Bob McLeod

As the Member indicates, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement is administered by the federal government and, as I understand it, a component of this agreement relates to personal credits that individuals may be eligible to put towards educational, cultural projects, skills development or other related purposes. I think that we would want to see that information available to survivors, and the concern that has been raised by former eligible students that have not had adequate opportunity to apply to this program, so I would be pleased to include that in the request.

As a government, we just rolled out a number of policies. We came out with an Anti-Poverty Strategy where we provided $500,000 to address this. We are spending money on housing. We’re going to spend $21 million on housing over the next three years, and we continue to provide support in all of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the last time I checked, this government spends about 70 percent of our budget on social programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member wants to focus on Yellowknife, but all schools will see the re-profiling of existing funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We’re hearing that we have to adhere to our legislation. Obviously, as a government, we take that very seriously. We’ve indicated that we are doing a very comprehensive review and I think we would revisit it at that time. So we expect the review will take a period of time, but I’ve written to committee and indicated that we will seek input from every MLA on how this review should work, so that everybody will have input into it. Everybody, at the end of the day, will be happy with the outcome of the review. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member knows, when the Program Review Office reviewed the education budgets, they determined the education system was over-funded by $17.5 million a year. The Yellowknife school boards had large, accumulated surpluses such as $2.5 million with YK1 and Yellowknife Catholic School Board had a $1.4 million surplus. So the funding model at this time that we put forward is it would not change for this year and next year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I’ve indicated in my previous responses, we will be re-profiling from all authorities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’m always pleased to communicate any request of Members of this House to the Intergovernmental Council. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member is suggesting that there is conspiracy behind every door, but that’s certainly not the case. The Intergovernmental Council, as we’ve laid out, will take a lead on legislative and policy matters related to land that they identify. These are issues that the Aboriginal governments feel are important for them to understand may emanate from their land claim agreements, because in order to be part of the Intergovernmental Council you have to be recognized as an Aboriginal government and to be an Aboriginal government you have to have a land claim or be negotiating at a land claim table.

So...

We have those community liaison officers for that exact purpose, to help people in the communities access benefits that they are entitled to, and we would work with the federal government to make sure that if it is extended that they be provided with the requisite information so that they can assist those former residential school students that would like to take advantage and benefit from these personal credits so that they can maximize their healing.