Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’ll be talking about the Yellowknife Association for Community Living’s respite program and the support it provides to residents of Yellowknife.

Last night I had the honour of attending a YACL family networking meeting. This meeting is a regular meeting of families who have children and adults with intellectual challenges. Parents met last night to discuss the respite funding cuts and the impact it would have on their families. It was a powerful meeting, Mr. Speaker.

Today I would like to tell you about the respite program. The program has been in effect since 2002. Approximately 30 families access this service on a weekly basis. The goal of the respite service is to provide safe, individualized and flexible support to families and primary caregivers who are responsible for the full-time care of children and adults with intellectual challenges. It also provides individuals with these challenges the opportunity for inclusion in their community. Without this service, many families would be unable to do small but important daily tasks that are required to manage a family, such as grocery shop, pay bills, clean their houses, attend meetings, et cetera.

On September 13, 2010, Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority informed the association that they would not receive funding beyond March 31, 2011. The authority informed the association that the Territorial Health Access Fund through the federal government would not be renewed and, therefore, the authority would not have the funds for the program.

On Thursday, October 14th , the federal Minister of

Health released a statement that the fund would be provided to the GNWT until March 31, 2012. However, when the authority and the department were approached by YACL with this information, they were told that this funding for the respite services would not be renewed for the 2011-2012 year. This is a travesty and for the families that attended this meeting last night, many are unsure about how they will be able to cope without this service.

We are not talking about a lot of money here. YACL is asking for around $250,000. Surely this is a small enough amount that it can be found within the department’s budget.

Later today I will have some questions for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services on this issue.