Tom Beaulieu

I would like to ask the Minister, when having discussions with department heads or staff of HR, if there is any sort of plan to develop a strategy to move the affirmative action numbers, which have been kind of stuck around 30 per cent for many years? I would like to know if the Minister has talked about any specific strategies that might change that number?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I thought I had indicated that I wanted to get back on the list. I won't be as long. Just two questions. The first question is: when they talk about infrastructure deficit in the communities, we know now that paved streets or chip sealed streets or whatever type of suppressant you wish to put on your streets is not part of infrastructure deficit. Is housing, is staff housing, part of infrastructure deficit?

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I recognized the two pages that are here from my riding, but I got one of the schools wrong, so I'm going to do it again. I would like to recognize Bryanna Cheesma from the Kaw Tay Whee School in Detah and Joseph Charlo-Lafferty from the St. Patrick School here in Yellowknife. Also I'd like to recognize some other members from Detah that are here, our interpreter Mary Rose Sundberg of course has become a regular interpreter in the House thanks to you, Mr. Speaker. Also I'd like to recognize Mr. Ernie Abel, Ernie is a father of our hard working...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the deputy minister mentioned that there was some sort of infrastructure deficit in the whole system of all of the community infrastructure that exists. So what I'm curious about is, if a community does not have, say, paved streets. We'll use that as an example. If a community doesn't have paved streets, would that be considered an infrastructure deficit?

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to talk about the GNWT Human Resources. For many years, this government has tried to employ a public service that's representative of the population it serves. However, Mr. Speaker, I think the approach is wrong. I think the reason we have no reasonable success is that we cannot achieve our objectives by looking at the entire NWT as a whole. We must start looking at representation by population on a community-by-community basis.

Firstly, the goal of the Affirmative Action Policy is 51 per cent priority one employees in the GNWT. Yet, in...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the federal government has a program called the Small Community Fund which has a minimum of 100,000 people, or a maximum of 100,000 people. That fund is then taken and distributed to all the communities, including the very smallest of our communities, then from there the communities are asked to do project-specific items that are then funded by this Small Communities Fund program? Is that what I'm to understand from what the Minister is saying?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Are there other criteria in the Small Community Fund that would, say, restrict this funding to larger communities in the NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'm interested in the criteria for small communities funding. I'm wondering if the Minister could give us the criteria, and as far as population goes, small community funding. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I was happy with the responses that came from the Minister on the community learning centres in Fort Resolution and Ndilo. However, I asked the questions on the wrong category as yesterday we were on schools and not the college. So I just, I guess, wanted to clarify if the responses yesterday would still be applicable, even though they were given in a different category. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.