Wendy Bisaro

If the Minister is going to continue to encourage, I must ask him, what has he done in the past six months in terms of encouraging the AANDC Minister? Can he give me some details, please?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have some questions, as well, around this particular item.

My first question to the Finance Minister or to the Minister of Education – I don’t know who would want to answer this – if we are accepting money from corporations and they are assisting us to buy the materials that we need to put programs in place, I’d like to know whether or not that is being done within a corporate sponsorship policy of the GNWT.

Is there a policy that we are following when we make these purchases with money from a corporate sponsor, or this is something… The Minister of Education mentioned...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a couple of Pages from Frame Lake who have been working here last week and this week. I believe they’re both in the House today. Gabriel Layden and Isaac Macpherson. I would like to thank them for their service and thank all Pages for their service for the last couple weeks. Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks to Mr. Aumond. I guess that’s even more worrisome when we haven’t really heard what this money is going to be used for if we’re going to be using it up in ’14-15, yet I gathered from previous answers that we don’t really know what we’re using it for. That’s a little more concerning.

When would we know what this $10 million is going to be used for?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I feel very strongly about this particular deficiency and want to speak to it. In the files that the Auditor General examined, none of them had done a long-term risk assessment of the child’s safety. It struck me as being particularly deficient, for lack of a better word. I understand the Minister’s comment that the department is looking at something and that it’s going to take a long time in order to get a tool in place, but there has to be something in the interim. We can’t continue the way we have for umpteen years, not doing long-term assessments of the safety of...

Thanks to Mr. St. Germaine. So just a quick follow-up. So then the allowance for doubtful accounts includes both write-off amounts and forgiveness amounts. Is that right? Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Just briefly, the area of lack of auditing of files was a huge one in the Auditor General’s report. It was an area that was noted by the Auditor General, and I think the language used by the Auditor General, certainly in our report we said, failure to complete these audits is significant. So, committee felt very strongly that we need to impress upon the Department of Health and Social Services and the authorities that audits of files must be done. It’s required in the procedures manual, and without action plans to back up the findings of the audits, there’s no point in...

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you to Mr. St. Germaine. That answered all my questions. I have nothing further.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to speak briefly to this. The job of family preservation worker was one that came to my attention through the Auditor General’s report and we have one staff person with that title within the health and social services system. It would seem to me that this is an area that we will be well advised to expand on.

The family preservation workers, as the motion says, provide in-home, individualized intervention services and that’s the sort of thing that is required with the end goal of keeping children with their families and in their home and in their community. This...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Committee Report 6-17(5), Report on the Review of the 2014 Report of the Auditor General of Canada on Northwest Territories Child and Family Services. Thank you.