This is page numbers 6469 - 6510 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 6th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was territories.

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The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. To the motion. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The key window of opportunity to feed the bodies and minds of our children and to support their brain development and their learning is their early years. The parents have a responsibility to feed their children properly, but as I have outlined in the House earlier and in my statements, they are not always able to meet that responsibility and there are many reasons for that. Do we want to let the children suffer the lifelong consequences of insufficient nutrition during their critical years, Mr. Speaker? Unfortunately, our lack of government action in response to repeated calls here in the House and our decisions on where to put money speaks louder than words.

Mr. Speaker, Breakfast for Learning notes that they were only able to respond to 38 percent of the requests for food from schools in the Northwest Territories over the past year. This is during the time that this government was putting in a one-time $400,000 in school food programs. That also is a statistic that speaks louder than words.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent four years requesting action on this front. Finally, I ask to join my colleagues and I thank the movers and seconders of this motion. Let`s get it done.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I have spoken in this House in the past about absenteeism and the great cost of absenteeism to the education system and the great cost of absenteeism to our society and to our government. The one thing that I have been told in Tu Nedhe is that this Food First Program is something that actually had the kids come to school. We had kids that were absent on a regular basis that were now coming to school. Another thing that the Food First Program has done is that it allowed a lot of the students to show up on time because the kids knew that there was a certain window in the morning where they could come in and have something to eat and then they were off to class. They were in class on time, Mr. Speaker.

I support this motion. I don’t think the government should cut it. It created all kinds of positive things in one of the schools in Tu Nedhe. There was heavy parental involvement. The parents would come in

early, get up early with their kids, bring their kids to school, cook for the rest of the school. It was very positive for the kids to be with some of the parents and to have a good meal. It was also good for educating students. There were a lot of students that were assisting. The older students were assisting younger kids to cook. They were in the kitchen. They were learning that aspect of life, at least. It was something that was done and, also, for healthy food, the schools made sure that the breakfast was serving healthy foods. That was beneficial so that at least the kids were getting one good healthy meal per day. Most of them were getting more than that, but this was something that was guaranteed.

As Mr. Jacobson indicated, the one aspect of the small communities is the cost of living. The cost of living is high here too in Yellowknife, as it is right across the Territory. This was a little opportunity again for people to feed their children. Their children were fed in the school. It was doing what it could. Lastly, I think this is leveraging our future. If we keep kids in school by giving them one good healthy meal, it would pay dividends in the future for many years. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. To the motion. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be supporting the motion. I feel, for one, that this is a critical program to not only include supporting our students, but more importantly, developing our communities so we do have healthy, vibrant communities and help the most vulnerable residents in our communities, which are the young students and young children in our communities, so that they are able to grow healthy lives and be a positive role model in our communities.

Mr. Speaker, this program is more than just having a breakfast program in the school. It builds relationships between the teachers, the students, the community, where the volunteers... This program is a majority of volunteers, by way of the parents, the high school students, the teachers, get together. They volunteer to deliver this program. It is no cost to government, if anything. It shows that the communities, by working together helping each other providing these types of programs, it is a building block of how people can help people in our society who may not have the means to provide the nutritional breakfast program without it.

I think, Mr. Speaker, it is important also for the students to realize that as you grow up, part of the value of life is more than just dollars and cents. It is helping those people in our society who may not be as fortunate as other children or other people in our community to help those people who may need a handout and help to basically get them moving forward. Again, Mr. Speaker, for a $400,000

investment throughout the Northwest Territories and also realizing that we have a lot of these individuals who are on income support, who are struggling, like Mr. Jacobson says, with the high cost of living in our communities, people are just making ends meet. People cannot afford to purchase nutritional foods, regardless if it is fruit, vegetables and making sure that we are able to do that.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important that we realize that, as a government, we have to sometimes look at simply the dollar sign but realizing the value of these programs and how it helps us to not only develop our students in our communities but develop a community as a whole to help each other to be able to promote these programs and ensure we achieve what we say we are going to achieve, have healthy vibrant communities and that includes our children. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. To the motion. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One time in our life, I remember growing up, we used to eat at home. We used to have porridge when we were young and growing up in Tulita.

Sorry, when we were young. When I was growing up in Tulita, I remember, when I was young, I remember before we went to school Mom always got us up early and we made a fire if it was real cold in the house and heat up the little pot there and make porridge and we all would sit around and have breakfast, have porridge or have some wild meat, then we went to school. That was the lifestyle that we grew up with. Slowly on, Mr. Speaker, we started to see that the school had hot chocolate, macaroni and hardtack during lunch and I think a couple of times during the week. That was really good to have food in school, Mr. Speaker.

Little did I know, Mr. Speaker, even at that age some kids would come to school without breakfast. They had hot chocolate and macaroni, hardtack and they just really enjoyed eating that in school.

Just recently we started to witness and even hear children coming to school without breakfast in our communities. That is unheard of. You know, then I started to see where school and the community started working together to raise money working with oil companies or working on different projects that they started to get extra dollars to bring the food into the school and have a program going there. That was one of the best moves that the schools in the communities have done, bringing breakfasts into the school. A lot of kids aren’t eating breakfast anymore. That’s the way we have it now.

