Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on this fascinating topic with the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs on the proposed sport and recreation body. All this talk about bureaucracy and new ways or new administrative ways of trying to achieve something is part of our job here. I would like to see if we can step backwards a bit and get more of a picture from the Minister of just what are the expectations of the people of the NWT, including the small communities, and what is expected of sport and recreation? Can we get some description, some shape and some size to this expectation? Thank you.

Thank you. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just to keep my response short, I believe the expectation was clearly identified in my last three sentences to the previous questioners. It's clearly to allow for sports activities and participation of all residents of the Territories, both in sports and recreation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

This is still a pretty nebulous description, Mr. Speaker. I would like to find out more about how we gauge, measure or design these expectations and then how do we translate that into reality? What is this new board going to do that the existing organizations, which have been around for many, many years and run by dozens or hundreds of volunteers from all our communities, what is it going to do that this organization can't?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister of MACA, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there are going to be opportunities to review the success of the new board once it's put in place. We should keep one thing in mind, that Sport North was given the opportunity to change the structure of their board in order to address the concerns expressed by the small communities. Sport North did not respond. So it left MACA with not much choice but to tip it back to the sports organizations and the recreation groups and ask them what we can do it about. The end result of that was the suggestion of an NWT sports board, the formation of this board. That's where we are at this point.

One other thing I would like to clarify, Mr. Speaker, that bothered me a little bit, is the statement from the Member saying that MACA did not accept the Sport North invitation for the annual general meeting. We did not receive an invitation to an annual general meeting. I received an invitation to attend the awards program, which I did and which my deputy did. We took part in the program. We did not receive an invitation to take part in an annual general meeting. However, we had our representatives there at that meeting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the clarification and indeed MACA was represented by Mr. Ian Legaree and he did a good job of representing the department there. If there is such a division, such a gap in understanding and agreeing on where we want to go collectively with this group that represents such a large body of volunteers who are so critical to it, how can the Minister be so adamant as to say we are going to go ahead with this anyway without saying we still need to do some work to resolve our differences? Why is he pushing so hard? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess the only response I can make to that is that the previous Ministers did give Sport North, as the major sports organization, the opportunity to address concerns and they chose not to. We felt that we really didn't have any choice but to put it back to the groups with the question of how to resolve this. If, in fact, future discussions with Sport North and the territorial sports organizations and recreation groups suggest that there is another way of doing this, I fully accept that especially if no matter what it is that comes back, the final thing before it's accepted by the department - and I have said this before - would be put to the Members for their consideration as well. So it's not going to be my final decision on this. It's going to be a decision of cooperation amongst all of us, I hope. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to pursue the same line of questioning to the Minister of MACA with regard to the changes that the Minister is pursuing. Mr. Speaker, I have to check the Hansard and I guess the Minister has to too, but I must say I am very disturbed by the answers the Minister has given, especially with respect to the mission of this review because to me, by that answer, he has insulted and offended the work of a very long and dedicated history of Sport North, which is run by staff and dedicated volunteers, Mr. Speaker. I had no idea that the whole idea of this review of this structure is because the board wasn't doing its job apparently. Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to the Minister that the problem is that this government has cut the budget for sports and recreation for so many years and given all the work to Sport North, they survive and do their jobs the best they can with the lottery money and now we are in a dog fight as to what is going to happen with the governance of Sport North. Why doesn't the MACA Minister go to Cabinet and get more money for Sport North instead of getting involved in the middle of a major argument about what to do with the small amount of money they have? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. The honourable Minister of MACA, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before I can give more money to anybody, I have to have the money. My department is limited to our allocations like anyone else. What we do have I believe is we have seen increases in sports and recreation in the past few years rather than a decrease. What's not being realized is that facilities like swimming pools, arenas, are all part of sports and recreation. Therefore, we are making contributions as a government to work with these programs. You would not be able to have sports and recreation if you didn't have some of these facilities in the smaller communities and that's why we put them there, so I don't believe that we are cutting back that much that we are jeopardizing sports and recreation. My department is also working with the federal government on a program where there are joint funds for sports and recreation. I believe that's addressing some of the concerns expressed by the small communities and by the ordinary Members as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I grant to the Minister that maybe it's not his government, but I remember a time when there was a whole department responsible for sports and recreation in the Department of MACA or whatever its predecessor was, and now we have a situation where, other than the capital funding, most of the burden of delivering sports programs is done by Sport North. Mr. Speaker, I still believe that this is a question of leadership and lack of financing. The Minister has already indicated he has more questions than answers about this and he suggested that Sport North is not serving the public. Knowing the way the lottery money is spent and the mandate of Sport North, they have a very close relationship with the Minister. So I would like to know what he has done in terms of talking to Sport North or meeting with them and reviewing their mandate and responsibilities in order to help them do their job, if there are concerns in the communities about what they are doing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Mr. Speaker, these meetings that the Member referred to have been ongoing. We have been meeting with Sport North in the past. Sport North supplies to the Minister and the department their annual financial statements indicating where their finances are, where their expenditures are. We withdrew from all management of sports in order to allow for sports and recreation to be managed more by the partners than by us. That's why we transferred a lot of the responsibilities to Sport North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad that he admits then that he gave the responsibility to Sport North. They only have money from the lottery and volunteer services to do this and apparently they are not able to meet the needs of residents, so now the Minister is going to put the blame on Sport North and disband it. Mr. Speaker, what has he done to work out this problem with Sport North? If he is hearing from the people that there are not enough services available, what has he done to provide the boards with more resources or to work out what their mandate is, instead of coming up with this proposal that is really not working out? There's a major question about how the board governance will fit together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. I am not sure where the question was there. It was more of a statement. However, the Minister can respond. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe the question was, what have I done as far as meeting with Sport North and assisting them with direction to how they can address these particular issues that are being brought up by the smaller communities and by the smaller territorial sports organizations. Well, we have directed Sport North in the past to change their board structure to allow for this participation by smaller recreation and sports groups, but Sport North chose not to respond. That is why we went back, as I said earlier, and went to sports and recreation organizations and asked them what would be their recommendation on how to address the situation. That was the end result of where the proposed sports board came from. Sport North did take part up to the recommendations. They took part in the formation and recommendations of the formation of the sports board until this meeting on May 25th, as far as we know, and probably because of this particular concern we did not have representation, myself or the deputy minister, at the Sport North annual general meeting because there was no indication that Sport North was opposed to this new board. They were taking part in forming it up until that point. Thank you.