Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like my colleagues, I too will speak about NGOs and the NGO Stabilization Fund today. To be clear, I fully support the concept of the NGO Stabilization Fund, but I have concerns with the current purpose and value of the fund.
NGOs are so very important in the Northwest Territories. They provide vital programs and services to our residents, services not offered by GNWT departments. NGOs work tirelessly to improve the lives of Northerners and this government gives them little financial support. I want to say emphatically that I find no fault with the staff who manage the fund’s applications and awards. My concerns are with the fund itself, specifically with the policy that guides the fund.
Firstly, the value of the NGO Stabilization Fund has remained constant, $350,000 per year since the fund was first implemented in 2009. Over the last four years, our NWT NGOs have grown both in number and in the activities and services they provide. Not so the dollars in the Stabilization Fund. For the past two years, the annual total amount requested by eligible applicants to the fund has exceeded $800,000. The amount requested by prioritized eligible applicants has exceeded $480,000.
The funding available through this program is, clearly, inadequate in relation to the needs in our territory. It needs to be increased to at least $500,000, an amount which would then at least meet the needs of the prioritized applicants from last year.
I’m also concerned that the assessment factors used to evaluate applications to the fund place a higher priority on management, governance and organization development than for extraordinary operations costs. It is the extraordinary costs which can easily destabilize an NGO, yet we do not accept them as valid criteria for purposes of this fund.
I’m also somewhat dumfounded to see the fund criteria, which state that new projects take precedence over those supported in previous years for the same NGO. If the goal of this fund is stabilization, I would think ongoing support for an initiative would provide greater stability to the organization than one-year, one-time funding for a project.
I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted