Mr. Speaker, this particular program, Parent Education Program, will begin before the end of this fiscal year. We will be working closely with agencies that we have in the regions and in the communities to spread the news that this particular program is available to those individuals that will need it. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today I talked about the need to formally recognize and support the concept of healing the community. I

would like to follow up my statement with questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell me if currently there is a program that addresses the issue of community healing? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department does have a basket of programs and services that we provide to our residents with respect to community wellness and mental health. We do have mental health and addictions workers and community wellness workers in our communities. We do have contractual relationships with local governments in some communities to provide counselling. We do in some communities have some examples of community wellness programming. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the whole way in which you go about healing is a very individual type of approach, but that is what my issue is. It is an approach that the government takes which is individualistic, which is good for some issues, but you can gain synergies by trying to heal the community together. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to know if the Minister would look at the development and implementation of something that looks at healing the whole community where you are looking at healthy people mixed with unhealthy people to try to gain synergies and try to heal the whole community. That is what I’m after. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do agree with the Member that we should look at all approaches and, at the end of the day, we as a government and the department and the program has to be measured by the outcome and the results, specifically to Lutselk’e and Resolution. My understanding is that we do spend about $290,000. There is the Brighter Futures program. There is a basket of programs going on, but at the end of the day, the program has to make sense to the community. It has to be something that the community feels ownership to. So I am willing to actively work with the Member to review what we have and implement a pilot program that suits the needs of the community if that is what is necessary. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to thank the Minister for her response. It is a good commitment to look at a pilot project for the community. Would it be possible to have a small pilot project like the beginning of the community healing project for Lutselk’e and Resolution in 2009 or if not both, then at least one of the communities and maybe one the following year? Thank you.

For example, in Deh Cho, I understand that a couple of communities, Kakisa and Fort Providence, have worked out specific programming that worked in their communities, so I don’t see why we couldn’t do that in Lutselk’e. Of course, I have to look at what budgets we have and where we could find the money, but I am most interested in working with the Member and the community of Lutselk’e, if that is the one we start with, and work on Resolution as well, work with the community as to what kind of proposal that they want to have and what sort of needs they have. I’m not sure if we could try to fill the entire community at once, but I do agree that we should try a model or a pilot program that suits the communities. I look forward to working with the Member to advance this idea.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Again, I would like to thank the Minister for her response. Mr. Speaker, to switch gears a little here, I would like to ask the Minister if she is prepared to travel with me into Lutselk’e to meet with community leaders to discuss this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, I understand that the department officials were there last July and met with the community leaders but I have not been able to make it to Lutselk’e as a Minister yet. I would be happy to do that as soon as we can make arrangements. I just want to say again that, in looking at what we can do, that would include looking at how we are spending the money we do now and see if we can do it better with the resources we have, because we do understand that we need to make best use of dollars that we are spending on these programs. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Mr. Speaker, the budget process we are involved with and the infrastructure process that the members take part in and the departments follow quite a rigorous routine. There are quite a number of projects that get highlighted whether it is in the Housing portfolio or in the Municipal and Community Affairs where the money is transferred to communities. That is the biggest difference we have seen now from how it was done before. A lot of the capital programs for our communities flow through Municipal and Community Affairs and then transfer to communities. That has now been transferred directly to the communities for their decision making process and other areas where there is Transportation, Education, Culture and Employment, Justice and so on. Again, demand is for safety, for existing facilities and trying to catch up with those older facilities that we have and replacement before consideration for new. We try to look at all the needs across the Territory and come up with a balance. At times that is very difficult when you look at the level of services and what is on the ground. We continue to do that.

The other piece we have tried to put in place is one where we have put a number of the small community committees together to look at how we deliver services in the community. That will also produce some work for us too. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of our communities are already running a deficit with the New Deal that they signed with this government. I think that was not the intention, but it was also not the intention of this government that we walk away from communities and don’t give them the capital that they are allocated. Mr. Speaker, a lot of the communities don’t have capacity by way of engineering, design or construction. A lot of these projects they want but yet, Mr. Speaker, like I stated in my opening statement, in Yellowknife alone they are looking at spending some $140 million in the budget over the next five years. In Inuvik, they are looking at spending some $140 million in regards to capital in that community. Mr. Speaker, in the riding of Fort Smith they are looking at almost $30 million. Mr. Speaker, where is the justification that these communities also sign on to the capital agreement and get these 15 communities on this list that I can see that aren’t getting any capital by way of territorial capital expenditures. Where is the

fairness ensuring that capital is distributed fairly in 33 communities?

Mr. Speaker, the infrastructure program has been debated in this Assembly when that budget went through the House in the fall in looking at that. To draw a comparison, for example, the Inuvik process at schools that was on the books since 1997 have finally been put on there. There are two schools delayed for a number of years and moved ahead. We have the Hay River riding over the five-year period will be $74 million. We have the Sahtu as well. It will be $49 million. It is spread out through the North. The problem is when we have to replace existing facilities. That became the challenge. In the past years when the government reduced its budget, it went after the capital program and put us, as Minister of Public Works, in a capital deficit where we did not replace facilities when they came due or did mid-life retrofit, and that has now added to the burden of replacing our existing infrastructure on the ground. We are trying to play catch-up to that as well as try to make new investments. There has been significant dollars that have been put into Municipal and Community Affairs’ budget that transfers directly to communities now. I am told that they monitor that quite closely. I am not aware at this time that those communities are in deficits. If they are, that is something that would be reviewed by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, again, the point I am trying to make is we, as government, have to find ways to implement infrastructure into communities. Sure, you might have downloaded the responsibility to communities. This government still has a responsibility in regards to infrastructure in those communities, with pipes and water treatment plants, in regards to schools, in regards to utilidor systems or basically looking at the overall cost of health centres. Yet those are still the Government of the Northwest Territories’ responsibility. It is not the municipality’s responsibility. But yet none of that is making its way into this capital budget. Why is it that departments that are in charge of reviewing this budget and coming forward with their objectives are not looking at community infrastructure that needs to be replaced?

Mr. Speaker, over a timeline and the past issue would show that departments have looked at the projects that need to be replaced and many of those based on the need, the safety of the facility and what is the demand on the facility in our communities. It is something that will continue to be applied as we look through our future infrastructure programs. A budget will always tell us just how much we can advance in these areas. We will continue to do that work. As I stated earlier, the work we are doing with

Members on the small communities, the delivery of programs and services, we will also be looking at how we deliver those services in communities and hopefully provide us with needed information as to what things we can look at in trying to make sure we continue to have a balanced approach across the Territory. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Speaker, in regards to the budget process, as we just heard, the $700 million was going to be expended over five years. Mr. Speaker, as we know, they basically squashed the time frame down to two or three years. How reasonable is it to think that the communities will be able to take advantage of this $700 million with the time frame that has gone from five years down to two years?

Mr. Speaker, it is always a challenge to deliver on our capital program on an annual basis. History shows that that is why we changed our capital process. The communities that have the requirement of Building Canada Plan are communities that had to put in their proposals on projects that they could deal with. Those are part of the package that we, overall, sent in. They say they can deliver it and we work with them on that basis. There are a number of factors that yet still have to be considered. For example, the Housing budget, that allocation in communities, final decisions are being made on that as well as some of the Building Canada Plan future years. Final decisions have yet to be made by the federal government on that as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.