Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe there's other money available through the government that I'm not aware of, but when I look at the recreation, NWT Games, Arctic Winter Games, Canada Winter Games, there's a whole lot of youth dollars that are going towards kids who have inclination towards sports and sports are good, sports are healthy, it's good for kids all around to be involved in those kinds of things. It takes money for kids to be involved in these not only on the part of the government, but on the part of their parent. Also, like I said, I don't have a lot of detail, but some of the activities too that the Minister listed off, taking kids to the Aboriginal Achievement Awards, again, we're talking about kind of an elite few here and there's a whole lot of kids in the Northwest Territories that cannot, for various reasons, access sports activities that are kind of booting around their communities without a lot to do and not a lot of supervision and, in some instances, creating some difficulty for themselves and their communities.

I would like to know if there is any money that's been set aside that is proposal based that could go to fund some of our struggling youth centres where volunteers in the

communities are trying to create activities, keep kids out of trouble and those who maybe either aren't inclined to sports or their parents don't have the volunteer hours to put into it or don't want to and maybe don't have the financial wherewithal to set kids up with all the equipment and things you need to get involved in those sorts of things. I would rather to have seen at least somewhere a pot of money where some of the youth centres, and I don't know who supplies money like to the SideDoor in Yellowknife, for example. They're doing wonderful work with some of the more marginalized and needy, I would say, youth in the community, and in Hay River we had to shut down the youth centre because of lack of funding. Yet the money we would use to take a few handfuls of kids to the Aboriginal Achievement Awards would probably keep the youth centre in Hay River going for six months. So where is the money for our youth centres that are struggling and hanging on by a thread? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, this money was earmarked for the youth portfolio and we work with the social programs Ministers. We've also done an evaluation on some of our programs and consulted with some of the youth to see where there should be some investment. It did not go to our sports division because it was accepted. We had a different submission that was rejected for our sports division and this money is earmarked for youth at risk. The programs that we have are pilot projects that we want to bring forward to see and run them as pilot projects to see how effective they are to deal with youth at risk. If the Member is interested, we can provide the rationale of every one of these programs and how and why we think they're valid and important. The Aboriginal Achievement Awards have a kids at risk component attached to it, and that's why we wanted to bring some of our youth to this function and also see some of the people that were receiving awards. Every one of these have a rationale of why we should bring them forward.

The youth centres, we recognize there's a need there. The Member is quite correct that the youth centres have a problem. There's a gap and a need for operating funds and right now that's not something we have as a program. We do provide money to the youth centres, however, and we have provided money to the friendship centres across the Territories on different programs that they've been coming to us for, including the SideDoor. So we do provide monies for friendship centres, but we do not provide money for operations. That's not something we have in our budget, but we recognize there is a need there and we're looking to see how we can help. Right now the only government that does that is the federal government. They have an aboriginal friendship centre youth centre that some communities have been able to tap into. We do, however, provide money for friendship centres and youth centres through the Community Initiatives Program. There's up to $100,000 available over a two-year multi-year funding. Many of the communities are using those monies to build centres or renovate buildings to use as centres, but right now it doesn't include operating funds for youth centres.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess, in a general sense, my point is $500,000 is a lot of money and I would like to see it reach as many youth as possible. The web site, again, it has an elite overtone to the web site because you're assuming that the kid has a computer and they have access to go on there and want to see what the government programs are, otherwise it's just there for youth and recreation leaders and if that's the case, just click on your MACA web site. I don't know what other kinds of activities are going to be on a web site that are really related to the youth. Anyway, the problem is that I'm talking here without detail. So if it sounds like I'm critical, it's just because I don't really know exactly what's going on. If these monies have been allocated to youth at risk and have been earmarked in a way that reaches a broad kind of group and not just a few that will be hand picked, I remain to be convinced whether that's the case, and this is something I'm looking forward to seeing in much greater detail. I'm very sorry that the committee didn't have a chance to have some input on this prior to this exchange here today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We certainly take the points the Member is raising and we do apologize for not having some of this information ready for the business planning process. It was something that was approved fairly late into the year, so we had to really get these things developed and packaged. We did have a youth conference where we did a survey. We have talked to the youth. They have flagged that they'd like to see us set up a web site and there is, I guess, a significant amount of access because all of the schools have Internet programs now and computers that can access the high-speed Internet. So there is a fair amount of access, but I take the point that the Member is making, that we should have had a more thorough discussion.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. At this time I just wanted to take a second, we've got a mother of one of our Pages, Jeannie Weyallon and her friend Gabriella in the audience here with us today. Jeannie is the mother of one of our Pages, Raschenda Weyallon from the community of Behchoko. Welcome.

