Mr. Speaker, today I stand here in regard to my elders’ pension cheques that are not lasting as long as they should because of the high cost of living in the North, which in my riding is 81 per cent higher in communities such as Nunakput than in the capital, Yellowknife.

Mr. Speaker, my elders should not have to worry about having enough food to last them until the next pension cheque comes in. We need to have action. The Minister has to talk to the federal government to try to give elders a choice of pension cheques once or twice per month. I stand here and I worry. I talked for about half an hour yesterday with a constituent who stated that elders’ cupboards are empty. That’s not right. This government has to act on this. Our people are asking for help, and let’s give it to them. It’s got to be done.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Item 4, Returns to oral questions. Item 5, Recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Monfwi, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. It’s a privilege to recognize Amanda Mallon, who is here with her staff, Dave Roebuck and Colleen Eckert. Amanda served four years as NWTTA president, and she is outgoing president. This is her last month, and we do have a new president coming on stream. I’d just like to say thank you for all the services that you’ve done for us. Mahsi.

Mr.

Speaker, it gives me great

pleasure to recognize a friend, Steven Veness. He’s up there with Tricia Melanderford.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. If we’ve missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to the Assembly. We hope you’re enjoying the proceedings. It’s always nice to have an audience here.

Item 6, Acknowledgements. Item 7, Oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today I talked about the need for this government to assist smaller communities so that they’re able to hire qualified sports, recreation and youth staff. My question is for the Minister of MACA. Will the Minister commit to looking at this issue and to developing a plan to assist communities so they can have adequate resources to hire qualified youth staff?

Thank you, Mr.

Beaulieu. The

honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, this is an area that we’ve had a number of communities express interest in. We’ve also had some early discussion with the Council of Sport and Recreation Partners, and we’ve talked with the Aboriginal Sport Circle staff about the needs in our communities. We all recognize that more has to be done to assist the communities.

We have a number of funding programs that are directed to the communities. However, we recognize that there are probably other areas, especially in the youth programming area, where we could provide further assistance or find a way to do that. We have already committed to look at this with a number of different organizations, such as the ones I mentioned, Mr. Speaker.

Mr.

Speaker, will the Minister

commit to increasing much needed funding to the communities to specifically address the issue of sports, recreation and youth?

Mr.

Speaker, I wasn’t

expecting to get that request this soon after concluding our budgeting process. In our recently approved budget we did increase funding to youth by way of creating a second youth position for the north side of the Territories, and we have still retained one position in the south end. We will look at what we can do. We need to have more discussion with our recreation, sport and youth organizations to see what we can do as we come forward for the business planning process.

That’s not something we’re prepared to commit to at this point. We need to have further discussions with the different organizations that have expressed concern over our investment in the area of youth. We need to look at all the sources of revenue that we have and also to have the opportunity to discuss this with the Regular Members. We haven’t really gotten to that point yet. I’d like to do that before we enter into the business planning process.

Thank you, Mr.

McLeod. Final

supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m talking about the actual thought of a whole bunch of individuals working in this area in the communities, working for the department. I don’t think that has been contemplated, so I would like to ask the Minister if he’s committed to working with a committee of MLAs or some of the communities to develop a long-term solution to seriously look at the issue of actually having youth staff working for the department at the community level. Of course, that would be during the next business process.

Mr. Speaker, we just went through a departmental reduction that has in fact just come into play. We don’t have any funding from within to hire. If I understand the question correctly, it’s to hire staff and it sounds like right away. We don’t have those resources. We’d be reluctant to hire without the proper discussion and without being able to come forward and have that developed into the business planning process.

Thank you, Mr.

McLeod. The

honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke yesterday about homelessness and about the need for us to address it across the Territories. I was pleased to hear the Minister indicate yesterday that the social programs Ministers will be meeting to discuss options with regards to housing for the homeless. It’s recognized that having a continuum of housing is part of the solution to homelessness. My question for the Minister responsible for the homeless is whether these discussions, which are going to be held over the next weeks and months, will consider expanding the continuum of housing within the Northwest Territories to help address homelessness.

Thank you, Ms.

Bisaro. The

Hon. Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister responsible for the area for homelessness

works with the other departments that actually deliver the services themselves. He committed to working with those social programs Ministers in getting the information and ensures that he continues to work on that path as they sit down and put this together.

I thank Mr. Roland for answering the question. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for homelessness: in recognizing that there is a continuum of housing needs — from people who have absolutely no home to people who are transitioning from no home to be able to go to work to people who need a place while they do work until they can afford enough money to rent their own home, and so on — whether or not that continuum of housing is part of the discussions that the social programs Ministers will be having.

Mr. Speaker, I will have to defer that to the Minister responsible for homelessness, as he’d have that detail.

Thank you, Hon. Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the homeless, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr.

Speaker.

Certainly, that will be a part of the discussions we’ll be having with our social envelope of the Ministers that we will be gathering this next couple of weeks. That has been part of our discussion when we’re dealing with homelessness, since we’re in a process of opening the new Bailey House. We did meet with the group on the female facility they proposed for years down the road. There have been some discussions in that area. Certainly, that will be one of the discussions we’ll be having as part of the program within our social envelope.

I’m pleased to hear that they’re discussing a female facility. But I need to point out that homelessness…. I’m not speaking about homelessness just from a Yellowknife point of view but from a territorial point of view. It’s a problem in all of our communities. I’d like to ask whether or not the issue of homelessness and reducing the number of homeless people that we have in our communities is going to be a priority for these social program Ministers in our ’09–10 budget?