Job sharing, seasonal jobs and reduced-time jobs are important factors in the quality of life. Providing people with job opportunities geared to today’s northern lifestyle would yield happier and more productive workers with healthier families and communities. It may well yield improved attention and attraction of new northern families.

I urge this government to pursue this opportunity soon, and I will have questions for the Minister. Mahsi.

I appreciate the Minister’s response. I wonder if committee could be provided with an inventory of the art and the space in the building, the wall space or whatever, floor space, dedicated to the display of art in the facility according to the new policy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t really have specific questions, so I will keep my comments to general remarks here. I really would just like to acknowledge that the great majority, probably 95 percent is carry-over from largely infrastructure projects, and it is indeed a great amount, $67 million. But on the other hand, it’s down in percentages in what our carry-over has been for the last several years. It’s been up to 30 to 35 percent and this year it’s down to 20 percent, and I’d like to acknowledge that we did a good job in the previous year at completing our infrastructure projects, or at...

I understand that these are sort of two separate questions in a way. I guess, in terms of registering our liability for our public accounts, which I believe is a part of this exercise, how would those be handled where securities have been assessed but not collected or secured for operating sites? How would that be accounted for?

Thanks for that response. So, did we do any fieldwork on this? Was there an attempt to build in the area of contamination, the degree of contamination, the depth of contamination, that sort of thing, in toward building these estimates? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks again to the Minister. Given the benefits the new models will bring to our residents and communities, allowing people to pursue traditional seasonal land-based activities and so on and becoming more involved in community and family building, and if the results of the Minister’s survey indicate high interest, will the Minister commit to the pursuit of a more flexible range of job options within the civil service for the people of the Northwest Territories? I see this as a nicely contained thing that can be done before the end of this Assembly. Mahsi.

Thanks to the Minister. It’s that sort of straightjacketed model that I’m saying needs to be blown a little bit wide open with some innovation.

Currently, the vast majority of jobs in the NWT are traditional full-time, 8:30 to 5:00, five days a week model based on one PY. Many people would be happier seeking employment based on a different model. In fact, there is no reason in the world why a job should be one PY. Jobs vary highly. It’s how we categorize. Let’s put some imagination to that.

What proportion of our jobs would the Minister know vary from the typical 8:30 to 5:00 one PY model? He...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize our Pages today, particularly Emma Willoughby. I’m not sure if she’s in the House at this moment, but she’s around somewhere. Also, of course, I’d like to recognize her mother, Catherine Boyd, in the gallery with us today. Thanks very much for all of the things you do on behalf of the MLAs.

Obviously, 894 people for our population is very shameful. We have to do a better job. When people who lack safe, warm, secure housing see unoccupied Housing Corporation dwellings with no tenants in them being heated through consecutive winters, they are understandably frustrated and feel that this is a horrible waste and an unjust use of scarce public resources.

So, what changes in policy are being contemplated? I thought we’d done this already. This is going on for years. What policies are being contemplated or will we finally act to make sure that in the face of the desperate needs we see...

Thanks to the Minister. I heard 894 people. I believe they would be families. People.

---Interjection