Alfred Moses

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, from February 15 to March 3, 2019, athletes from the Northwest Territories will be representing our territory at the 2019 Canada Winter Games in Red Deer, Alberta. This event is an important celebration of Canadian sport and culture. It will be the largest event of its kind ever hosted in Red Deer and central Alberta, and one of the largest in Alberta since the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

During the past year, our northern athletes have been preparing themselves physically and mentally. Our athletes will be competing in archery, badminton, biathlon, cross-country...

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.

Yes, we are already doing that. We have reached out to private sector. We are having partnerships. We are doing some pilot projects across the Northwest Territories. We are learning from some past decisions that were made and have taken a better approach to ensure that our investments, the dollars that we are spending, is going as far as they can and meeting the needs of our housing situations throughout the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned in my Minister's statement, as well, we are looking at doing a needs assessment with all of our communities and community housing plans. We would also encourage the private sector to invest in affordable housing. We do have the Community Support Initiative that we can work with, whether it is Indigenous governments or private industry. The Co-Investment Fund is another opportunity that we can work on addressing these issues. I encourage the private industry to reach out to us at the NWT Housing Corporation to have those discussions. Obviously, if we can get other partnerships...

I have made statements in the House on all the programs, the initiatives that we are doing through the NWT Housing Corporation, and I appreciate the Member making some good comments with our LHOs, our district offices, as well, trying to get out to the communities to address the needs and the maintenance and the operations, which is always a big issue. We are trying to address those, as well. Even, we are working with people who are in the home ownership.

The Member had mentioned senior housing. We do have a senior housing planning study that we are going to be using to look at where we need to...

I don't currently have a timeline for all 33 communities right now. As I mentioned in my Minister's statement, we do have to do a needs assessment. As I mentioned as well, one of the lessons learned through the Voices on Housing survey was the importance of local voices and local input in creating these housing plans. As I mentioned, it is going to require five steps; the pre-planning phase, the needs assessment, which is very important, as well as the housing plan, implementation, and monitoring. We want to have very good agreements in place with the communities as we move forward, the...

I would encourage the child, as I mentioned, to speak to somebody who they trust, who they can speak up to, whether it is a teacher, a parent, a close friend, or perhaps somebody of adult supervision in their lives, whether it is a care provider, but I encourage them to speak up, as I mentioned in the previous response. Anybody who is going through this doesn't deserve it, any type of abuse. I will be bringing it up at the national sports meeting that I will have later this week and see how we can address that, look at getting funding, and how we can create more awareness and prevention...

As I mentioned, all of our partners that we work with do take their responsibilities very seriously when working with our youth and our athletes. That's something I'll have to take a look into in terms of the policy for having that information shared with parents and the general public, as it is in a legal term, but it's something that we need to look at. Next week or later this week I will be meeting with my federal, provincial, and territorial counterparts in Red Deer prior to the Canada Summer Games, and we will be discussing it. One of the agenda items, actually, is prevention of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is helping to address the high cost of living in our territory by implementing northern solutions for northern housing. We are working with other governments and housing stakeholders to support Indigenous and local governments in their housing aspirations and create initiatives to address homelessness. As part of its strategic renewal, the Housing Corporation is developing community housing plans to guide and support strategic development and investment in each community.

In 2017, one of the key findings of the...