Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that Bill 10, Forgiveness of Debts Act, 2007-2008, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of ways this breaks down. One is the $798,000 is not new money. It’s in and out. The other portion is offset by, I believe, you are referring to the $1.080 million was your second question. No? Okay, the $798,000 initial amount that was raised is not new money. It’s a matter of the way we flow money now because of the recommendations made by the Auditor General of Canada. The money comes through the Financial Management Board Secretariat and is now flowing through FMBS and then to the Housing Corporation. That’s as a result of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, we will work with the Sahtu Health and Social Services Authority in the air conditioning area, but we have to look at the needs across the board; in fact, all of our health centres throughout the territory. As I stated earlier, the department has put the request in in trying to get more revenue so that we can deal with this area. Thank you.

Madam Chair, as stated, it’s money that was originally part of the original transfer, now back to Housing Corporation and deals with the two categories of assisted living for seniors and independent seniors caretaker units. For more of the detail, I believe Mr. Dent can provide it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what we have done, as we go through our capital planning program, is we, through the small capital needs assessment, put our request in for money for health centres throughout the territory that don’t have this type of equipment. We try to make it through that avenue to have equipment installed as the money becomes available. That is the process we are using this year, as well. We have made requests through the small capital needs assessment area. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the initial work in transferring the program from the Housing Corporation over to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment looked at all of the different subsidies that were out there in the housing area and put within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. After further review of the program, it was felt that a couple of areas would be better situated back within the Housing Corporation that fit with the existing program that they deliver in the area of assisted living for seniors. So you see this pile of the money going back....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Dr. Andre Corriveau who’s with us in the gallery today. He’s the chief medical health officer and influential in the act coming up in this House later on, the Public Health Act. Thank you.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we know that there is a lot of information out there. It is a matter of pooling it all together so that we can use it and how we would prepare or respond in future years as we look at what parts of the framework we would be able to fund. There is information out there that we can use. As highlighted earlier, there is a lot of information out there, but we need to pull it together as well as do some in-depth interviews with individuals as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, for the record I should also state that the package that was put together on responding to the Framework for Action II on family violence is, as we heard earlier, a question that should go through the business plan. It was initiated through that process. This piece has come through this avenue because of the lateness of our fiscal picture as a result of the federal budget. It will go back into the business plan for the next five years, but what is proposed here, for example, in this funding through the Executive, one is, yes, the development of baseline...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this was one of the areas, that category, all departments had put in for new initiatives during our original business planning process and with the fiscal information we had at the time, we directed all new initiatives be parked for the time being until we knew what our fiscal situation would be as a result of the federal budget, and this was one of the new initiatives within the Department of Executive. So they did try to initially come through the business plan process, but because of our fiscal situation we had parked all of the new initiatives until...