Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In talking to parents about the change in programming with the deletion of the funding support for respite services, you can hear a parent tell me that respite has become a pillar in their family and their support mechanism. What has happened here is that pillar has held up many problems. It has provided them respite from stress. It has provided them respite from burnout. Mr. Speaker, the problem is that this pillar is now being chipped away and torn away. The family unit is feeling the pressure of that stress and they are approaching burnout.

Mr. Speaker, many families will tell you, as they have told me, that this is vital for the health of the family; not just health of their young adult that lives at home or the health of their child that lives at home, but it affects the full family. It affects the children that are being ignored because the priority of the family is always focused in on this one particular person. It affects the communication between two adults, the mom and the dad who try to find balance and a break and make sense of everything.

Could you imagine what this stress is like every day? Every single day. There are no holidays from having a child who has, for example, autism, or other developmental issues. There is no holiday. It is every day. You have to find ways to work through it and people have strength. I cannot imagine how they handle and manage it. I have seen individuals when it comes to families deal with these particular challenges in ways I have no way of comprehending, but respite services have provided them the much needed break to make sense of their world.

You will ask a lot of parents, and I have no doubt that people have, especially my colleagues on this side of the House, and the parents will tell you that many of them feel blessed to be given the chance to be the heroes of these children, to be blessed to be parents of these children who have problems. They are looking for this support and help.

Mr. Speaker, we are not talking about the little brothers or the sisters or the big brothers and sisters that get ignored in this process because the focus is typically on the one child, worrying about the day-to-day issues. Mr. Speaker, many people will tell you about the developmental and social skills that come forward through this program. You can hear stories and voices from parents and even the kids themselves of saying that they built a relationship. They learned to communicate better. They learned to have fun with the respite worker.

Mr. Speaker, this is not something we want to take away. Mr. Speaker, we have a program that is working and it is almost as if the government wants to sabotage that progress that government has made for these families by taking it away. Again, the struggle is turning back the clock. Where are we going next? People believe this was the next step and new hope for families, and yet taking respite away and providing no clear solution and no clear direction is not the way we should be communicating to our people.

Mr. Speaker, respite is a chance to have the normal moments in an un-normal day, where your normal day is full of stress and burden. It gives you that chance to take a deep breath and say what is important. I need to make sure that I am healthy so I can take care of the person that they love. Mr. Speaker, we often forget about the little things, but how many little things are forgotten in this equation? How easy is it to bring someone on an airplane? How easy is it to take someone to the movies? How easy is it to go to the playground? How easy it is to have, as Mrs. Groenewegen said, friends over? We forget about these little things these families are willing to sacrifice for the love of their children, for the love of their brothers and sisters who struggle every day.

Mr. Speaker, the government did the right thing through the THAF funding by supporting parents through the respite services. I believe strongly, and the voices of my constituents are correct, that the government is now doing the wrong thing by this approach. If we care as much as we say we do, we will show that deleting the line item of support for respite services is not the measured way to go.

Mr. Speaker, I will leave with this. If we can imagine our worst day when we are burnt out, whether it is due to arguments in the House or just silly things, and we go home and think about how life cannot get worse, all I can imagine is imagine what it is like to be a parent who struggles with these challenges day in and day out. Now double that stress. Triple that stress. That is probably considered a normal day. But yet they look forward to the ray of sunshine, the crack in the door of hope that has someone coming in and giving them a break so they can get the rest and take care of their own sanity at the same time, Mr. Speaker. It means they do not love their child any less by having help, but they have the courage of reaching out and accepting that help. That help is being taken away, Mr. Speaker. That is what bothers me very much. That, I can tell you, bothers a lot of constituents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of the motion for the provision of respite care services. I would like to thank the Yellowknife Association for Community Living for their wonderful pamphlet they provided and I was able to read through it.

I do concur there are so many success stories for the 29 families here in Yellowknife. However, like my colleague Mr. Krutko had indicated, in the regions and communities, our stories are much different. We do have the same needs and our families do have needs. In one of my communities there was a disabled child that could not stay in that small community because the services did not exist. That child is being well taken care of now down south. However, had we had territorial-wide respite care services, I believe maybe that story could have been different too, Mr. Speaker.

But I am pleased with the debate and the discussion here today and a semi-commitment by the Minister of Health and Social Services to review the needs and review the respite program in the upcoming budget session. I, too, await the discussion and debate that she is going to have with the Standing Committee on Social Programs as we move forward for the rest of this year.

I do like to see that a motion of this nature is a united voice of all Regular Members on this side on the importance of this issue. Once again, I would just like to say what is important for me is to expand this successful program that is here in Yellowknife to the communities and regions. In terms of how government pursues cost savings, Mr. Speaker, cost savings are for getting rid of programs and services that do not work, Mr. Speaker, not for the ones that are achieving success and our people really like and it is kind of like...

