Alfred Moses

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...

I have also mentioned in the House that we are going through a strategic renewal process within the NWT Housing Corporation that we should be looking at presenting to standing committee, and obviously, we would always want input on that.

As MLAs, part of our job is working on direction of legislation and policies, but also including our leadership in that. One of the big things about the community housing plans is that we want community and local input into what is best for them, and it is going to be something that is going to be done throughout all of the communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As Members know, I did make a statement in this House about our community housing plans last week, that prompted questions from other MLAs on how we are going to move about that and the five stages that we are going to take. Obviously, we do need a buy-in from leadership and community members. We need to raise awareness in the community and have people speak up about what the priorities are in their community as we build these community housing plans.

In my statement that I made last week, we are currently working on six communities. We signed agreements with three of them. We are working on...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, from January 16 to 17, 2019, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs brought community government leaders together to discuss cannabis. This was our first opportunity for such a gathering since cannabis became legal in Canada on October 17, 2018.

Mr. Speaker, the legalization of cannabis presents challenges for northern society. The purpose of this conference was to look for local solutions for community governments as they deal with this new reality. Our focus was presenting as much information as possible for local leaders with the right experts...

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...

I really appreciate the work that the SPCA does throughout the Northwest Territories as well as our local SPCA groups in the communities where they do the work. I've also mentioned this is also the responsibility of our community governments, our municipal governments. We will be working with them. I can be prepared to provide my support in terms of speaking with the NWT Association of Communities. We will be having a meeting coming up this month, and I know this has been an issue for the Member and the SPCA, as well. I will make sure that this topic will get addressed at the next NWT...

As the Member noted in his statement, the GNWT has provided the SPCA with one-time funding back in 2018. I appreciate the Member bringing this up, and we did respond late last year in terms of some of the questions that he's bringing up again today. I am not aware or certain of any of the areas or departments where the SPCA has applied for funding. Unfortunately, through my department, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, we don't currently offer any funding programs that would either offer core funding to the SPCA, nor do we currently see any fit with other application-based...