Bob Bromley

So there is a government team or committee, in this case. Are there departmental committees, departmental teams as well? My understanding was that that was the intent and that was not happening. But maybe the Minister could, again, clarify that for me.

Thanks for those comments. I know there is a lot of experience with the department, so that would be useful if we do go that way.

I was also asking, I know that communities have projects and often turn to Public Works and Services personnel on an informal basis. Is there a way of capturing that sort of thing and reporting on it as to the degree of activity that happens in that format given the absence of an NWT building standards act? Mahsi.

Yes, thank you. Just the word “allied” caught my attention there. It’s normally used in the title of companies and so on. Perhaps it has another meaning here.

Thanks for that commitment. That’s what I was asking for. Obviously, as I mentioned, almost all other jurisdictions have already gone to the 25 percent and they’re more southerly than us. Our savings are bigger, obviously.

My second one is on the contracting and procurement services. Again, sort of an asset revolving issue, you might call it. I brought this up before. We do have a Green Procurement Policy in place but it’s worth beans. The department knows that and had committed in the past to coming up with a real Green Procurement Policy with best practices and standards and so on, getting...

Thanks to the Minister for that commitment. Now, Madam Chair, thanks for your forbearance there returning to this section. Could the Minister tell me just for my own edification here, the allied health recruitment unit mentioned here, how does that fit into the picture and how does it relate to what we’ve been discussing?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few brief comments here. First of all, I’m very happy to see this department has been very fiscally responsible and I know that they’re making decisions when they do that and I appreciate that. I acknowledge that there’s a lot of work coming up with respect to devolution and challenges to work within budgets. I think our budgets are going to be pretty slight for when that comes up. That’s going to take some planning to be effective and so on.

A new four-year plan underway, under development, I’m wondering if there’s been a report on the success or failures and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. I’m assuming that that will include hiring local people to help with those local meetings.

The other aspect of this, of course, is that this is a very cross-departmental approach, and the Minister is leading this cross-departmental approach. Ultimately, the delivery of the program will depend on our public service across departments, again, delivering it. This is stepping out from the normal course of events. It will require an unusual degree of cooperation. What is the Minister doing to ensure that those mechanisms are in place and that our...

I appreciate the Minister’s flexibility there. It sounds good. Even the best Anti-Poverty Strategy could fail to produce strong results without concrete action to carry it out.

Because the solutions to poverty lie at the community level, we will need to work out our partnerships, roles and programs to ensure success. As the lead Minister begins the work to create an Anti-Poverty Strategy, recognizing that he’s already drawing upon work done as he mentioned and so on, will he also commit to creating an implementation and action plan as an integral part of that strategy?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to salute the good work going on in my Weledeh riding with the construction of two new homes with assistance from Habitat for Humanity.

Construction is expected to start in June on a new duplex in the Niven Lake subdivision, houses that will eventually be the homes of two four-person families. The new families will move from the rental market into home ownership, thanks to the socially progressive work of this organization and the affordable terms of construction and purchase.

Habitat for Humanity assumes a CMHC backed mortgage which families begin paying as soon...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have some brief comments. I wanted to follow up on the response of the Minister to my and other general comments yesterday. Specifically, the Minister estimated the impact of the recommendations from committees, the financial impact of our recommendations at about $4.1 million and acted as if that was impossible to deal with. I did a quick calculation dividing $4.1 million by $1.5 billion and multiplying by 100 to get the percentage of what we’re talking about here, and it turns out that the 11 Members on this side of the House were recommending 0.25 percent of...