Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for that. The communities have always asked for the right to make their own choices, and I think that under this New Deal they have that. But there is an understanding that there

may be some capacity issues. I think MACA has gone a long way in trying to help the communities deal with some of the capacity issues. They’ve provided a lot of support to them in the way of advice and assistance and financial management support. They’ve made themselves readily available for any support to the communities, as much as they possibly can, to help them take advantage of the monies gained in the New Deal.

Thanks to the Minister for that answer. That’s about what I expected.

Interjections.

No, no, it was not nothing. It was very much something, but it was something I already knew.

I’d like to follow up and ask the Minister whether or not there is currently a pot of money available to communities that would provide assistance to them for large infrastructure projects.

I’m not sure if the Member’s expecting this answer, but I’m going to give it anyway. Twenty-eight million dollars is available to community governments as part of the capital formula funding, and also there’s additional money, like $7.5 million available under the Gas Tax Agreement. There’s $43 million going to community governments under the Building Canada Fund, which is available over seven years. MACA is in the process of communicating with the communities and asking for their identification of projects by December of this year.

Thank you, Minister. I’m glad to hear that you’re communicating with the communities. That’s a good thing.

I would like to ask for the Minister’s opinion relative to the suggestion for an infrastructure fund proposal that was mentioned in my statement. Does he see the merit in such a proposal, and will this Minister take on the task of convincing the Finance Minister that we should include such a fund in our 2009–10 operations budget?

I take the Member’s suggestion. We should have to look at any options that are presented to us by Members on the other side of the House and bring them before the departments and amongst our Cabinet colleagues to see if there’s some merit to them. I will commit to having a look into this and seeing what I can do. Like I said earlier, I have a briefing with the department this afternoon. So by tomorrow I’ll be hopefully up to speed.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. You always were up to speed in my books.

I appreciate the answer that you gave in terms of numbers and the millions and millions of dollars that is available to communities, but that is not just for infrastructure projects. That funding has to go for them to operate their communities, and when a large infrastructure project such as a water treatment plant needs to be done to keep up with federal regulations, there’s not really extra money available for that.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he would commit to consultation with the NWT Association of Communities in the establishment of an infrastructure fund so that we get a fund that works for the communities and not one that simply creates problems for them in its use.

Thanks to the Member for that. First, I’m going to work with the department and, like I said, familiarize myself with all that we can and can’t do and what’s available and what’s not available. I think once I get that done, then I’ll probably be in a better position to make a commitment.

But like I said, I’ve committed a couple of times already today — I should be good for a while — to try and familiarize myself with the department as much as possible so I’m in a better position to give good, solid, concrete answers to many of the Members’ questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I almost want to ask the Minister of MACA for some stuff already. But not today. That’s for tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, just following up on my Member’s statement today regarding Industry, Tourism and Investment with a few questions…. We know that the U.S. government has banned importation of polar bear hides into the country. What is the GNWT going to do to get this decision reversed?

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When we travelled to Washington and met with the United States Fish and Wildlife and an assorted number of senators and congressmen, we heard that the sports hunting of polar bears was an unintended consequence of the action that was

taken in listing the polar bear as threatened. Basically, we were told that in order to get this changed, we would have to get legislation changed in the Marine Mammal Act. So I guess technically that’s what would have to get done to change it.

There was some suggestion that, in the way they do business in the United States, they could just tack it onto a finance bill or something like that to get it done. So I think there will be lots of those opportunities. We just have to get a champion to work on our behalf, and I think we have to continue to engage our consulate, our embassy office in Washington.

Mr. Speaker, to the Minister. The outfitting industry is an important sector in Tourism and Industry, and outfitters in my communities are going to be affected by the decisions. What will ITI do to help us?

Outfitting is a very important part of our NWT economy, and through the business planning process we intend to put forward some proposals to help the outfitters.

Mr. Speaker, just to let the Minister know, I look forward to working with him in the endeavour.

Thank you. I didn’t hear a question there. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Center, Mr. Hawkins.

Mr. Speaker, the issue I raised today in my Member’s statement has a serious impact on the people who live and work in downtown Yellowknife. It causes many people great concern. The fact of the lack of public washrooms causes people to do natural things in unnatural places, if I may say. You know, that is not supporting dignity and humanity in the nicest of ways.

I know it’s far too easy to make jokes about this, and it is probably not uncommon to want to make jokes about something like this, but this is a serious issue. The people in the downtown riding want to move out of downtown. People don’t want to do business downtown, and it’s because of things like this.

My question will be to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Is she willing to look into this problem and see if it can be addressed by possibly finding some NGO or some service organization that will open up a facility so people who are homeless or who are in need can go to a pubic washroom without having to beg for a key or kick a

door in to try to get into a facility when they need to use one?

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Mr. Speaker, I’m sure this government is willing to work with any partners who may want to address any number of issues, but I think by any standards this is probably a municipal issue. I know they’re having discussions going on about some of the issues that the Member is bringing up, and I would be happy to discuss it with the municipal government and any other parties to see what options are available.

Mr. Speaker, that answer wasn’t quite what I was looking for, because I don’t believe it is a Municipal Affairs issue. Municipal issues are worries about property taxes, dogs and dumps. It wasn’t really designed to worry about the social issues around homelessness. The problem out of this situation is they’ve been picking up where the government has been failing miserably.

So I ask once again in maybe a slightly different way: would the Minister take leadership on this issue, show some initiative, get out there and say, “Look, maybe let’s see what we can do and contact some of our service organizations that may want to take this on as a task,” some type of joint partnership with the Department of Health and Social Services to attempt to bring back some humanity and dignity to the people who have lost it?

Mr. Speaker, all of the projects that we work on with respect to homelessness or housing issues or municipal downtown issues we do in partnership with the municipal governments. I have great faith in the ability and capacity of the City of Yellowknife to address these issues. I’m aware of lots of community groups that are working on that, so I’m happy to work with them. But I do believe that this is an issue that should be spearheaded by the municipal government and the community groups, and I think the leadership should be left there. If there are any proposals that the government should look at, I would be happy to entertain that, but to this date I’m not aware of any such proposal. I believe the municipal level government is working on that.

Mr. Speaker, social issues of this type and nature are the responsibility of the Government of the Northwest Territories, the responsibility of the Department of Health and Social Services. I’m not sure where she finds this in the mandate of the City of Yellowknife. I think what we are finding here is a situation where the City of Yellowknife is desperate because the Department of Health and Social Services has been ignoring these issues for so long. They have no other choice

but to take on other issues that are outside their mandate.

So I ask again: would the Minister show some initiative by looking into contacting some of the social organizations, some of the NGOs that offer programs to people all day long? Would she make some reach out process to find out if they would be willing to take on a task like this? Again, maybe the government will help bring a bit of humanity back to people who are homeless. This is their opportunity, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister do this?