Robert Villeneuve

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for consideration on that point, anyway. The reason I’m questioning it is that due to the fact that a lot of the large debts in the $30,000 to $50,000 range, the nature of the debt is listed as unaccounted contributions. I think it would be prudent of this government to let the public know that the associations the government is dealing with in trying to recover some of the debts and who is actually running these organizations and whose direction it is that is resulting in the accounting responsibilities of the organization. I think it would help...

My question is to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, the Honourable Michael McLeod. The youth centre in Deninu Kue has been on blocks and boarded up for the past year-and-a-half.

What steps has the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs taken to address this issue?

How is the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs assisting the Deninu Kue Community Council to make this youth centre a reality?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad to hear that the Minister is looking forward to making some changes in the program. I just wanted to ask the Minister about some of the client information that trickles down to the grassroots level from the policies that are in the Income Support program. A lot of the income support officers in the communities don't have the information available to them to present to clients to make a lot of productive choices. They don't have information on human resource capacity building programs with the federal government; therefore, they can't pass them on to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on some of the issues that honourable Member Bill Braden has been raising with the Income Support program. I believe the Minister was talking about the program itself. I think that the program, the low income and the Income Support program today has to start focusing on what people need instead of what the government currently has to offer.

Just to follow up on the point I was making in yesterday's session, Mr. Speaker, about the option where the households all get to lose their eligibility for income support, when one member of the household...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for that response. I just wanted to ask the Minister what his feelings were toward…I know in the paper he stated that all these outstanding property taxes of residents of all the communities that haven’t been physically assessed to date are still outstanding and that the FMBS can’t even consider writing off these debts which don’t even come close to the amount of debts that this government has written off for corporations to date. When we’re talking a $100,000 write-off in taxation debts for a certain group of people, there is a larger group of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just looking at the debts written off and the total of the bill of $576,000, it’s good to know that the debt will still be an outstanding amount in the government’s books, but there will be no interest accumulating and the government will still look for ways to collect the money.

I just wanted to comment on the Minister’s initiative at looking at providing names of directors of organizations who default on loans. I want to remind the Minister that I will support that initiative and I think it’s something we should do because the organizations all want to remain...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would be glad to meet with the Minister sometime to talk about some new policy initiatives that I would have in mind on how we could better support individuals' needs, as opposed to just offering people what the government has to offer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just on that last point. It’s good that the Minister stated that our program offers a little bit more monetary value to the clients, I guess, but basically there is no assurance that clients are going to receive this disability benefit every month based on the regulations and policies set out in the Income Support program. In the Alberta model, it’s assured income. Regardless of other family members' incomes, it states that if you are severely handicapped…

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know they are all under the Income Support program and under the one department, but many people with these permanent disabilities are in households with other people who are under different Income Assistance programs. In a revision in July 8, 2002, in the eligibility requirements of the Income Support program, it states for the purposes of clarity if either the head of the household or spouse and family is disqualified for any valid reason under the regulations and policies of the Income Assistance program, the disqualifications extend to the family...

Mahsi, Members. This decision was also reinforced by the silver lining of the whole experience that Chief Catholique offered later in the evening in that the oral history of the Lady of the Falls says that if you go to seek help from the Lady of the Falls, then your prayers will be better received and answered if only one spends the night at the falls, which many visitors heed that advice to this day. With that, Mr. Speaker, I am thankful that my prayers were answered by having the Lady of the Falls, along with some of the assistance of the Lutselk’e band manager, Irvin Norn, in keeping my...