Mr. Speaker, we do a lot of work in the area of volunteering and volunteerism. Historically, we have worked very closely with Volunteer NWT. The decision of the federal government to pull the financing has made it very difficult for that organization. They are looking at ways to acquire some support and have had contact with us.

We have had a lot of discussion around that issue, looking at ways to maybe find outside sources or within our own government to help them. But we do, as the Member indicated, provide the volunteer awards program. We also provide through our department the Fire Service Merit Awards. Everybody knows that the firefighters in our communities are one of our key community resources. We also provide training for some of our volunteer organizations and fund some of the training opportunities for the staff. We’ve been lobbying Statistics Canada to have the N.W.T. included in the national surveys on volunteering. As I indicated earlier, we have provided some funding to Volunteer NWT. to develop their resources to promote volunteering. We’ve had workshops on volunteering in a lot of communities, and we’ve done a lot of research into funding opportunities, so there’s quite a bit.

We also work closely with other departments, FMBS. We’ve developed a guide for the program managers within government to further clarify the funding policies for NGOs and other volunteer organizations. And of course, one of our more popular programs is the Youth Ambassador Program for major games. It’s been quite a success with Canada Winter Games, and hopefully we’re going to see the same results with the Arctic Winter Games.

We also, for the last two years, have been bringing our sports volunteers to be recognized and attend the Chances for Children events, Mr. Speaker. We also have an ongoing communication, as I indicated, with Volunteer NWT.