Mr. Speaker, I’m pleased to hear that the Minister is willing to work with his colleagues and the other departments to be creative and flexible in looking at that issue of .5 summer students. I’d just like to ask his commitment to work towards that once again, Mr. Speaker.

We are currently working with the departments to identify summer student opportunities and we will endeavour to have the departments increase those .5 summer student positions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister responsible for homelessness. In her statement on Wednesday, February 11th of this year, the Minister

made a statement about homelessness initiatives, talked about a Small Community Homelessness Fund, an application-based program which benefits homeless individuals in small communities. By that statement it specifically excludes the City of Yellowknife. I’d like to know from the Minister, is there an application-based program for larger communities that’s similar to the one for small communities? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for the homeless, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The homelessness small community fund was created because of the fact that there are not any established homeless shelters or programming in the communities so that we could accommodate such programming in small communities. In Yellowknife all of the established agencies like YWCA, Centre for Northern Families, Salvation Army, SideDoor, a slew of organizations, they apply for their funding whether it’s on a per bed basis, per programming, we fund even core funding, so to speak, to YWCA and many other agencies. Thank you.

I guess I would like to then know what kind of funding is available for the City of Yellowknife in the ’09-10 budget. What kind of dollars are we talking about?

I guess I would caution that we don’t include federal dollars in anything that we assume we’re giving to Yellowknife. Basically, I don’t want us to pad the figures just because it happens to be the city and a million dollars sounds like it’s a lot.

—-Interjection

In the long term, it’s not a hell of a lot of money. Pardon me, Mr. Speaker.

The Minister also spoke in her statement about an interdepartmental homelessness committee which

has begun the work of revising the GNWT framework on homelessness. I’m really glad to hear that that’s happening. I think it is time that we go back and revisit that framework. I’d like to ask the Minister when we might expect to see a revised framework. Thank you.

I believe the Standing Committee on Social Programs has asked me and other Ministers responsible for the homelessness plan to come and meet with them and it’s scheduled for Monday. I want to say, in answering the Member’s question, that in the most recent year we provided $1.3 million in combination to the SideDoor, Centre for Northern Families, Salvation Army, a whole slew of emergency shelter funding, about half-a-million dollars for transitional housing funding; we provide funding to Bailey House. The Homelessness Assistance Fund and Small Community Homeless Fund are about $100,000 to $200,000, so in comparison, we need to make our inroads into funding smaller communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

I thank the Minister for explaining those numbers so that she can show that Yellowknife is getting the lion’s share. However, that said, when this framework for homelessness is revised can the Minister advise whether or not there’s going to be any extra funding that will assist small communities greater than what’s already there? Two hundred thousand dollars is not much money.

I look forward to having more in-depth discussion on that next week, Mr. Speaker. The short answer is yes. The major thrust of the second phase of the Family Violence Action Plan is to expand the programs in communities and we have a specific program to enhance services in the communities where there are no shelters. We want to work with families who don’t necessarily want to make use of shelters. We want to work with children who witness violence. Also, part of the second phase of the action plan is to stabilize existing shelters because there are some shelters outside of Yellowknife, in Inuvik, Hay River and Fort Smith, that are constantly struggling to maintain their shelters. There are a number of phases to the action plan. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during my Member’s statement I talked about some sort of support for small fishing industry in Tu Nedhe communities. I have questions pertaining to that Member’s statement today for the Minister of ITI.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to meeting with some of the local -- or his department, it doesn’t have to be the Minister himself -- fishermen in Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution to scope out what assistance his department can provide to create some sort of regular income for the fishermen? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Great Slave Lake fishery is a federal responsibility and is administered by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, but over the years there have been efforts to more fully involve the fishermen from the Great Slave Lake communities. We have a number of business programs that we can work with people in those communities that are interested in becoming fishermen, because certainly we want to revive the Great Slave Lake fishery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I think I realize that the Great Slave Lake commercial fishery was more a federal responsibility, however, I was kind of thinking about it from the perspective of developing a small business using this renewable resource for the creation of small business. I wasn’t really thinking about the actual lake and the fish -- that’s kind of weird. Anyway, can the Minister commit to completing some sort of survey like the staff doing some sort of survey of local fishermen in both of those communities so that they can somehow maximize use of this renewable resource? Thank you.

Certainly this is an area we would like to see an increase in activity. Generally, there has to be some indication of a quota or how much of a catch can be sustainable, so we would have to work in conjunction with the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. Certainly we have business programs that have been developed to assist the small businesses in the communities and I think that the number of programs we have would fit the bill for those people that are interested in small fisheries. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Minister for that answer. My understanding, in any event, would

be that we are a ways away from the quota. That’s what I understand. I’m fairly certain that the market for these fish can be easily...Most of anything that can be caught by the few fishermen in these communities can be consumed within the NWT.

A question for the Minister would be to see if he could commit to some sort of support, assuming that everything, when moving along and the surveys and everything, seems to be okay and we’re at the stage where the fishermen are able to start to look for marketing distribution opportunities. I was wondering if the department could help the fishermen with that.

Certainly anything we can do to assist, we’d be pleased to participate. We do provide significant funding to the Freshwater Fishermen’s Federation for marketing of their fish, but we’re prepared to look at any avenue that would increase the production.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d just like to thank the Minister for the answers. I think I have the answers I need to proceed with this. I would ask the Minister, just in a general sense, for some sort of support for the fishermen in both Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution to expand their operations. Right now they do go out and catch the fish, but they’re unorganized. Maybe some support there.