Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend all the coaches, the teachers, volunteers, Aboriginal Sports Circle, as well as staff from Municipal and Community Affairs who put on a very successful traditional games this weekend. We have a strong partnership, a strong tradition of working with the Aboriginal Sports Circle.

I do want to let all Members know that, at my Ministers of sports meeting, we did promote our Traditional Games. I have invited the National Aboriginal Sports Circle representatives to come up to the Northwest Territories, as well as our Minister responsible for...

I think it is the responsibility, not only for the NWT Housing Corporation, our government, but my discussions with Indigenous governments as well as non-government organizations is that we all have to play a part in this. We all have to bring some type of responsibility, bring some skin to the game, so that we can address housing needs across the Northwest Territories. I do know there is a high waiting list, especially here in Yellowknife and in the regional centres. We are continuing to put pressure on the federal government.

One thing that I didn't make comments to is that we are still...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, under our current agreement with the federal government, the NWT needs to ensure that we preserve at least 1,231 existing community housing units across the Northwest Territories. Currently, we have double that. I know that there are concerns about waiting lists and that the new National Housing Strategy only provides funding to temporarily address the declining federal support for public housing units.

One solution that we are looking at in addressing this, Mr. Speaker, and to all Members, is that we do have this Homeownership Program, and once we get...

Of course, not only the IRC but all of our Indigenous governments, we have been meeting a lot since I have taken on the portfolio and building on the success and hard work that the previous Ministers have done. We are working to continue to get all of our programs out to the communities. Obviously, with new leadership and new elections, we need to update our leadership on the programs that the NWT Housing Corp provides, such as the community housing support initiatives. We have made that announcement on the co-investment fund. The bilateral agreements are going to have an impact throughout the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the roof was designed to withstand the strong winds. Obviously, the damage was unexpected. We will continue to work with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation as well as leadership in the communities, as you have heard me say many times in this House, as we develop our community housing plans to address some of these priorities as we are seeing weather that continues to happen, especially in the community of Paulatuk. I know we had a very strong storm there last year. Obviously, the roof was designed to withstand the strong winds. It is very unexpected, but...

We do continue to support traditional games, whether they are held here in Yellowknife, the annual games, that allow all schools to submit a team. The great thing about that is you have four males and four female representatives, so everyone gets to participate. That is really great to see. Aboriginal Sport Circle and MACA offer support to get students and their coaches here. We do also provide about $50,000 to the Aboriginal Sports Circle so that they can get out to the communities and promote traditional games in the communities where a lot of the students or youth might not be able to come...

As I mentioned, in the agreement with the federal government, we have to ensure that we preserve at least 1,231 existing units. We doubled that already. We have worked hard to get this bilateral agreement done with the federal government. That gives us the flexibility to do some really good work here in the Northwest Territories. We have carved out some extra funding for the co-investment fund. We are continuing to speak with the federal government on Indigenous housing funding and seeing how we can get more funding moving forward.

As the Member had mentioned in her statement, we are working on finalizing a three-year action plan. We are going to be working with communities. With the Homeownership Program, we are going to try to get into each of our five districts across the Northwest Territories. We are also doing a lease homeownership program, as well, lease-to-own program. For anybody that is in good standing with the Housing Corporation, we can work with them to start leasing to own their housing unit.

All of these programs that we are working on are going to hopefully open up opportunities to start creating new...

In most cases, the organizations that do apply for and receive funding through the NGO Stabilization Fund are receiving core funding through social envelope departments such as the Department of Health and Social Services, in some cases Education, Culture and Employment. Really, in most cases, these are programs aimed at providing direct support for our residents across the Northwest Territories, through my department, Municipal and Community Affairs. As I mentioned, right now, we don't see any type of funding programs that would offer any type of core funding to the organization in question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and yes, I do agree with that statement and that the SPCA does play an important role throughout the Northwest Territories in managing dog control. In Inuvik, we have a very active SPCA group as well that does a lot of good work in the region and for the communities. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, I do have to say that I do believe that our community governments also have to play a very important role in terms of managing dog-control issues that are local to the communities and that we all have got to work together to address the issue that the Member has raised in his...