Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We always take the position to deal with the communities that accumulate a deficit and I’d like to point out we only have, I think this year we have four communities that have accumulated deficits and we continue to work with a recovery plan, we work on doing analysis where they may have overspent or where there are issues about shortfall. So we’ll continue to do those things. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working on a number of funding allocations that we provide to the communities. We have had discussions with the NWT Association of Communities. We have had discussions with LGANT, Local Government Administrators in the Northwest Territories, and we’ve also had a discussion in the communities with the different municipalities about a number of areas where we provide funding. Of course, the New Deal is something that’s on the drawing board and we have rolled out the information and communications to the community. We’ve also been allocated...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during the budget session, I spoke to the desire of the Children First Society in Inuvik to have their needs incorporated into a new school being built up in Inuvik. Today, Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on the work that they continue to do.

I believe theirs is a worthy cause, Mr. Speaker, and I will continue to be an advocate for the society. Mr. Speaker, the society has put together an excellent proposal to justify their position. Over 30 businesses and agencies have given letters of support and close to 300 residents have given their support by...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the response from the Minister. That was from February 15th. Now we are into June. The design phase is going to start soon and they will be expecting $550,000 from the Early Child Education Centre to get them through the design stage. I would like to ask the Minister if he could commit in carrying the cost for the design and the preliminary site development stage. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The social envelope Ministers gather regularly and one of the issues we have been working on is a Homelessness Strategy. We have done work on that. There have been papers brought forward and we are bringing forward requests for funding and building things into our business plans. One of the things that has been identified as the need to the Homelessness Strategy is the service provided by the SideDoor. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We always take the position to deal with the communities that accumulate a deficit and I’d like to point out we only have, I think this year we have four communities that have accumulated deficits and we continue to work with a recovery plan, we work on doing analysis where they may have overspent or where there are issues about shortfall. So we’ll continue to do those things. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working on a number of funding allocations that we provide to the communities. We have had discussions with the NWT Association of Communities. We have had discussions with LGANT, Local Government Administrators in the Northwest Territories, and we’ve also had a discussion in the communities with the different municipalities about a number of areas where we provide funding. Of course, the New Deal is something that’s on the drawing board and we have rolled out the information and communications to the community. We’ve also been allocated...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to support the motion because, like some of my colleagues were saying, it seems to be wanting to grow and grow and grow. I like the five technical officers in the district. If I had my way, the lands officers would not be in here at all. I would make a motion to put them as technical officers who can do some land work. The technical officers, the ones I know, can do a bit of everything. To have lands officers going into the district office, I would just as soon they be technical officers. That would give us 10 in the districts and I would be wiling to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am concerned, too, with the amount of projects that have lapsed and having to come back in an appropriation. I want to ask the Minister if one of the reasons a lot of these projects are lapsing is because I see the word consultant a lot and I have seen that delay a few projects. I am also wondering if the fact that the government enters into negotiations for contracts with some groups, if that has bearing on the amount of programs that have lapsed because they couldn’t come to agreement. Thank you.

Madam Chair, this year we had unusually warm weather and it really caused a lot of problems in the area of building the roads in the North Slave region, especially to the communities of Wekweeti and Gameti that required us to do some extras in the actual construction of the roads. It required lighter equipment because of the very thin ice. We had to get lighter equipment that was not in the contract and we also had to…In a number of cases, the rivers or the creeks started flowing so we had to go back and reconstruct some of those roads, or in some cases provide detours. This was all over...