Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I will have discussions with the department and follow up on the Member’s comment on the report. I haven’t seen the report personally and I would be quite interested in having a look at it. I will follow up and see what recommendations or actions may have come out of the report because of the flood of a few years ago.

I’ll say again that we continue to assist communities in identifying a lot of their priorities and if shoreline erosion is one of the priorities from Aklavik, then we’d be willing to work with the community to try and identify sources of funding for the project and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member wanted to make something quite clear and so do I. I never made the comment that Members didn’t care about the communities. I don’t think I’m that stupid, to be quite honest with you. What I said, and the Member talks about the 14 years that he’s been here, and he’s been able to see the devolution of authority to the communities and he’s able to see the past history where a lot of the small community projects got into the corporate plan and they were basically just bumped and bumped and bumped each year when other emergencies come up. So I just wanted to make...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m well aware of the flooding issue in Aklavik. I’ve been through a couple of them and I know that there was some shoreline erosion done a few years ago and that seems to have worked very well. There are some issues that still need to be taken care of. We do supply -- and I go back to this because I do all the time -- the communities with capital infrastructure money and they decide that if it’s a priority to have this work done, then they have the capital means to do so. If there are other programs out there, federal pots of money that we can access to assist the...

In response to the Member’s first concern, we will forward all the information that we have to the Member so they can see where this particular initiative is at with the federal government.

On the second point, we continue to work with the communities to identify lands that are available. I’m not quite aware of the situation in Tulita, but I will have a chat with the Minister of Housing and see if we can come up with a plan for dealing with that. But I will find out about it and I’ll get back to the Member, and maybe he’d be able to let me know the exact issue there.

Mr. Speaker, the questions that the Member raises will be addressed. There will be an opportunity for more input into the process. We are, between now and the summer session, wanting to come back with an LP and that will give Members an opportunity to suggest some changes, with a possibility of introducing a bill in the May/June session. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will have discussions with my colleagues as to if there is anything we can do to support the seniors. We have supported them in the past. I think it is being noted by a lot of the participants from the other jurisdictions across the country that we do look after our seniors pretty good. They were the envy of the games, because a lot of it was financial backing that they got from this government it was noted. A lot of people appreciated that. So I will work with my Cabinet colleagues, and, also, we would like to support regional seniors’ games if that opportunity arises, because...

Mr. Speaker, I said we will have a discussion as to the process of funding adult sports and I will put the adults in with the seniors, because there will be a lot of requests coming from other sporting organizations, other adult sports groups.

If we were to start this, we do have a mandate to focus the multisport games on the youth. I could have a conversation with my Cabinet colleagues and see if there are pots of money available, but I really can’t make a commitment -- I don’t think I did -- that we are going to fund this from the multisport budget. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will commit to meet with the DEA. It is always in our best interest to hear what the communities are saying, because they know best what is needed in their communities. If we can work in cooperation with them, that would make the whole process a lot smoother and we will be able to provide housing for staff and a lot of the professionals in the small communities. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the longer-term solution is we are working with the Refocusing Government committee. We are in the process of speaking to a lot of the development corporations in the community. We have had some excellent buy-in. There has been a lot of interest expressed by the development corporations in accessing some of the programs. We do have some incentives that we are proposing to them. Also, one of the incentives is using some of our existing houses and see if we could turn those into housing for staff, if there is a surplus in some of the communities. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would make the commitment to the Member that we will have a serious look at this and we’ll make sure that it’s well thought out before we attempt to put it on the ground. We’ll seek some input from a lot of the Members, because a lot of them do represent the small communities. We’ll get as much input as we can before we attempt to roll this out. Thank you.