Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just with respect to MACA, I’m glad to see they’re before us here in Committee of the
Whole. Some general comments are that over the last couple of weeks I must have given the House about 30 petitions, and I think about 29 of them were MACA-related. Many of the petitions there were related to the sports, youth and recreation and the community development positions that MACA had slated to delete.
I’m very pleased to see that MACA and the ministry were very responsive. I’d also commend all the people from my riding, my community, who took the effort to take pen to hand and write their signatures on the petitions. In some small way they had an effect on how the department was going to decide these positions. They did take the time to say, “Okay, well maybe” and revisit the fact that the regional recreation coordinator positions are very important and play a significant role in our communities and our regions. They’ve decided to keep them.
With the delivery of sport, recreation and youth programs in our region, I do have to say that there’s one component of that department that was not addressed when people filed their petitions with me. In my riding we have a youth worker. The intent was to save the sports and rec department. When I
travel to the communities, these front-line positions are in the communities delivering the sports, rec and youth programming, which is very important to the people — well, it is very important to government too.
How we’re going to deliver those programs…. I do not believe we’re going to deliver them from headquarters, which seemed was going to happen at first. I’d just like to say, the youth position is still very important in my riding and I think in all the regions too.
I believe the youth component of our sports and recreation cannot be set aside and revisited at a later date. I think we’ve got a continuous momentum. We’re attributing dollars to youth programming. I know that MACA and the government stated it time and time again in our vision and mission statements that youth is very, very important. To not have anybody deliver those programs, what kind of message are we sending?
As we deliberate youth programs in our communities in Committee of the Whole, I’ll be working toward getting a motion from this side of the House to help the Minister of MACA work toward getting the youth position reinstated and, even in the upcoming budgeting plans, providing youth workers in our other regions. There’s lots of value in that. With that, I’ll leave that subject alone for now.
One of the new issues for me is — and I just brought it up recent the other day; I think it was in question period — the quality and type of water in our water reservoirs in small communities. Our residents from two of my six communities so far are very concerned about the quality of water. I know we’re making strides in addressing that. But for me, it’s a standard. Some of the water’s really discoloured. They’re saying it’s safe, but if you’re getting discoloured water put in front of you there, you question the quality of it.
I’d like to just bring it to the Minister’s attention and say: Look, we’ve got to work toward — well, I’ve got a glass of water here before me — having it nice and clear. Even though it’s potable, it’s got to be visibly appealing as well. We’ve got the technology. It’s just how do we make it better for the communities to have that type of quality of water in front of our people? Needless to say, the quality of water is very important, not only in our jurisdiction but in all the jurisdictions across Canada. How it’s delivered to our smaller communities is equally important. We’ve got to work and strive toward that, Mr.
Chair. I’ll leave it at that for my opening
comments right now.