Mr. Speaker, I think the Member and I should sit down and just follow up, because I’m not sure I fully get that question.

There are appeal rights. All Aboriginal candidates have appeal rights for GNWT jobs, with the exception of casual jobs. There are no appeal rights on casual jobs. Any time that an individual applies on a term or an indeterminate position and they are Aboriginal or P2, they have the right to appeal that competition. If they are an existing employee and they have applied on a job and they are screened out, regardless of their affirmative action, they have a right to appeal that position. The appeal rights are there. Some people choose not to use them, but they should be notified of their appeal rights by the screening committee or the staffing officer responsible for that file.

I would be happy to sit down with the Member and have some more discussions around that so I better understand where the Member is coming from. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the NGO

Stabilization Fund. Through the process, there was a review and there were no changes at that time.

I want to ask the Premier, in regard to this fund, will the department again look at reviewing this NGO Stabilization Fund in light of what he is hearing today, to ensure that some of these programs, some of these fundings can get to some of the critical services that some of our people are delivering now on a voluntary basis in our communities?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we reviewed the NGO Stabilization Fund to clarify which types of NGOs were eligible to apply and also to respond faster, to process the applications faster and flow the money out on a much faster basis. We were able to do that. This year we have had 14 applications. Thank you.

Certainly, the Premier is correct on the NGOs delivering essential services in our communities that support the government’s objectives of healthy, strong communities and also developing capacities, and to manage programs and services.

I want to ask the Minister, in regard to the review, the society sometimes needs to be in good standing or needs to be registered within the Northwest Territories are created under a federal statute. I want to ask if the Minister can look at the flexibility of this eligibility of NGOs to include groups like land claims or other groups that also do essential services because of a lack of volunteers or people to fulfill those critical services to our people. Would the Minister continue looking at, seeing if this is a possibility in some of the small communities?

Essentially what our government wants to do is we want to help NGOs that have no other access to funding. I would think land claims organizations negotiate land claims agreements with other governments and they have access to resources. I would think skidoo clubs were the same; they could access resources. We don’t want to lose sight of the fact that funding the NGO Stabilization Fund is focused on those NGOs that provide essential services to the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Under the land claims, not all the land claims have a golden pot waiting for them to fund certain programs. There are permitted activities in the land claim that would also allow them to service some of the activities in the communities such as programs and school programs and such, so they don’t have the ready, available funds at times. That is why I am asking the Premier if he would look at this review again to

see if it makes sense within the communities in the land claims that help the people through these activities that are allowed in the land claim chapters.

It sounds like the Member is focusing only on the NGO Stabilization Fund when the NGO Stabilization Fund is just a fund to top up funding to NGOs that provide essential services for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

We have a third-party accountability framework, which is called Excellence Through Partnerships, and I think that is more appropriate to the line of questioning that you are taking. We have three categories of NGOs and I am sure that when we review it, if we get more specifics as to how or why you think land claims organizations should be funded by this government as an NGO, to see if they fit into any one of those three categories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

My focus is because these are probably one of the most efficient and effective operations that give NGOs support in our communities and the land claims is one of the biggest ones here.

I want to ask the Minister, would he also look at the eligible NGOs policy where it says if in Yellowknife you receive $50,000 or more in funding from the GNWT annually, so that’s an automatic $50,000 that goes to Yellowknife if you’re a Yellowknife NGO. So is that somewhere else where the regions can also get that type of funding automatically on an annual basis if we can make out a policy that’s equally shared across the Territories?

I want to clarify that the NGO Stabilization Fund is just a top-up fund. There are three other categories of funding that are providing funding to NGOs from all different departments. So I’m sure that if you clarify what it is that you want for land claims, we can see if it fits into one of those categories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In respect to the NGO Stabilization Fund that we’ve made a priority here today, there are real needs at the community level. For example, in my riding there is a real need for youth programs in terms of ensuring that there’s funding for programs and resources. At the same time, we’re contending with real social issues like homelessness. For those reasons, this fund is relied upon from the community organizations outside of Yellowknife.

For the Premier, as Minister of the Department of Executive, is the Premier willing to consider enhancing the NGO Stabilization Fund for 2014-2015 to at least a minimum of $500,000? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We would like to fund all of the requests, but we have a finite level of resources and we are going to the main estimates process. We will also be rolling out a number of strategies that pertain to social programs, such as the Early Childhood Development Framework, the Northwest Territories Anti-Poverty Strategy, the Minister’s Forum on Addictions and Mental Health recommendations, Economic Opportunities Strategy, Mineral Development Strategy, the Land Use and Sustainability Framework. So we’ll be rolling out all of those frameworks as well.

So I can commit to the Member that as we go through the main estimate process and that as we go through developing action plans for all of these strategies, which I’m sure will impact positively on the communities that need assistance, at that time we will look at all of the requests. Thank you.

I’d like to thank the Premier for making that commitment. Some NGOs are currently delivering critical services, but without GNWT funding they don’t qualify for the Stabilization Fund. What capacity building support is available from the GNWT for such NGOs? Mahsi.

We have a third-party accountability framework and it has three categories. The categories that provide services to the Government of the Northwest Territories, we can provide multi-year funding agreements, and depending on the type of service and the kind of NGO, and if they get funding from the Government of the Northwest Territories, there are different categories of reporting that are required. So if you’re not providing essential services, then your reporting requirement is not as complicated as for the NGOs that provide essential services. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m familiar with the community garden in Ndilo. I had the opportunity a couple weeks back to have a tour of the garden itself and get into K’alemi Dene School. Talking to one of the contractors down there, she had mentioned that there was some work required on that community garden. This is the first I’ve heard of wrong supplies being ordered, but we will certainly look into what transpired in this case and make sure that the necessary goods arrive in Ndilo so that the garden can proceed.

Thanks for that commitment from the Minister. I will note that in two weeks from now the days start getting shorter. Unfortunately, there’s more. As of today, well into our brief but intensive growing season, YKDFN is still waiting for approval on the basic supplies. No word back on buying seedlings, seeds and equipment. Surely ITI wouldn’t have placed the first order if it weren’t going to approve the remainder. It’s June 4th and

the season is running on.

Will the Minister commit today to blowing out this log-jam and getting this garden project approved now? This community can’t afford another growing day lost.

There is obviously a need to get this work done, and I will give the Member the commitment that I will go back to the department and try to find out exactly what is happening and how we can continue to move the community garden project forward in Ndilo, without hesitation.