Bill Braden

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation and it’s a follow through. First question, it’s a follow through to an area that I know the Minister has himself favoured in another life of this Assembly, Mr. Speaker, and it’s about affordability and availability of housing, especially on a rental side. Mr. Speaker, while the private sector and their investment is the ideal way to address this issue, we are seeing here in Yellowknife continuing upward pressure on rents and availability; and in a report that I heard on the...

Madam Chair, I move that we report progress.

Thank you. I think I have my answer there. The areas that I believe our corporation has not explored and that I would like to see some more action on, more investigation on, Mr. Speaker, are things like tax breaks to developers who create housing for lower and middle income people, and modest grants. I am not talking about something that is going to be a market disrupter, but I would like to see modest grants to developers for that area. Work with tax-based municipalities in order to help them afford some tax incentives for people, investors, to develop this kind of thing. That is where I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Loan Guarantee Program I am familiar with and I know there has been some uptake and it is a good program. But what else can government do? I suggest that there are a number of other areas in conjunction with working with other levels of government, including our partners in municipalities, to provide incentives and tax breaks and things like this. Our corporation could be a major stimulator or catalyst for this kind of thing. I would like to ask the Minister, is the Housing Corporation considering going into other areas to help stimulate private sector...

Mr. Speaker, one of the major elements of our society and our economy today, in terms of things that are not working very well for us, continues to be the shortages, and in some areas, some sectors, Mr. Speaker, a crises in social and affordable housing across the Northwest Territories. This applies to small communities and, of course, here in Yellowknife we’re on a sustained situation with this difficulty.

Our Housing Corporation tells us that there are across the Territories some 3,000 families in core need of a safe, affordable place to live. Mr. Speaker, this situation continues to erode...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To continue on the social side of that ledger, battered and abused women and their children used emergency shelters at a rate eight times the national average in the year 2001-2002, and yet this Legislature is struggling with how to trim our budget by $20 million in each of the next two years. In the meantime, over those same two years, Ottawa will reap in excess of an estimated $350 million from our resources. What’s wrong with this picture? Are we destined to be only a cash cow for the federal treasury while our people catch only a few crumbs of precious resources as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Premier. My final question is if we have a discussion and negotiation process underway, then does our government have a mandate that is brought to this negotiation? Would the Premier be able to release that mandate? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Premier for the answer, but there’s really not much substance to this. We have had discussions and talks going on, we have meetings arranged and some of them are yet to come, some of them are cancelled. Where is the process? Where is the mechanism by which we’re going to see devolution achieved? I would refer to the process that the federal government engaged in over the last four years and spent considerable money -- in the millions -- to help lift this process off the ground. But I don’t hear from the Premier that there’s actually anything happening right now other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize Ms. Barb Hood, the executive director of the NWT Seniors' Society, a frequent visitor to the gallery. I would like to welcome her again. Thank you.

---Applause

Mr. Speaker, thank you. This summer has, as the Premier has reflected in his sessional statement, seen a level of activity that can only guarantee that the NWT’s future as one of Canada’s most vibrant and vigorous economies will continue. The overall economic growth for 2003 here in the NWT was 10.6 percent; six times that of Canada. Over the next three years or so we will see two new diamond mines constructed: Snap Lake in the NWT and the nearby Jericho project in Nunavut. We will see the continuing acceleration of production at the other diamond mines. Mr. Speaker, both Diavik and BHP earn...