Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There’s no question that handi-vans provide an essential service for persons with disabilities; however, the provision for transportation services for people with disabilities is beyond the core mandate of the Department of Health and Social Services. I have had an opportunity to share the concerns that have been raised by the Member and the public with the Minister of MACA, and at present there is no GNWT funding available to municipalities for transportation services. The funding that they do receive from Municipal and Community Affairs is for water and sewer, operations and maintenance, and maintenance of infrastructure.
The community government could, obviously, choose to use some of these dollars from their gas tax or community public infrastructure to purchase a van, but that obviously wouldn’t help them to operate the van. However, O and M funding from the community government could be used for this purpose, if the community government chose to.
I strongly encourage advocates of persons with disabilities to continue to work with your community governments to take full advantage of the available funding for those purposes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.