Mahsi cho, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to see the extra money put into youth expenditures. I think if you go through the business plan, it’s almost $2.5 million spent towards the youth. I think that’s a big improvement from what was there two years ago. I know that there has also been some infrastructure dollars put into youth centres across the Territory. So this is in addition to that, to the operations of these and maybe some youth workers, as outlined in the Minister’s opening remarks.

Still on the topic of actually having youth workers at the community level, I’ve made many youth statements in the Legislative Assembly to talk about the long-term benefits of working with our youth. I think the government, as a whole, as an overall strategy needs to look at dealing with a lot of social issues and social costs across the Territories, where we are seeing a third and possibly a fourth generation of people now in social housing. I recognize that’s going to continue and we have

many generations of people on income support, because I feel that a lot of that starts with opportunities for youth. I think that this government has to put additional money in addition to what’s in the budget here into youth and look at it as a strategy to address these social issues in many of our small communities on a long-term basis. I think an investment now would be a good investment for the future of the Northwest Territories.

I don’t think the government is far away as a department. I don’t think it’s that far from putting the pieces in place to achieve what’s needed to support the youth additionally. I believe the youth are probably getting more support now from the GNWT than they’ve had ever in past governments. You know, we’re seeing youth centres built, opening up, youth centres being designed in the various communities and my feeling is that the government is three-quarters on the way to really putting money into youth and investing in the future. I think that the returns are tremendous. I think if the government continues to support the youth, continues to support the education of the youth, I think we’ll start to see results. We’ll start to see the benefits start to flow back to the government by reducing the amount of usage on social programs that are needed to support families whether it be social housing or actual income support.

I think the government is around $1 million away from actually having some youth workers in the communities. I think that a lot of the communities actually have people in place. I guess as long as the government doesn’t become too rigid in their policies of hiring local people, they could end up pricing themselves out of range. But I’m sure there are many in the communities who are local recreation people working with some communities that have youth workers. I think the government should support youth workers whether they be a youth worker that can deal with groups of communities geographically close to each other or communities that are big enough and have enough youth in the community to support one individual youth worker in the community. That’s been kind of like a goal of mine since I’ve started as MLA, to try to get more money into the area of youth, whether it be workers’ programming or youth infrastructure. I think government’s heading in the right direction. I think there’s a little ways more to go. I don’t think we should be satisfied with what we’ve done. I think that if the government strategically places money in this area, as I’ve indicated many times, there will be long-term benefits.

In another area I’m interested in working with the department is in the transfer of infrastructure. Really looking in the area of capital costs as the New Deal is rolled out and communities are taking responsibility for their own capital needs and there’s been capital dollars allocated to communities in the contribution. I think that some communities,

because they have less people in smaller communities like the communities I represent, they don’t have the capital dollars to purchase any major capital. It’s like they’re able to maybe replace equipment that they have, possibly replace buildings or upgrade buildings and so on. I think it will be a strain on their capital to be able to get all their equipment and buildings up to standard. I’d like to see this government take a look at the conditions of buildings and ensure energy efficiency. I think that’s for the benefit of everyone, including the government and the environment and everything, to have energy efficient buildings and equipment that’s running properly. There’s an environmental payback on that as well. I think that at the point when the government does transfer it, I’m at least almost at that stage where, I shouldn’t say me, but the communities in the Tu Nedhe are almost at the stage where they will start taking over the buildings and equipment and so on. I think the government should be aware that this equipment is old, this building is old, and so on, and have that thorough discussion with the community to ensure that what they’re turning over are things that are going to be usable for the long term and it’s going to benefit the communities and allow the communities to work for their people in an efficient way.

Aside from that, I think I look forward to going through the details of the Main Estimates.