The government has invested $400,000 into this project. We looked at it and it’s a good project; however, we don’t have the money, so it might not

be funded anymore. Take out the nutritious foods, healthy eating in the schools, you guys go fend for yourselves. You go negotiate with the oil companies if you can get a deal. You raise your own funding. Our schools are into fundraising initiatives now. Kids should get good credit for fundraising to the programs they go to.

This government here is for the people, by the people and even those little people’s health. And they’re worth it. They are worth the investment. Surely we must reconsider this and give up something or sacrifice something for the good of the little ones, for an investment. Somewhere we can take some money out and put that back into the school or help the school. Just don’t drop the ball on this like a hot potato in the communities. We can look at somewhere where we can work with them. I think that’s what this motion is saying. That’s why I strongly support it. We cannot let our people go hungry, especially the little ones. We’ve done this, Mr. Speaker. It has cost a lot in our communities and by not investing, it’s going to cost us more, I think, I’m afraid.

I think this government here has very been vocal in some of its initiatives. They’ve showed some great leadership in some of their initiatives, that they can give this type of initiative another look at and see where this motion can be supported and they can look back and say where can we find the funding. For example, do you know that we have over 180 inmates in the North Slave Centre here and every morning their meals get wheeled to them? I think they could sacrifice breakfast for these little ones here. That’s something we should look at. We’ve got to think about everything, how we can bring this money to the little ones here.

So, Mr. Speaker, I would just say this is a good motion and I’m going to be supportive 100 percent.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Kevin A. Menicoche

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to say I’m rising to support the motion put forward by Ms. Bisaro. Thank you very much.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. I’ll go to the mover of the motion for closing comments, Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to first of all thank the seconder of the motion, the Member for Nunakput. I’d also like to thank my colleagues for their comments. I think you can tell that this is an extremely important issue. We are very passionate about it. Regular Members have fought very hard to get this funding and this program into our budget. Last year it was intended to be a food study and we managed to get that changed to a program where we could actually use

the money to go and buy food to assist the kids in our schools in the various communities.

We’ve been speaking about this issue, the need for providing funding for healthy foods, for nutrition, making healthy choices. We’ve been talking about this since we started in this Assembly, as my colleague Mr. Bromley has mentioned.

I want to mention, too, that the money that is in this current budget year has been distributed according to the contractor by need. So those communities that have higher food costs, where the food prices are far more than they are, say, in Yellowknife, those communities, those schools get more funding than schools in communities where the food prices are lower. That’s a great way to go. But we are basically saying, as my colleague to my left has said, we are leaving the schools to fend for themselves. We are leaving the schools to try to find another method to get the kids to come to school. We are leaving the schools to try to struggle again to increase academic achievement. Both of those things have been proven to be successful through this program, and I’m failing to understand that the department, without an evaluation, is going to cut this funding.

Recently we heard from the Minister of Transportation that we’ve increased the Community Access Program from $320,000 to $1 million. That’s $680,000. I support the fact that communities need some assistance in trails and boat launches and so on, but if push came to shove when you ask the parents whether they would rather have their children have a healthy breakfast or whether they want a trail to wherever, I suspect the answer would be food.

I think in this particular case I have to say that I think the government has put their priority in the wrong place. I think really if the government believes in the success of this program and it has contributed to better attendance, higher academic achievement and better learning at school, the department and the government will look at the budget, will find the money. If we take some from each department, we can do it from within. As I said, where there’s a will, there’s a way. I believe it could be done if they want to do it.

On that note, Mr. Speaker, I will ask for a recorded vote, and thanks to my colleagues.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

The Member is requesting a recorded vote on the motion. All those in favour of the motion, please stand.

Recorded Vote
Motions

March 9th, 2011

Acting Clerk Of Committees (Ms. Langlois)

Ms. Bisaro, Mr. Yakeleya, Mr. Krutko, Mr. Bromley, Mr. Abernethy, Mr. Menicoche, Mr. Ramsay, Mr. Beaulieu, Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Jacobson.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

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

Acting Clerk Of Committees (Ms. Langlois)

Mr. Lafferty; Ms. Lee; Mr. Miltenberger; Mr. Roland; Mr. McLeod, Deh Cho; Mr. McLeod, Inuvik Twin Lakes; Mr. McLeod, Yellowknife South.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Results of the recorded vote: in favour of the vote, 10; opposed, none; abstaining, seven. Motion is carried.

