that we design and then we set in those programs. The people who actually deliver these, I have the highest praise for. They handle a difficult job and most of the time, Mr. Speaker, they do it very well. We have ways of monitoring those kinds of things that I have illustrated and that my colleague Mr. Zoe talked about, that have been there for years, Mr. Speaker. What are we doing to really address these issues? As...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation and it’s a follow through. First question, it’s a follow through to an area that I know the Minister has himself favoured in another life of this Assembly, Mr. Speaker, and it’s about affordability and availability of housing, especially on a rental side. Mr. Speaker, while the private sector and their investment is the ideal way to address this issue, we are seeing here in Yellowknife continuing upward pressure on rents and availability; and in a report that I heard on the...

Madam Chair, I move that we report progress.