Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank my honourable friend from Nahendeh for raising this important issue; this is something that the Standing Committee on Government Operations, which I chair, has taken very seriously and made numerous recommendations for. I think the NGO Stabilization Fund will solve a couple of problems if it is moved back to executive. It does appear that the executive is taking action on ensuring necessary funds are provided to groups like the Friendship Centres, and that's an important cause, but it needs to be defined by some sort of policy. I know the Premier has made the commitments earlier about a funding policy for that. The crux of the matter is that the NGO Stabilization Fund currently sits in the area of the Department of Community and Municipal Affairs that promotes volunteerism. When questions have been put to the Minister as to the department's use of the NGO Stabilization Fund to promote volunteerism, the department and the Minister have conceded that it does not, in fact, promote volunteerism; it is for stabilizing NGOs, and many of our NGOs are third-party service providers, such as the Salvation Army, the YWCA. These are providing core services to residents, and they're not engaging volunteers, and they're not providing community-level activities. So, given that the public policy objective of MACA's role over the NGO Stabilization Fund is to promote volunteerism, and the fund does not do that, is the Premier willing to reconsider this and move it back to Executive so it can be used to stabilize third-party service providers that are NGOs? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Kieron Testart on Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters (Reversion)
In the Legislative Assembly on February 22nd, 2018. See this statement in context.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters (Reversion)
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters (Reversion)
February 21st, 2018
See context to find out what was said next.