---Applause

Next on the list I have Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As well, I look forward to more details from the Northern Youth Program to support the various development issues and the youth, also. We always talk about infrastructure so I didn't know, like the Minister mentioned six different areas with that particular line item. I don't know if infrastructure was eligible at all. Perhaps I can ask the Minister with respect to that.

Mahsi, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, we didn't include infrastructure as part of this one-time funding that we get from Northern Strategy because we do have an infrastructure program available to the communities. The Community Initiatives Program has $100,000 a year available for up to two years. So that program is already there. It exists so that communities can access that.

We've focused our programs here to try to target the youth at risk and try to pilot these projects to see how well they'd be received and how well they would be utilized and delivered.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As well, when it comes to sport, recreation and youth funding, one of the difficulties that a couple communities had last year was that actually they were quite excited to have submitted an application by April 1st for new funding as is going to happen again this year, but last year they were surprised to find out that by April 1st it was already too late. So I guess I'm just asking the ministry to consider some equity in considering applications that are not to dispense or commit funds even though they've got their applications in by April 1st they weren't really late, but yet they weren't considered or they got minimal funding based on being late, but they weren't really late, they were, like, early. What I found last year -- and I spoke to it in House -- was that the funds were already committed to and expended before April 1st, before people really had a chance to submit their application, Mr. Chair. So I'm just wondering if the ministry will look at a more equitable way of dispensing these funds or else hanging onto applications for the various programs that are available to youth for sport and recreation, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, we're trying to figure out which community the Member might be referring to. We actually send notice to all the communities in March and we make our decisions in April. Of course, sometimes the communities don't get their applications there in time and it comes in fairly late, but we fund a significant amount of communities for projects under the community infrastructure program. Mr. Chairman, we're just looking at the list here and I think we've got every non-taxed-based community on the list except for two. So I'm not sure which communities have been left out.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. No it was just an incident last year where an application was submitted by April, but yet the department said no and I appealed on their behalf, but the funds were already committed or expended and that community was ineligible to pursue one of their initiatives for that year. So I just wanted to give the department a heads-up just to watch out for that and, like the Minister said, they're already developing a list and keeping track of how many communities are accessing funds and what programs, and just to be mindful of that and not to commit all their funds before the deadline and just to be mindful of that, I guess, Mr. Chair, is what I'll be looking for at this point. Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I recognize what the Member is saying. However, it's very difficult to try to hold back money to allocate later in the year. Some of our programs are totally oversubscribed and the money is expended and allocated early in the year. Usually by June, some of our Youth Program dollars are all committed. So we will take a look at it and certainly take the Member's comments under advisement and see if there's a better way to do it, but it's going to be a real challenge. There's a lot of applications that come forward.

Mahsi, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the items noted on this page, page 4-39, is a contribution to the host society for the Canada Winter Games in our sister territory of the Yukon next year for $86,000. I'm wondering if we might be able to get a little bit of detail on just where that is going. What is the value in it for the Northwest Territories? Related to that too, was the appointment of a former Member and a Premier of this Assembly, Mr. Antoine, to be an ambassador or a coordinator of, I think, a pan-northern initiative. Does this come under Mr. McLeod's watch and would he be able to give us a bit of information there? Thank you.

Mahsi, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is correct. We do have an ambassador for the pan-territorial games, the Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse. It is Jim Antoine and we do have a little bit of responsibility. He works under the direction of the Premier. We provide some in-kind support. We've provided him with a loan of a computer and we do supply him with some office space in Fort Simpson. This contribution for $86,000 is a portion that we'll be using to host. We're responsible for three different programs in the Canada Games in Whitehorse, and some of it will be taking place in the NWT. The torch relay is something we're going to be hosting in the NWT portion of it, the pan-northern Youth Ambassador Program is something we will be heading up, and also we are going to be delivering the Dene and the Inuit games demonstrations.