Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about one of the Northwest Territories most valuable assets. I’d like to talk about seniors. I’ll have questions for the Minister responsible for Seniors. That’s correct. We have a Minister responsible for Seniors. We have so many issues in this area that we need a Minister responsible for it.

This is an expanding part of our population. The cost of living affects this group greatly. We need to work on how we can reduce the cost of living for seniors. We know that there is elder abuse out there. We know that there is a lot of need for the seniors and medical support systems, medical travel, dental care and, obviously, in Hay River we know about the seniors health facilities that we’re looking at building this year. We know the expansion of this population requires that we’ve got to look at the needs for more facilities.

Seniors need assistance with housing and how they get on to those housing lists. The seniors who are staying in their homes, we need to support them more. We need to look at the fuel subsidy that we have for seniors and we need to look at increasing that. We haven’t looked at that for a long time.

I know the government works closely with NWT seniors, but we need to look at the funding of NWT seniors and funding regional seniors’ groups to help them support seniors throughout the Territories. We need to work harder to improve seniors’ quality of life in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My next question would be: Is the department looking at expanding this concept of the market housing into other communities, other than to regional centres and Yellowknife? Will they be implementing this into some of the smaller communities maybe on a request basis?

My next question is about the second part of the Minister’s statement about the market housing units that they’re going to be renting, I guess, for income security clients.

Can the Minister give me an indication, we’re transferring that to Housing, but that’s money that we used to provide to income clients? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

M

r. Speaker, I’m wondering if

the increases over the next four years that the Minister indicated, are those a percentage, like we’re seeing a CPI index there, or do we have a specific percentage that we’re expecting? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I made a statement today on income security programs. I’d like the Minister to give us a little more detail on in

come… He indicated income

assistance clients will receive more money for food and incidental expenses.

Can the Minister indicate what the level of increase will be and what the increases over the next four years will be? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My only other question would be with these individuals, when we assess them… I’m looking for residency. If they are in a facility that is in the South for an extended period of time, do they ever become residents of that jurisdiction? That’s the main question. Do they stay NWT residents for the entire stay there? They could be there for life. We continue to pay from the NWT, but really they are residents of the jurisdiction. Would they be

somehow put into a queue for that jurisdiction? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will leave that point for now. My next question is adult and child care in the southern facilities, it seems we have this on an annual basis. I know it’s been talked about in the House, as well, but this is a very expensive cost to the GNWT. I am wondering what we are doing to repatriate some of these individuals or find specialists to come to the Northwest Territories so we can repatriate these individuals.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I’ll have one question about the Hay River Health and Social Services Pension Plan. My colleague was asking about rolling them into the GNWT. I guess the Department of Health is working on this. Do we have knowledge about what other departments, such as Finance, would be involved in the assessment of this, or are we using outside pension people to give us an estimate on what the cost will be?

No further questions.