Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, Dr. Rozycki is an eminent practitioner as well as the head of Bosco Homes and he has extensive experience in delivering this type of program. He’s very capable and qualified, as are his staff. This is a program decision, public policy decision, as the Member indicated, and it’s a case of can a program be moved and operated and relocated and operated in the same structure that it currently has. In our opinion, it can be, yes.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I can appreciate the Member of Yellowknife Great Slave’s concerns, very specific and germane to his constituency. However, as a Member of this government and as a Cabinet Minister, we have a responsibility to think territorial-wide and to take careful, measured decisions that we think will positively benefit all of the residents, including the children. We have done that in this case. We have given a clear signal of what we intend to do. We have indicated that there will be a period of time to transition this with renovations and such over the next 18...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there should be in the Members’ in-trays, a copy of a message I received from Dr. Gus Rozycki who runs Bosco Homes indicating their support and willingness to work with us in this transfer and their support for the decision to in fact do that. Dr. Rozycki is the head of Bosco Homes. He’s very qualified in this area. He has a long history. He has very many good staff who he has access to not only in the North, but in Edmonton and other jurisdictions that they bring to bear on the children in care.

I, as well, have some background of my own working with...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There has been some work with involved parties, with the unfortunate exception of INAC who we have tried to get to the table with no success as of yet. We will continue the work and I will be prepared to keep the Member apprised of any plans that come out of this work or issues they determine have to be dealt with. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, Bosco Homes provides a very high level of program service for children in Fort Smith and in TTC. As I have indicated repeatedly over the sitting of this Assembly, the decision has been made to relocate the program. The determination is that the program can be transferred and can operate without any erosion. The service will still be there. It’s a territorial program open to all the children in the Northwest Territories. It will continue to provide the service, educationally and socially, that it currently does provide right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there was an initial draft done some time ago on the Species at Risk Act, but once the issue of the collaborative process came up, it put a basic stop to any further kind of collaborative work. Then there was an election and new Cabinet and splitting of departments, all of which took time. We are now ready to move on this. In the interim, as well, the department has been putting its best efforts to work along with Justice to flush out what would be the content of the bill, but there have been no other drafts circulated other than that one. Once we have...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Of course, this is part of providing good government with continuity and consistency and the plan to follow the commitments that were initiated by Mr. Bell. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, first I’d like to acknowledge the key role the Member for Nunakput played in helping orchestrate this meeting where we had an opportunity, myself and Minister Bell as the Minister of Justice, to sit down with the people that my colleague mentioned to talk about the Species at Risk Act and the Wildlife Act.

I followed up on that meeting with a letter on May 18th to all of the involved parties. In that letter, I committed to three things. We committed to setting up a meeting in June, hopefully early June, but it looks like we might slip it into later June...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, if the test results come back negative and everything is okay, then we have to go through the process to regain the disease-free status from Agriculture Canada, which is an important first step. If we’re going to move the herd, there are other issues we have to look at as the Member has indicated: the possibility of relocating on a temporary basis some animals to the University of Saskatchewan; the potential of entering into discussions with people from Providence about the Mackenzie sanctuary herd and possibly increasing their genetic diversity in...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, for that question, you’d have to talk to the airlines, I can assure you.

---Applause