Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m pleased at a lot of things here, in the department, also. I’m happy the New Deal’s in place. I’m happy the department increased capital for communities by over $5 million.
I guess the issue of having some of the groups…. Some of the communities that are taking the New Deal can’t own assets or property. I’m not 100 per cent sure which it is. I believe it’s buildings, but I think roads and other systems can be worked on. I hope the department would come to, maybe, if need be, create some sort of legislation that will allow the Dene bands to own GNWT assets like other larger municipalities, cities and towns and so on. It would be a good hurdle to get over to give equal access to the New Deal by all communities.
In Tu Nedhe, neither of my communities can own assets because they’re under the wrong act. One is actually under a federal act because one continues to be a band. Capital, I think, would be easier to deal with. Dealing with a band and the settlement council, I would find that…. I guess the only issue that potentially could be there with this type of funding is a cash-flow issue. If the department’s arbitrarily cutting the budget into equal chunks and handing it out throughout the year, it may not allow the band or settlement council to flow their projects out the way they want to. Maybe that’s something we could be cognizant of.
I want to repeat what both Mr.
Ramsay and
Mr. Abernethy touched on. Youth, to me, is a very, very important area to spend money on. Of all
strategic initiatives, I believe that the ultimate strategic initiative is to spend money on youth. I don’t think we’re doing that. I didn’t see the department…. Although I’m not sure that youth is actually…. I mean, the youth budget that the Minister of MACA had is, I believe, in excess of $1 million. I’m not sure if that’s actually a MACA program, but that is one area where I thought the government could look at expanding, even to the extent of putting some human resources in that area and getting some youth workers into the regions.
I thought that was something this government could do. I thought that was something that was strategic, and it would be something that was so important to the youth of all the communities across the North — to try to give the youth equal access to everything that is available in the Northwest Territories in this area. I thought that at least for this year, the department could look at putting more money into the youth budget.
I’m not talking about a huge contribution in youth corps or anything like that. I’m just talking about the money the Minister has to set the youth budget. I do believe it’s around $1 million. I would have liked to see that budget proposed in order for us to do an effective job. I’m trying to, I guess, put these key individuals into place at the start so that these guys can then start that whole process of working on capital issues, working with schools, working…. I mean, there are all kinds of possibilities.
Some of these youth workers are gym teachers. I mean, we’re suffering for gym teachers in small communities. One thing I’m asking Education to do is to try to move their PTR or do something with their PTR to put some sort of base expenditure into a community meeting with all of this essential stuff — I include physical education — in the curriculum. Maybe that’s something this department could work with the schools on.
I think there’s an opportunity here to be pretty strategic with the youth. I think our returns are real quick; kids grow up real fast. When you’re looking at putting a 17-year-old guy on the right road, five years later he’s a productive adult. I think that’s what we have to try to do. We have to try to achieve a lot of productive adults out of the youth we have today; maybe we won’t be facing some of the social problems we’re currently facing in small communities.
I guess, in general, social problems are spread across the whole North. I guess it’s not quite as apparent when there’s a large number of people living in one location. With that, I look forward to going through the Mains. That’s all I have.