---Carried

The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

WHEREAS “economic rent” for public housing in small and remote communities it unaffordable for most working tenants, due to local economic conditions;

AND WHEREAS the system used to determine economic rent is not fair to smaller communities where there are fewer public housing units;

AND WHEREAS the current system of adjusting the rental rates in public housing according to the fluctuating income of tenants is unnecessarily complex for both tenants and housing administration;

AND WHEREAS arrears in public housing are a perpetual problem for tenants and the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation;

AND WHEREAS this government needs to stimulate the depressed economies of small and remote communities;

AND WHEREAS practical rental options in public housing could enable more tenants to continue working instead of turning to income support;

AND WHEREAS a maximum rent program, as an option offered to tenants receiving private income, could help reduce many of these problems, while maintaining the public housing program for those who wish to be there;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, that this Legislative Assembly strongly recommends that the Minister responsible for the Northwest territories Housing Corporation establish an optional maximum rent scale for public housing in communities with no real private market, with rents set as follows:

1) $1,200 per month for four or five-bedroom

units;

2) $1,000 per month for three-bedroom units;

3) $800 per month for two-bedroom units; and

4) $600 per month for one-bedroom units.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. A motion is on the floor. The motion is in order. To the motion. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Jackie Jacobson

Jackie Jacobson Nunakput

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. We see arrears piling up in our public housing in the small communities and across the Territory. It’s because even people who are working cannot afford the so-called economic rent that they’re being charged by the Housing Corporation. Economic rent is so high it actually encourages people to give up working and go to income support. We have to do just the opposite.

We have to encourage people to keep working. They have to see that they are getting ahead. Economies in small communities are weak, with a few jobs. Everything is expensive, especially trying to buy food for your kids, clothe them. It’s making it tough on families.

Housing arrears are leading to evictions and more eviction notices. The current system of economic rent is just not sustainable. We need an alternative.

It would be good if the alternative support local economy that would, is what its purpose was. The tenants in the public housing need affordable options.

The Maximum Rent Program addresses many problems. It helps keep the people in their homes and keep the people working. The Maximum Rent Program would also help the Housing Corporation with a simpler system and be able to do more. More people could pay their rent.

This is a two-tiered system. We’re going to keep the system that they have already. This option that I’m providing is an option for if the people want to be able to pay for the four or five-bedroom. People that have dual incomes in the small communities, they would be paying $1,200 a month instead of $3,000. It would really help the people when people are trying to get ahead and be able to buy food and clothing for their kids and seeing that they’re actually making headway instead of the government coming in and swooping 30 percent out of their cheque on their gross.

This option is one that I really encourage the government to take. I’m born and raised in the communities, like in Tuk, I’m an Inuvialuit and you never see people want to give hardship to another person. Government could do this. Government is in a position to do good right now to offer this option. It’s an option with an open-handed approach. I really encourage the Minister and his department to make this happen.

I look forward to all Members who will support my motion and I thank them for their support.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. To the motion. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Tom Beaulieu

Tom Beaulieu Tu Nedhe

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I second the motion. I am aware that we have had passed, this would be the fourth motion of this type concerning this area. The problems are huge. It’s not equitable as it currently stands. The rents in communities where there’s few public housing, pay a lot more of their gross income if they get jobs. Right now, as it stands, this motion recommends an equalization across the board of people that go to work, go into a certain size house, they pay a certain amount across the board. It doesn’t matter if you live in a community where there are 300 public housing units or you live in a community where there are 30. When you live in a community where there are 30, under the current system the cost of administration and the cost of maintenance and everything is distributed amongst the 30 units and it’s very high. Also in most of the smaller communities the price is very high. Fuel is high, power is also costly, water and sewer is costly, because everything is on smaller scale and it’s more remote.

This kind of equalizes it. This is where we should go. This is the direction we should go. This is a win-win for the people in the communities and for the government. It keeps people at work. It has people paying something.

Right now if an individual goes to work in a small community, there is potential for them to start paying $3,000 a month. Even if you have a real good job, that’s a little more than one cheque. That’s one cheque. Because even though you can sit here and say it’s only 30 percent of their gross income, well, income tax will take 30 percent too, and then there’s the cost of working. There’s the cost of daycare, if you have to have daycare when you go to work. There’s those additional costs that the government must look at and take into consideration, not just looking focused in on the shelter cost. They have to look at all the other factors that come into play here. And the people will pay something. Like, you know, better that than sitting at home drawing income support, having the government pay them for doing nothing.

So this is an opportunity to put people back to work, especially in communities where employment is very rare. A lot of these communities we’re talking about, the reason they’re non-market communities is because there’s not much employment. It’s very difficult to buy and sell a house. That’s a non-market community because there’s no employment, there’s no income. People can’t buy your house because they don’t have the money. This kind of sets things in the right direction and I hope that the government does employ this policy change.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. To the motion. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Bob Bromley Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This motion suggests yet another way to skin the cat; an alternative to dropping the affordable housing threshold from 30 percent to 25 percent of gross income as proposed in another motion passed in the House this winter. This motion again recognizes the special considerations needed for our small communities where employment rates are devastatingly low.

I would like to compliment my colleagues for this innovative idea and request that the government clearly hear that our housing policies in this area are not working. New policies such as this motion proposes are required.

Ultimately we need a solid Anti-Poverty Strategy that embeds and delivers new approaches such as this one. That actually helps people get out of poverty.

I will be supporting this motion.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.