Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that consultation has been underway. They have been meeting with various groups, individuals and organizations in the community. The one group that they were having some difficulty getting it all together was the actual community leadership comprised of the chief and the mayor and the Metis president. But they have been working on this and we're going to finalize the report, but they were going over the recommendations as well as the content of all the interviews and work that was done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been extensive community consultation and I indicated to the deputy minister and the folks involved to keep contacting the community leadership and if we can't get hold of them, track all the efforts we've made to in fact get hold of them. So I will check with the department, but I will commit to the Member that I will have a copy of that report for him and for myself so we can go over it together before the end of this week. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a Legislature we’ve always said that employees are our most valuable asset and I, as well, hold that to be true. Today in Fort Smith at four o’clock, the Government of the Northwest Territories are going to be recognizing the service of many employees with the long service awards. While there are too many to name individually, I would like to, for the record, indicate where they work and the numbers of employees.

River Ridge has 11 employees with a total of 130 years of service being recognized. The women’s correctional centre has three employees with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that consultation has been underway. They have been meeting with various groups, individuals and organizations in the community. The one group that they were having some difficulty getting it all together was the actual community leadership comprised of the chief and the mayor and the Metis president. But they have been working on this and we're going to finalize the report, but they were going over the recommendations as well as the content of all the interviews and work that was done. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a Legislature we’ve always said that employees are our most valuable asset and I, as well, hold that to be true. Today in Fort Smith at four o’clock, the Government of the Northwest Territories are going to be recognizing the service of many employees with the long service awards. While there are too many to name individually, I would like to, for the record, indicate where they work and the numbers of employees.

River Ridge has 11 employees with a total of 130 years of service being recognized. The women’s correctional centre has three employees with...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the comments from the Members. I don’t agree with them, but I appreciate the opportunity to exchange these views.

First in regards to a caribou summit, I publicly announced that a number of months ago that we’re going to do that, but it’s predicated on the necessity to have information. There’s no use to get all the people together, there’s no use to get all the leaders and all the user groups together if we don’t have information to talk about, that if we just sit around the table with each other and say well how many caribou have you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to think that every answer I give is one of my best answers.

---Laughter

I think that is truly documented in Hansard. Mr. Speaker, I have indicated the process that we are engaged in as a government with YACCS, NGOs, the business plan process, and that is the process that we are going to continue to follow to its logical conclusion, along with the Member’s input. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been in correspondence with and in contact with YACCS. They have indicated to us their need for additional funding. We are in the middle of the business planning process and coming forward in government and as a department with a number of forced growth items dealing with NGOs. That whole area is one of the areas that we are looking at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, community health representatives provide very critical services to help prevent illness and promote good health. We have with us today seven community health representatives that just finished a 10-course, 30-credit university level certificate program in the area of community health representative work. They have graduated with the highest marks ever recorded in this Keyano College program.

---Applause

We have a very good cross-section from across the Northwest Territories. We have Alice Kimiksana from the Beaufort-Delta Health and Social Services...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I’m starting to suffer from what they call cognitive dissidence; I hear one Member saying caribou summit right now, today, yesterday, last week and I have another Member three seats down saying summit this, oh it’s a waste of time. The reality is we have an interim plan that we rolled out in the winter where we had some measures that are going to carry us over the last winter and the coming winter. We’re doing all the scientific census taking and the surveys and the counts and the predation studies now. That information will be ready in late fall...