Thank you Madam Chair. I do have a few comments I would like to make on this issue. And while I am doing that I think what I will do also is to give Members some examples of what - of some of the areas that I know of that the government is doing - more specifically to answer Mr. Picco's question about giving examples.
Before Mr. Erasmus spoke, I was just amazed at the amount of doom and gloom that was being talked about and I could not figure out how Members figured the sky was going to fall if we empower communities and gave people in communities a say in what they - what goes on in their settlements. And a lot of background has been - a lot of the reasoning has been said over and over again and I think it is important to note that we are trying to do what our constituencies want us to do - to give them more power and more say.
The Minister of MACA and I were in the Baffin region at the Baffin Leadership Summit several months ago talking about community empowerment and basically giving them some of the principles of why the government planned to do what we were going to and as I recall there was only one community that had some reservations about it - only one mayor and in the end he ended up moving the motion to support the community empowerment.
I know there is and continues to be concerns about training and capacity of our communities. There are still questions that will have to be answered about funding, about territorial interests, etc. But I have not heard anything today that would cause me to say that I do not support community empowerment anymore. I do support community empowerment very much. I know the thirteen settlements in the Baffin region do and it is up to us to guide and support them.
As Mr. Erasmus said, we are not just going to hand over the funding and the programs and say there you go - go on your way. As was said earlier, I believe too that empowerment is part of the evolution of our communities on how they should run their own affairs. When I was growing up I recall we used to have what were called "Settlement Managers" and I believe most of the communities in the Territories had them and the Inuk name for the Settlement Manager basically translated to "Settlement Bosses". I think at one point our Finance Minister was one of them. There was - there is a gentleman who lives in Yellowknife now who was and who is still a family friend when I was growing up - he was a Settlement Manager. People went to him for permission on what they should do, he issued Social Assistance cheques and in the minds of people he had a say in the lives of just about everybody in that community. It is not because that was the kind of person he was - it was the job that he had and that was the way the government ran.
Where we are today is nowhere near that. We have gone far, far beyond that and we still have a ways to go. I have not heard anything today that would cause me to say, as I said before, let us stop now and this is as far as we are going with the communities. We need to keep going. We need to be giving them more power and authority.
One of the communities that I represent, Cape Dorset, was one of the communities that was in the pilot project for community transfer initiatives and what that is just a step before community empowerment concept. Basically what the GNWT did was transfer the funding and the programs to the communities as they were, with all the personnel but not with the flexibility. What community empowerment, as I understand it, as I believe it to be, is you go a step beyond that and you give the community the flexibility to do what they need to do with the funding and the programs.
There are a couple of things I have seen in Cape Dorset that give me some hope in what this thing can do. In the area of Social Assistance, the community members have talked quite openly about Social Assistance, dependency, about fraud, and how they can get young people that are in their homes, not in school, not looking for work, watching t.v., and gathering Social Assistance - how they can get them on their feet. Get them out and becoming healthy. They are talking about that openly and have some pretty innovative solutions or suggestions on how to fix that.
In the area of housing the community has been quite active in teaching or educating clients on how to run a household, how to pay bills, etc. When it was an outside agency, the government that ran these things, people did not have an ownership and people basically just went on a day by day basis and without - with very little sense of responsibility.
I said I would give some examples of some of the areas that I know of that are happening in your constituencies right now and maybe some of these you do not know about or some Members might not know about.
An example I have will be from the Housing Corporation which happens to be the portfolio that I run. In the North Slave the responsibility for all (?) housing delivery in Dettah, N'Dilo and Fort Rae has been transferred to the local bands. The Snare Lake Dene Band has taken over staff housing, property management and the delivery of home ownership programs. Discussions on program transfers with Rae Lakes and Wha Ti Bands continue. The City of Yellowknife may also be interested in housing at this point in time.
In the South Slave, local housing organization boards and staff have been consulted on assuming more program delivery responsibilities. Communities' specific plans are being developed to transfer all functions to the community level within the next eighteen months.
Discussions also continue in a number of communities with respect to amalgamation and transfer of home ownership programs and community governments. Local housing organizations in Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Fort Good Hope, Norman Wells and Inuvik are being prepared to assume responsibility for the home ownership application process this year. Discussion on amalgamation and transfer of additional programs are underway in Aklavik, Sachs Harbour, Tsiigehtchic, Tuktoyaktuk, and Tulita.
Programs in the Baffin - programs have been transferred to local housing organizations in seven of the eight communities where these programs are delivered. Discussions to amalgamate local housing organizations with municipal governments are underway in Arctic Bay, Clyde River, Igloolik, Pangnirtung, Pond Inlet, Resolute Bay, and Sanikiluaq.
In the Kitikmeot the Hamlet of Pelly Bay has taken over the responsibility for all housing programs as of April 1, 1996. Holman has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to amalgamate housing in the Hamlet by April 1, 1997.
In the Keewatin, community governments express interest in taking over all of the housing programs in the region and requested that LHO's be amalgamated with Hamlets by April 1, 1997. Rankin Inlet is preparing for amalgamation on November 1, 1996 and all the other amalgamation will be completed by April 1, 1997.
Madam Chair, the reason I listed some of those things that are going on already is because I saw the debate seemed to be going in the area of whether or not to empower communities. As Mr. Miltenberger said earlier, this thing is going to go ahead with or without us - in fact it is going ahead, it has gone ahead and it is up to do as good a job as we can.
I, like other Ministers, are more than willing to share with MLA's what the different departments are doing with your specific communities. In fact, there are a lot of things going on. With that Madam Chair, I will finish. Thank you.