Item 3, Members' statements. The Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I stand before you today to acknowledge the contributions that the people in my region have made to youth and to sports and what a positive difference they have made in our communities. Many people donate their valuable time and talents to children who need support and encouragement so that they can have the opportunity to excel in their sports.

Today, Mr. Speaker, I wish to acknowledge the many coaches and athletes from Deline for reaching out on both regional and territorial levels. Also, I would like to acknowledge the athletes from Tulita who have competed with a lot of other children in the Dene Games. Just recently, Mr. Speaker, the communities of Fort Good Hope and Norman Wells increased their support to assist youth so they could compete at regional games like the ice hockey tournament last month. I join with those communities and applaud the hard work which goes into such events. I want to send my heartfelt thanks to the school of Colville Lake for sending their children to Tulita last November for the volleyball tournament.

Mr. Speaker, for our youth, hockey tournaments for regional games and competition at all levels are so important and this means that we have to acknowledge those who make it happen, either with or without government support. Sports are very important in the communities; they help produce successful people like Mr. Roger Allen, Mr. Ernie Lennie and the late Mr. Floyd Kelley. Today I want to celebrate all northern athletes who put our territories on the map, both nationally and internationally. So my statement is to look out for our future northern athletes. Mr. Speaker, I do hope that as a government we can continue to support and promote sports within and outside of our schools and keep our athletes striving to attend competitions down south, to reap the rewards so that we can sponsor the next generation of great northern athletes.

Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time, I would like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment if he intends to work with the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs to create more athletic opportunities for our youth in the Sahtu. Mahsi cho.

---Applause

Item 3, Members' statements. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, since my constituency office reopened after the new year, we have had an extraordinary number of constituents contacting us regarding concerns with income support. I think all of us can attest to the fact that December is a higher-than-usual month for expenditures. First of all, it's the middle of winter. Utilities and many other costs are at the highest they will be throughout the year. It's also Christmastime and it's difficult for anyone not to overextend themselves at this time of giving and sharing with family and friends. It's no different for families on income support.

I have had numerous constituents report that their income support has been cut off for various reasons in January. Some of them received IBA payments in December which were clawed back in January. Some of them received gifts of cash from family to buy gifts for their children. Apparently, these are both treated as income under current policies and guidelines. I've heard concerns from landlords who haven't been paid their January rent because income support clients who are tenants are struggling to work out January payments due to a variety of reasons like the ones I've mentioned. Some clients have had family and friends visiting over the holidays who are then deemed to be living with them. Those visitors had income, thus affecting the eligibility criteria of the client.

If the clients aren't happy with decisions made by income support workers, they can appeal, but the response to an appeal can take up to 30 days. That is a very long time to be denied access to basic necessities. I think it's time to revisit the approach that we take to income support. We've heard a lot about productive choices, but the array of circumstances that can affect a person's life and ability to act on productive choices also needs to be taken into consideration. It can't be a purely numbers approach. People are complex and there are many different challenges which may need to be addressed to assist them in becoming able to independently support themselves and their families.

We need to take a holistic and long-range approach to the needs of income support clients instead of assessing everyone and everything on a month-to-month basis. Without supplementary supports in place, dealing with the system can create stress actually working against the path to self-reliance. We need counsellors who can work with clients on issues such as access to job training, addictions counselling, money management and life skills. I'm not advocating for anyone abusing the social security safety net we have in place, but if we seriously want to see progress in people's lives, we need to deal not only with their basic need of food, shelter and clothing, but other needs that contribute to their dependency on the system.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to request unanimous consent to conclude my statement. Thank you.

