Thank you, Mr.

Chair. I thought

maybe you were going to give up on me.

I will try to carry on from where I left off yesterday. I think I was talking about the voluntary sector initiatives and the loss of $10,000, which had been earmarked for the voluntary sector and is no longer part of the strategic initiative. I have to add my voice to Mr. Bromley’s and others’ who’ve said that we need to support the voluntary sector. It has a huge impact on all of our residents.

The NWT has the second-highest rate of both formal and informal volunteering, and I think that’s something that needs to be taken into consideration. Another statistic is that half of NWT residents who are 15 years of age or older volunteer in one way or another, and it’s a job that improves one’s quality of life simply because you’re giving back to the community. I would encourage not just MACA — and I think I started on this yesterday — but throughout the government that we look at volunteerism, the voluntary sector, what they do for us, and determine an across-the-board initiative that will prop up our voluntary sector. I would hope we could find $50,000 in this year’s budget to give to Volunteer NWT so they can continue. They certainly do good work, and they are in touch with every community in the Territories.

I’d like to touch on the New Deal and the transfers of responsibility to communities. I approve of that strategy, but I am concerned. I think I mentioned this before. I am concerned about the capacity of communities to handle the responsibilities to deal with capital projects, to deal with the finances that are going to be involved with larger sums of money and so on. I hope that MACA is monitoring what communities are doing, how they are doing — whether they are struggling or they’re in trouble. It goes to the School of Community Government as well, where we need to make sure that every community in the Territories has the capacity to deal with these large responsibilities we are giving to them. I’m not so sure that’s happening. Some communities are doing quite well, but others, I think, need a lot more support. Kind of along the same lines is the lot of the community development coordinators. I’m not too sure what that job is….