Bob Bromley

Thanks to the Minister. This is the latter case, policy failures. I hope I’ve exemplified that in yet another example here. I would encourage the Minister of the Social Envelope Committee to speak to his colleagues. That’s why I’m speaking to this Minister on cross-departmental issues. I cannot speak to each of them and address these issues. That’s why we’re failing and that is exactly why we have a Social Envelope Committee. I encourage the Minister to find out why it is that the Housing Corporation has a limit on public housing as well, at the same time ECE is paying sky high market rents...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to welcome all the folks from Hay River. It’s really great to see this bunch, and it’s an annual event and I welcome it. I’d also like to recognize John McFadden, a fellow from the media that many of us have come to know through his work. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would just quickly like to ask about the same project, if there was any consideration going with a higher grade surfacing. As we know, the Ingraham Trail is plagued with high cost for replacing surfacing. The Yellowknives Dene have used a very high grade material in their surfacing of the road in Ndilo. I’ve been quite impressed with the way that’s standing up compared to all other applications of paving that I’ve seen recently and certainly on Highway No. 3 and Highway No. 4. So, has there been any consideration? Is it too late to give that some consideration even if...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A good segue; thanks to Member Nadli for that. We are facing a housing crisis in Yellowknife. We all experience the high cost of living, and especially housing in Yellowknife, but government policies are causing people with the lowest incomes and housing issues to struggle more than ever.

Local organizations that help people with low income note that waiting lists for their low-income housing programs are longer than they’ve ever seen them. The same is true for public housing units. The lists are so long that for most people they are not a viable option. People end up...

I understand that we have very little extra on the Snare power line. So is that with development of Whati hydro power potential? Thank you.

Thanks to the deputy minister for that. My understanding was the latest was $12 million and came in at $30 million, but either way obviously a substantial increase, but on the other hand there is a significant demand for both heat and power in that community to which we subsidize probably over $1 million per year, and there’s also a mine being proposed not far from the community, the NICO Mine, Fortune Minerals. I think I’m just not convinced that we are doing the strategic thinking we need to do to enable these projects to actually go forward beyond feasibility studies. Partly I understand...

I appreciate that. I suspect the next question might be the same response. How many millions of dollars have we now spent on Whati project feasibility studies without ever having actually done a project there? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. That’s good to hear.

The next item there, the biomass boiler in the Deninu School in Fort Resolution, I’m very happy to see that going to that community. I think it will help establish a bit of a biomass market there and it’s also very much in line with their forest management agreements and some of the jobs they are contemplating and activities they are contemplating. So I am supportive of that.

I am wondering what the source of the $300,000 is for that project.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate my colleague’s questions and the Minister’s responses on this issue. This is, in fact, at least the second step that I know of. I believe that right in the 16th Assembly we did spend about $88,000 to do the first round of this. This is overdue. I’m very happy to see it going forward and I’m sure my colleagues will join me in supporting this.

The participation of people with disabilities is really a fundamental concept I think we all subscribe to and that has not been enabled with the current accessibility, even though we meet standards and we’ve made some...

The Minister didn’t answer the question. I’ll just give him the question again here. Given the sliding scale and relative stability of public housing, why aren’t we going with that while making the public productive choices that we encourage? It’s much more effective to have that than a situation where monthly rent can jump from zero to thousands of dollars through the Income Support Program. That was the question. The Minister didn’t even touch on that. I will grant you that I’m dense and I didn’t understand something, if that helps.

Would the Minister agree that private landlords, such as...