Bill Braden

Yes, Mr. Speaker, thank you. My question is would the department continue with its strategy to fund the development, the capital cost, and then seek a suitable operator or owner? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the concerns about the -- the folk festival aside -- one of the concerns, a business case concern was that at 36 sites and the lack of opportunity for expansion, this would really not be an adequate one for us. What are the projections and what would an ideal size be for a RV park here in Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker?

...for her second album Sedze. It was only the latest in a string of awards for this talented young woman, Mr. Speaker. She had previously been recognized by the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards as the best female artist and songwriter for her first CD Spirit World, Solid Wood. That CD is also recognized as the best folk album.

Leela Gilday is a First Nations singer born and raised in Yellowknife. Of course, the achievements of her father, Bill, are known far and wide. He has a long history in Yellowknife and the NWT. He’s the founder and the mainstay of the Gumboots, which have several CDs...

Okay. So we are blending a health issue, housing issue, a staffing issue all in a bundle here. I am beginning to understand now, comprehend the intention here and I don’t find any argument with it, but the manner in which it’s presented is very obtuse, Mr. Chair. I guess it makes me a bit frustrated in having to deal with these sums because $800,000 is no trifling matter.

I also wanted to ask, Mr. Chair, it’s called contribution funding to the NWT Housing Corporation. Is this new contribution funding that we are turning over to the Housing Corporation or is it a transfer from ECE of money...

Okay. What is the difficulty or what are the issues that ECE is encountering that it cannot administer this along with so many of the other contribution programs that are made through housing? Madam Chair, it’s quite a confusing piece of work here. I am just trying to make sure I am not missing anything here.

Madam Chair, one of the items under the directorate, $798,000 is to provide contribution funding associated with the transfer of public housing rental subsidy funding for seniors’ assisted living and seniors’ caretaker housing units from ECE to the NWT Housing Corporation. Madam Chair, we just went through quite a turnaround here over the last couple of years of moving operation money from the Housing Corporation to ECE; now we are moving some back. I would appreciate an explanation, for the record, of what this $800,000 contribution funding is going to do that otherwise can’t be done or can...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, wanted to put a little bit of a focus on the survey and the conference items there. While they were contained in a briefing that committee got, Madam Chair, I don’t recall the details myself. So this is not a surprise in here, but I think it would be, it’s not very often that money is attached to the descriptions of these things that committee hears about. That comes up now and we’re looking at $75,000, for instance, for the survey and I believe Mr. Handley told us that this would cover 750 people. So in one sense it boils down to $100 a person to do a survey...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, stand in support of the motion. Mr. Speaker, my family has long been involved in volunteer organizations that deal with youth and people who are in vulnerable positions and it is, I think, very much standard practice and best practice in organizations, progressive organizations, that this kind of caution, this kind of due diligence, if you will, is something that is very commonly exercised. In fact, I think it’s a condition of the insurance that many of these organizations need, that they have this kind of policy and this kind of practice in place.

Implementin...

Mr. Speaker, does the department anticipate that this would be a territorially run RV site, as many others are in the NWT, or is the objective to find a private owner or private operator, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Investment. It’s a bit of a step-off from the statement that he made advising the House of the new reservation system for campers and RVs coming to the NWT. I applaud that; I think it’s a great way to show the NWT’s on board with the modern tourism industry. We’ve been engaged in an exercise here in Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker, to create more space, more capacity for RVers who want to come up our newly paved highway and, hopefully, try out, in a few years, our newly built Deh Cho Bridge.

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