Wendy Bisaro

Thanks to the Minister. I totally understand that there are resources that are required. I guess I’m trying to understand why the business plan in September indicated that resources would be available in budget year 2011-2012 to establish five committees and now that money seems to have disappeared.

I also want to mention, and I believe it’s in the Child and Family Services Act review report, that one size does not fit all in terms of child and family service committees and we emphasized in the report that there needs to be flexibility in how these committees are established. In some...

Thanks, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for that passionate response. I was not suggesting that there was not will to accommodate these people. I’m asking the Minister to look to the future and to try to envision a different method of accommodating people who need assisted living, and that means supervision for some of those. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, no question.

Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Minister for telling me what I already know. Yes, the department has programs. Those programs, however, are absolutely full. I don’t believe there is any more than maybe one vacancy within the whole of the NWT for somebody who needs to be placed in assisted living. I am trying to get the Minister to think beyond what we know and to go into the future.

We know there are many people coming forward who are going to require independent living, assisted living as adults and we want them to stay in our community. I would like to know from the Minister if she can tell me why...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, I would like to ask again, I’m not asking the department to build houses, I’m asking the department to establish a process to work in conjunction with the Housing Corporation who does build houses -- I agree with you -- but asking if they would set up a process to partner with the Housing Corporation to provide the assisted living housing that we need. Thank you.

I would have liked to have heard the name of the policy, but that’s fine. I’d like to know from the Minister, her department generally manages the programs, the assisted living programs. I’d like to know if we have a policy that looks after housing needs for people who are challenged and who need assisted living. Does the department work in concert with any other department? I would hope they would work in concert with the NWT Housing Corporation, but do they work in concert with any other department in order to acquire and build the necessary housing for assisted living? Thank you.

Thanks to the Premier. I certainly don’t deny that the government is heavily involved in programs to try and attack poverty. What’s necessary is a cross-departmental coordination and cooperation among departments and the silos are still evident. I also don’t deny that the government needs to do the work and there needs to be an analysis of what we are doing.

My question to the Premier had to do with the consultation that is presumably about to happen and I’d like to point out to the Premier that there were representatives of the government at that workshop, approximately 12 percent of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Premier and I’d like to follow up on my statement about the Anti-Poverty Strategy. I want to follow up on the report which went to the government last December from the workshop that was held in October.

I know that there is a GNWT working group that has been established and I also know that it does not include any representatives from outside of government, that there are no representatives from the Anti-Poverty Alliance. I know there is an advisory body but that body is not involved as part of the working group.

So I’d like to ask...

I didn’t want to go anywhere near income testing. That wasn’t the question I asked. I simply asked why we couldn’t start to consider coverage for that group of people who currently have no supplementary health benefit coverage. I didn’t really hear an answer. I heard the Minister say that it’s a big policy decision and there has to be some consultation on it. Absolutely. But why can’t we start?

Mr. Speaker, the consultation was done last fall by a group of 81 diverse representatives, 12 percent or so of whom were GNWT staff. Why are we consulting again and why the very short time frame? It seems as though, once again, the government is not listening to its citizens, that it is forging ahead without consideration for the input of our non-government partners. I will have questions for the Premier at a later time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Then what are the numbers on page 8-22 for? The $79.041 million and the $37.928 million? Thank you.