Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions of the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Krutko, and it’s in relation to seniors’ housing programs, Mr. Speaker. We’ve heard quite a bit in the last couple of days about a program that enables seniors who have significant personal wealth to be treated as anyone else is who has essentially no income and can have access to housing provided for almost entirely by the taxpayer.

I have heard significant objections to this here in the House. I have had calls from constituents. I have heard it on the media. To...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a couple of questions to Mr. Roland, the Minister for Public Works and Services. This relates to the arrangement that our government has with the YWCA. This provides them with a very valuable multi-storey apartment building located in my riding and it’s part of their housing infrastructure and the services that they provide to the community.

Mr. Speaker, this apartment building, the Rockhill Apartments, is made available through a lease. It’s my information that this lease is expiring within the next year or perhaps two and that the building is going to be in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister has he communicated the urgency of this situation, the pressing nature of the requirement to have this panel assembled and this hearing implemented, Mr. Speaker?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Fourteen months ago, this Assembly passed a motion requesting the Auditor General of Canada to do some very specific and very important work on our behalf. We asked that her office look into the area of claims management for injured workers in the Workers' Compensation Board. We asked her to look and see whether claims were processed fairly, efficiently and impartially, that the appeals tribunal performs its work in a like manner, that the governance counsel’s oversight functions are adequate and that the roles and relationship of the board and the stakeholders are clearly...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for repeating the oft-heard review and the chronology of this program in this House. I don’t need to go over the old ground on this, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we recognize that even though a program may have been set up with good intentions 10 years ago, circumstances change and we have to be ready to address it when those things become apparent. This is all I am asking of the Minister. With the concerns of the validity of a couple of aspects of this program, it seems that we really do have something here that we need to address. In the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the investment that goes into the building on an ongoing basis I am sure is appreciated. Also of concern to the YWCA is the renewal of the lease. This is something that I understand we have been working on, but, of course, timing is always of some significance, Mr. Speaker. I am wondering if the Minister could advise how negotiations are going and when a conclusion might be expected, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given that this is a specialized task and the appointment of the new tribunal member will require some orientation, some training, some familiarization with the job. All things considered, I am wondering if I can get some sense of when we would be able to see this hearing date actually set for this tribunal hearing, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a couple of questions of Mr. Dent as the Minister -- a couple of questions perhaps, as many as the Speaker will allow -- of the Workers’ Compensation Board of the NWT and Nunavut. Last December, the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories ruled on the case of Mr. Ivan Valic, an injured worker and his efforts to have a new hearing before a reconstituted appeals tribunal. In that time, in that approximately five months, there have been some procedural issues regarding finding impartial panel members to appoint to such a tribunal. The...

Mr. Chairman, thank you. I appreciate the Minister’s very patient explanation of all this stuff, but you know, he’s pointed out one of the obvious stages in here, gaps, that for whatever reason or cause the routine step of getting this into the business plan was missed. One of the steps that I’m familiar with and very comfortable with when it comes to getting things into the business plan is bringing an issue or problem or situation before standing committee. I sit on the Standing Committee on Social Programs, which has oversight responsibility for ECE. I do not recall in the four or five...

Mr. Chairman, as my colleague Mrs. Groenewegen has said, the people of Fort Simpson deserve better. They deserve to know that there is going to be a long-term solution and answer in getting this piece of infrastructure established. That is probably the most important reason why I am voting against this. We really are not helping this community. We are going to end up disappointing them again because beyond the two to four years that this program might keep the building open, there is nothing.

Mr. Chairman, as has already been said here, it’s an embarrassment that this request has made it this...