---Applause

Thank you, colleagues. I offer that to government. Those are the ones you want to cut, the ones that don’t work and not the ones that do work, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to, once again, standing in support of this motion. Thank you. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. To the motion. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Members for their comments on the motion. I would also like to thank the respite care families and their children and clients who came to the gallery today. As this motion is a recommendation to the government, we will consider and respond to the motion accordingly.

Mr. Speaker, over the past two weeks there has been a great deal of concern regarding the Yellowknife Association for Community Living’s respite care program funding. Respite for families with disabled children is important for many who are currently in the program and will continue to be in future for families in Yellowknife and in communities across the Northwest Territories.

Over the past three years the department supported, through the government’s strategic investment initiative Building our Future funding, a piloted respite care program in a few communities outside of Yellowknife, communities with fewer support resources for families. We also have had a pilot program we had for the families in Yellowknife through YACL. YACL is funded until March 2011. The department will take this opportunity to work with YACL and Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority to develop an exit strategy from a Yellowknife-specific program. Furthermore, the department will develop a proposal and implementation plan for a territorial-wide respite service program. This will ensure families in Yellowknife continue to have respite support while we expand the program to other NWT communities and families.

Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, we are under a huge fiscal pressure. Options we will look at would include using and maximizing the existing resources in the department. Mr. Speaker, the department’s work and oversight of a territorial respite program will be prepared for the next budget cycle. I will also seek support from all Members for inclusion in the future business plans. I look forward to coming to the Standing Committee on Social Programs to discuss the issue and this programming more in detail. Mr. Speaker, as we present and debate the next budget, we will have many difficult choices to make, choices over which programs to find alternative funding mechanisms for and which to stop will be ours collectively to make. We must also consider reasonable and fair program access for all communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. I will go to the mover of the motion for closing comments. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank all of my colleagues for their words. Clearly, respite services are important to the Members of this House. We need to continue to provide respite. I agree with the Minister; there are huge financial challenges, but we are talking about a couple of hours a week for these families. What is the cost of a program like this when you factor in what it is costing for somebody like Yellowknife Association for Community Living to deliver those two or three hours as opposed to having the families work with other institutions like our hospitals, where I guarantee you those same hours are going to cost this system significantly more.

I am a little concerned by the reference to an exit strategy. We have an organization that has proven time and time again how to run a respite program for persons with intellectual challenges, for children and families.

In my opening or my Member’s statement earlier today, I talked about the families a little bit. I talked about their desire for respite. They are not asking this government for help because they are incapable of caring for their children. They are capable. They are asking for some support to help them for short periods of time. This time will allow them to recharge so that they can care for themselves.

Mr. Speaker, in 2005, the current Minister asked the Minister-of-the-day to maintain the respite program delivered by the Yellowknife Association for Community Living and to expanding to communities outside of Yellowknife. That, Mr. Speaker, is what we are asking the Minister today to do. Keep YACL programs alive and expand respite to all the communities in the Northwest Territories. It is the right thing. The Minister already said she supports respite. Let’s do the right thing, Mr. Speaker.

I would like to request a recorded vote on this motion.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The Member is requesting a recorded vote.

Madam Clerk. All those in favour of the motion, please stand.

All those opposed to the motion, please stand. All those abstaining, please stand.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Results of the motion: in favour, 11; opposed, 0; abstaining, 6. The motion is carried.

---Carried

---Applause

The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

WHEREAS, pursuant to Section 2(3) of the Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Act and Section 9(3) of the Northwest Territories Act, every Legislative Assembly shall continue for four years after the day fixed for the return of the writ of election for the general election and no longer;

AND WHEREAS, pursuant to Section 39(5) of the Elections and Plebiscites Act, the Legislative Assembly has expressed a desire to have the general election held on the first Monday in October in the fourth calendar year following polling day for the last general election;

AND WHEREAS, under Section 9(3) of the Northwest Territories Act, the Governor-in-Council may at any time, after consultation with the Legislative Assembly, dissolve the Legislative Assembly thus causing a new Legislative Assembly to be elected;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that this Legislative Assembly requests the Governor-in-Council to dissolve the 16th Legislative Assembly on September 4, 2011, to permit a general election for the 17th Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories to be held on October 3, 2011.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Motion is on the floor. Motion is in order. To the motion.

Question is being called.

---Carried

Item 18, first reading of bills. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. A motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. Bill 21 has had first reading.

---Carried

The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that Bill 22, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 5, 2009-2010, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. A motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. Bill 22 has had first reading.

---Carried

The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 23, Supplementary Appropriation Act (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2010-2011, be read for the first time. Thank you.