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude her statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. You have unanimous consent to conclude your statement, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. We need well-trained and compassionate people acting on commonsense and compassionate policies and guidelines dealing with people in need in our communities. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Item 3, Members' statements. The Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity to raise an issue that my constituent has asked me to bring to the attention of the Minister of RWED. This is a recurring issue that I have raised with the previous Minister of RWED and something that the current Minister of RWED -- who is also an MLA for Yellowknife -- is very familiar with. It has to do with the department's policy or directive that the department has with the contractor that manages the territorial parks around the city which limits the time of overnight stays for any given family to a maximum of two weeks per year.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the rationale for this policy is to encourage and support the visitors from out of town that we receive every summer and I think the residents of Yellowknife are willing to do their part to accommodate our welcome visitors. What is frustrating for our residents is when -- and the Minister is well aware of this because we get these complaints every year and this year it's only January and I've already received a phone call, so I can just see the traffic coming -- these families who have maxed out their two weeks see the vacant camping spots sitting there, but they're not able to access them because they've maxed out, but there are no visitors.

What I would like to ask the Minister is to use a sense of reasonableness and fairness and to fine-tune this policy and to improve it so that perhaps we could have a tier system where visitors are given first priority and the residents who have not maxed out two weeks could have the next available spot and for the rest of the spots people could have a waiting list. Especially for the families with small children during the height of summer, these spaces are very important. Repeated requests to the Minister of RWED previously have not resulted in any action. Knowing that the Minister is very well aware of this issue and knowing that he's a very reasonable and fair-minded person, I would like to call upon his wisdom to please take immediate action to revise and improve this policy because it may not be the thing that changes this world tomorrow, but it is very important for residents of Yellowknife who, for whatever reason, would like to stay closer to the city and especially make use of the park at Long Lake. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Item 3, Members' statements. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize my constituent, Ms. Karen Hamre, as well as another Karen, Major Karen Hoeft, in the gallery today.

---Applause

Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize the well-known local artist and musician and broadcaster, journalist Mr. Paul Andrew.

---Applause

Welcome to the House. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 6, oral questions. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are going to be directed at the Minister of Justice and they centre around the issue of staff morale at the Yellowknife Correctional Centre. It's something the Minister is aware of; I spoke with him before about this issue. I know yesterday, my colleague, the Member for Range Lake, had questioned the government action towards the arbitration decision that was handed down last week, and I echo her sentiments exactly, that I think the government should do the right thing. Whether or not that improves the morale at the Correctional Centre who knows, but that's something the government should take up, and take it up soon.

My question for the Minister today is in the past 18 months, have leaves of absence, sometimes referred to as stress leave, been on an increase over the previous period of 18 months? Thank you.

Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories does not record stress leave. Sick leave is provided to employees, but there is no requirement for employees to disclose the reasons for their absence. This would be an unreasonable invasion of the employee's privacy. This is well established through labour relations law and it's not permitted under the collective agreement. So I can't answer the Member's question. FMBS has advised us that we're not able to collect that information, much less disclose it.

Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A supplementary question to the Minister of Justice, and I can understand where the government is coming from with this, but I find it hard to believe that the raw data can't be provided. If it can't be provided for YCC, perhaps raw data from department to department. I find in today's day and age of PeopleSoft that the Minister and the government can't come up with some raw figures at the very least, and I question the Minister again whether or not I could get access to raw data, figures of extended periods of leave for the Department of Justice as compared to the other departments of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, in fact we could probably collect that kind of data, as long as it was for the department as a whole. The problem is that if we released it for one single unit in the department, like YCC, it would make the figures too small so that employees could likely be identified. I can tell you that we could collect that kind of data for the department and offer comparison data to other departments in the Northwest Territories for the Member. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks for that, Mr. Minister. I'm wondering if the Department of Justice recognizes this as an area of great concern and perhaps the Minister can address that question. I know it's an area of concern. I've heard from a number of constituents and a number of individuals that it is a concern, and I'd like to hear from the Minister that it's a concern of this government: the instances of extended periods of leave at YCC in particular. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't answer that question directly without in fact appearing to release information that I said I couldn't. Therefore, I will say that any time we hear concerns about morale among employees, it is an issue that we want to address. The Member has raised the issue with me. I listened carefully to Ms. Lee's statement yesterday, and I think that as early as tomorrow FMB will likely deal with that situation. I hope that overall we will be able to deal with any issues of staff morale that we may have within the department, but we can't confirm that it's seen as an area of concern right now.