Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to take a break from asking questions about the cost of living. My questions today are just for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I want to follow up to a motion passed in this House in March which referenced the need for AEDs and defibrillators in our public buildings.

I would like to thank the Minister for the response to the motion that was passed in March. The response by the Minister was tabled by the Minister on the 16th of October. In the response it references some of the work that has been done to date. I appreciate that we have done...

Many of the things I have mentioned are small things, but either on their own or added together they can contribute to a lower cost of living.

This government has danced around the issue of lowering our cost of living without any in-depth engagement on it. We have thrown subsidies at it, instead of taking action to make inroads in how we live our lives. It’s time we changed our thinking or our plans or we will subsidize ourselves into debt. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the mover of the motion bringing it forward. I’ve listened to the arguments on both sides and I really don’t know whom to believe at this point. I see the value in retaining the CL-215s, but I also understand the cost that’s involved if we do that. I do appreciate that I think the argument that the eight new 802s will suffice, that we don’t need to keep the CL-215s. So I’m torn and think that I don’t want to vote against this motion.

I certainly appreciate the second part of this motion. I do believe that we need to make sure that our communities have...

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I am happy to provide him with a copy of the letter. I will do that immediately after session.

I would like to ask the Minister, he is talking about doing a survey of communities for needs. I presume that means the number of public buildings and the number of AEDs that they would need.

Can he give me any idea of when we can expect the survey results so that we will know our needs and can get going on further applying for money? Thanks.

Thanks to the Minister. As in the response that was tabled a couple of weeks ago, I hear a lot of the tense of the verbs is in the future. I would hope that we are going to be soon present tense and doing work as opposed to we will be doing work.

The federal program is a four-year program that started in 2013, so we are already one year in.

I would like to ask the Minister, in terms of the applications for money to get AEDs for free, are we going to make the deadline of the four-year program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t often get a chance to recognize my one hardworking staff, my constituency assistant, Ms. Amanda Mallon, and it’s a really special day for her. Not quite as special as Mrs. Groenewegen assistant’s day, but happy birthday, Amanda.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re talking a lot about the cost of living today. So what makes up Northerners’ cost of living? Well, food, water, vehicles and the gas to put in it, lodging, taxes, power, heat, phone, insurance, clothing, entertainment, TV, Internet; it’s a long list. But what can we do about our costs? Some are easily controlled; others, not so much.

I have some suggestions about what we can do. We can increase the Seniors Home Heating Fuel Subsidy. It hasn’t seen an increase in four years, yet we all know the cost of fuel has gone up every year. We can apply concerted pressure to...

Anytime something new is implemented there are always growing pains at the beginning, and we are obviously experiencing growing pains, but what I hear the Minister saying is, yup, nothing’s wrong, but where anything is wrong we’re going to wait a year before we do something about it, and I think that’s very much the wrong attitude.

I’d like to know from the Minister, if he can tell me, does he have any intention or will there be any consideration for making changes to phases two and three of the rollout of Junior Kindergarten? Is that an option that he will consider and that we may possibly see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I wasn’t going to ask questions on education today, but in listening to my colleagues ask the questions and the answers that haven’t been forthcoming, I feel that I need to ask some questions.

Mr. Bouchard just asked whether or not the government would pull organizations together, and that was my last question but I am going to go with it first. We need to get the organizations together that are currently providing programming for four-year-olds and ask them how we can accommodate Junior...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to continue consideration of Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016, with the Department of Natural Resources and the Legislative Assembly. Thank you.