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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Among the business the 16th legislative assembly will leave unfinished before the election this fall is developing a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy for the NWT.

That comes as a disappointment for anti-poverty advocates like Alternatives North co-chair Aggie Brockman, who told Yellowknifer last Friday she's been waiting since the spring for a government report on poverty research and consultations held over the past year.

"It's been a long time coming, so we're hoping for something really impressive," she said. "There were a lot of consultations, a lot of people invited to focus groups and we filled out their online survey.

"Even if it doesn't result in a policy change right away, the sooner we see what the results of those consultations are, the better - because they will generate discussion and lay the groundwork for a strategy."

It was back in February 2010 that the legislature passed a motion to develop a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy, including by supporting economic diversification, expanding programming for children and youth, addressing addictions, and taking steps to address that impact the cost of living.

"We are prepared to undertake the work required," Premier Floyd Roland told the legislature in May 2010, "to develop an overarching discussion paper that would address issues defining and measuring progress on poverty, summarize current programs and strategic direction related to reducing poverty, and identify areas for further action."

The actions following that statement included a three-day workshop in Yellowknife last October bringing together 80 NWT social justice advocates, politicians and people living in poverty.

A YWCA report from 2007 showed there are about a 1,000 homeless women in the NWT and that 20 per cent of all households have incomes below $30,000 a year.

Brockman stressed that poor people in Yellowknife and the territory don't just include the homeless but also the working poor.

Government consultations followed last spring, including the online survey that ran until April.

Exactly what was to come out of all the efforts, however, still isn't clear.

Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley said in February he was hoping the current government would be able to develop an anti-poverty framework before its dissolved ahead of the October election, but Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro said Friday that MLAs realized a few months back that an actual strategy was unlikely to be ready in time.

"I did think there was something coming out in August and was waiting to see what it would be, but also wasn't expecting something concrete like a strategy," she said. "It's disappointing because there was a huge consultation done through the workshop last fall."

Bisaro and Brockman said they were also disappointed that when the government conducted community consultations in the spring, it seemed to go over the same ground - asking basic questions about conditions in the NWT - rather than building on the February report that came out of the workshop.

David Stewart, assistant deputy minister of executive operations with the GNWT, said Friday that what does come out of the government consultations is still a few weeks away, after this last sitting of the 16th assembly, which is scheduled to end Aug. 25.

He said it will include the results of the consultations plus related material designed to help the next legislature consider the topic of poverty in the territory.

Still, both Brockman and Bisaro said it will be helpful if the new reports are ready before the Oct. 3 election, so that poverty in the NWT can be an election issue.

"It is an election issue," Bisaro said. "I'm happy about it."

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