I appreciate the answer from the Minister but it is very concerning. There is a $400,000 line item in the budget which is going to
sunset. The NWT nutritious food study, I presume that’s it. It bothers me in that we are again ignoring the issue or benefits of prevention and intervention at an early age. The Minister talked about working with other departments and cross-departmental. I have to say, as I’ve said a couple of times in the last week and a half, that early intervention from kids zero to age six at least helps in breaking the cycle of poverty. The department is talking about working with other departments but I don’t hear anything about working to try and break the cycle of poverty, to try and work within the development of an Anti-Poverty Strategy, which apparently is being developed. I think again we are thinking too small and too narrow. We need to rethink how we deliver these programs and services.
We’ve had $400,000 which is going to sunset. My question is: where is that money going to be spent now? Obviously it’s being spent because the budget for this department has increased not decreased from last year to this proposed budget year. It’s one thing to say that the schools have pots of funding where they can do these particular programs, but this was a program which was delivered with the schools, which provided research, which provided background, which provided mentorship for the schools to get into sort of healthy food education for our students. I really think this is a step backwards.
We have an organization that is fully willing to do this work pretty much on a volunteer basis and we’re basically telling them no, this is not important, we don’t really care what our kids eat, let’s just go back to the way that it was awhile ago. I’d like to hear from the Minister again where this $400,000 is going to be spent now, if it’s not being spent on healthy foods or healthy food initiatives. Again, apart from the schools having a pot of money to access, what are we actively doing as a government to make sure that our kids are educated relative to healthy foods?