Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think the key to this is that it has to be focussed, easy to understand, concerted, and it has to be well-resourced; there has to be big money behind that. It has to be community-based; it has to be undertaken by people in communities and every community has to be able to make their own choice about how to deal with it and get totally involved. We also, I think, I believe in communities where there are no RCMP, I think having an alcohol and drug control officer who could enforce the laws that are already in the books about prohibition and control of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I certainly was a beneficiary of really good paying government jobs that afforded me to go to school so I don’t want to deprive that to any other students, but there is a general sentiment that if we were to reduce the wages paid to summer students in government, it could help to hire more students and make it more competitive for the private sector to use some of these students. Maybe a way to make this possible is to make more funding available to the private sector to hire students; not at the same wage level, but a comparable level. Could I ask the...

Thank you. I just want to give my support to this program. I know that it may seem that this kind of program may not be applicable to Yellowknife, but Yellowknife is the biggest aboriginal population in the Territories. I know that in our schools, this has been delivered with a very close relationship with the ENR office in Yellowknife. They take dozens of kids out for a week or so and they teach them how to trap. I know that kids get a lot out this experience. I would say $125,000 is not enough to cover all the communities. The schools probably fund some of the money out of their outdoor and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Minister indicated as far as he was aware. Could I ask the Minister to confirm whether or not there have been a reduction of positions available for summer students? Because the Minister has indicated in his statement yesterday only 195 students have been hired so far. This is the end of May. Summer students are usually hired around this time and we’re not anywhere near meeting the numbers of last year at 343. Thank you.

Just a question, Madam Chair, the Take a Kid Trapping Program. I am wondering if this is accessible by schools. I know that in Yellowknife, YK1 does do this program. I am not sure if they do it under their own funding or they are accessing other government programs. I see that this is a new initiative. I would like to know who is the client base that this program is aimed at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker and colleagues. I’m not sure how that would compete with Don’t Be a Boozehound, but we need to do a concerted and focussed and well-resourced campaign and to engage everybody in our communities and everybody in the Territories to say that we have zero tolerance for alcohol abuse and negative effects of alcohol. Mr. Speaker, I would like to invite the leaders and everyone in our territory to join us in this campaign. Thank you.

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Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a question on page 16 about the increased funding for court services. It states there that it is for the increased cost due to higher utilization. I am wondering if the Minister could tell us as to why there is higher utilization of court services.

So would that legislation then work for all the communities? So the GNWT will legislate themselves into this responsibility, basically.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add a few comments. Every once in a while we catch this wave of trying to slash or trying to make a point about our public service, somehow sort of creating an image of it being out of control, it is too fat, it should be cut, and look for value for money and such. I guess in a certain context we have to try to be efficient and such, but I don’t know where that really comes from, because I think maybe the suggestion might be we should all get out of this glass building here and go to communities and offices and see what the government workers are doing....

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to just speak briefly in support of the motion. I do believe many organizations in Yellowknife anyway, already do criminal records checks on people that work with children. I know that the schools do that and the Arctic Winter Games Society I know is engaged in that. If anybody signs up to be a volunteer, they would have to go through a criminal records check. I think this is being done. However, this motion is to fill the gaps and to make it as comprehensive as possible. So I support that in that way.

While the government does not have the power to...