Bob Bromley

I’m smiling. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko, for that second set of general comments. I’ll call on the Minister to reply to all comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If we are done the comments on this page, I would like to … If there are other comments out there, I would be happy to hold my comments, but if not, I will go forward at this time. I want to follow up on some of the debate we had yesterday on the $400,000 for the nutritious food plans. I just want to mention that we have had motions and recommendations both from the House, from the Social Programs committee over the years without any response from this department. Calling for a milk subsidy for prenatal or neonatal, preschool and early school year children, the...

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. We are on general comments. Anybody with general comments? I will turn to the Minister for a response. Oh, sorry, Mr. Krutko. Did you have a question. I’ll turn to Minister McLeod for a response.

Mr. Speaker, everybody knows that housing issues are huge across the North and in our regional centres as well. Will the Minister work with the NWT Association of Communities and the city to see that the lessons of affordable housing are spread as we look towards the housing crunch that could result especially if there is a go-ahead on the Mackenzie Gas Project? Will he work to ensure that lessons learned here… I think there are a lot of hardworking voluntary efforts from the citizens and so on through the city, and our folks in the Housing Corporation get that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I hear from people I’m chatting with is often our system does not ensure that the context, and there’s an infinite variety of circumstances in people’s lives, that all important context does not go with them through the system and that often income support is not cognizant of that. It’s a relatively cold and objective system if it doesn’t incorporate the very human aspects of it. How does this Minister and others in this government ensure that all important context goes along with people as they access all types of different government services?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Committee, we are on page 10-17, activity summary, Education, Culture and Employment, education and culture, operations expenditure summary, $181.532 million. Agreed?

We are indeed, in our child and family services work, hearing a lot about some of those issues. My next question is really related to those that are coming out of jail. In many cases, people fighting poverty end up in our jails. There seems to be an opportunity to take advantage of this by making sure there are good educational programs while people are in jail. Certainly, as they are coming back into society, transition things like referrals and upgrading, referrals to housing upon release, referrals to behavioural support such as anger management, parenting skills and health education. Are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that $400,000 be deleted from the activity income security under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment Main Estimates 2010-2011, page 10-27, for the Nutritious Foods Steering Committee and its associated activities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.