Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to highlight some of the issues I have been challenged with, with regard to Education, Culture and Employment one more time, I guess.
One of the big issues this term, as MLA for Nahendeh, is to champion the small schools in our small communities, most particularly creating a new Trout Lake school. If anything, if the Minister could respond to general comments to what kind of plan he has moving forward, that would be great. I have the documentation for 2018, et cetera, but that’s not something that the leadership and myself want to hear. We’d really like to work towards getting this moved up in the capital planning for a stand-alone school for the community of Trout Lake.
Another issue that I want to address is library services in the community of Fort Simpson as opposed to a resource centre. I am still moving forward with that and will hopefully get some solution on that. I know they’re working on a bit of a strategy. I’d like to see where the department is on that right now.
I am pleased to see the opening statement reflect the need for increased resources in the Sahtu; however, I have been making the case, as well, that the development is impacting my region as well, the communities of Fort Simpson and Wrigley, so if we could also dedicate some resources to those communities on a go-forward basis as we move forward.
This is a new and emerging thing. We didn’t see the impacts. Initially, we just thought it would be the Sahtu and it’s a bigger impact than we anticipated, and should it be fully developed, we’ll see probably a fourfold, fivefold increase in traffic and impacting all our resources, people, the trading needed, facilities in the community of Wrigley, dumps, just a whole myriad of impacts on the communities.
As well, another issue that I see time and time again as I travel to my communities is elders in the Fuel Subsidy Program. I’ve raised this in the House many times, as have many MLAs, and I’d like to see how the department is going to address this. I know they have checks in place, but often it’s not the elder’s fault that they want somebody to stay with them. When that somebody is staying with them, the income is low or minimal. So I thought about it over and over how to best address it, and the way to handle it is almost heading to a universal fuel subsidy despite the circumstances, that elders should get the fuel.
I know why the rules are there. It’s to prevent abuse, somebody that is actually working making good money and living off our elders. But in many, many cases people come to me and are appealing the fact that I’m here to care for my mother, she’s being impacted. I’m taking time off work to be here with her, and sometimes the family members, be it the children or nephews, they are often taking time off work to live with the elder.
You know, part of our focus, too, is to try to keep our elders in their homes as long as we can. It’s not in our nature to be sending our seniors off to
seniors facilities, and often they’re in another community than they reside in. I’d like to ask the Minister in his response, as well, and general comments, what kind of strategy, what kind of thinking has the department given this. Is there a better way to do it?
With that, those are my general comments. Once we get through specific departments I’ll ask questions as well.