Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize the North Slave Metis Alliance, the board of directors, Mr. Bill Enge, personal friend, Mark Whitford, Arnold Enge, and Alan Harman. They were strong supporters through my campaign and they are still strong supporters to this day. I appreciate all you've done to support me. I wouldn't be here without you.
I also want to recognize some personal and family friends who are in the audience; Ms. Francis Lafferty, I apologize if you have a different last name, I've always known you as Francis Lafferty; Cindy Jeske, I saw, and Marilyn Erasmus...
When I talked to the first question and was answering about what our policies are, we do have a policy that says that if someone is convicted of a criminal offence, the local housing organization can -- and specify "can," not "shall" -- can terminate that one person and ask for the other family members to be able to stay. "Can" is not good enough for me in our policy renewal.
We are looking at it within a gender-based analysis, which means: how does that affect people? When I look at the gender-based analysis within the Residential Tenancies Act, currently, it only states that we can ask one...
Absolutely. I consider it a problem that we have people who are maybe selling drugs or maybe bootlegging in our housing units. We have children in those units. We have family members. It is a concern. However, I am bound by the law, and as so, we have to respect the law. The law does specify what exactly we can do when we look at evictions. Although I would love to be able to go and kick out drug dealers, suspected, or every bootlegger, I have to abide the law, which says that I have to have proof.
We do look at it. We do take responsibility. We recognize that we need to make our housing units as safe as possible for all residents of the Northwest Territories. We can't act on speculation, though. We need to recognize that people have human rights. We get a lot of people who complain about their neighbours. We can't just jump on every complaint. We need proof. I do hear the community, and I do hear that it is an issue. I am encouraging people to actually step forward and actually bring it to our attention, but also call the RCMP.
We are bound by the law. Like I said, one of the factors...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our current policy on bootlegging or selling drugs, trafficking, is that we do follow the Residential Tenancies Act, which says that no one shall commit an illegal act or permit another person to do so. That is in our lease that people sign, that they are not allowed to do that. If that someone is reported to the local housing organization that they suspect their neighbour is selling drugs or bootlegging and is causing a disturbance, the local housing organization will go over and ask the person who the complaint is against to make sure they don't disturb their...
The MLA is correct. The Government of the Northwest Territories provided Sport North with the funding to provide transportation for the youth. As stated earlier, I will check into Sport North and, if they did have a charter, so transportation arranged from the community of Fort Simpson, and the youth did not get a chance to do that, then I will not reimburse them out of pocket because that was part of the deal. If they were asked to make their way to Yellowknife to get onto a plane and they were not reimbursed for that, then I will look into that and provide reimbursement for that cost if that...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe there were a couple of youth who, because they were weathered in, took the chance and they actually drove to Yellowknife to see if they could get a flight, which they couldn't get as well. It was, I believe, weathered in.
My understanding was that, the next day, the weather cleared in Simpson. I may be wrong, but that is my understanding, that the weather cleared and that they might have been able to get to the event if they had stayed. That may be incorrect, but what is important to note is that Sport North did pay for flight arrangements for all of the youth...
Yes, it was kind of dismaying for me to hear that, all of these years that we have been providing the multisport games, this has been an issue, so I have made it a priority that we will look at options, like I had said earlier, that we need to make sure as many children as possible, as many youth as possible, have a chance for these games. These sometimes change people's lives, and so it is critical that we look at this and we make it a priority, so I will make it a priority to make sure that we look at all available options so that more youth can attend the trials, at least, for the games.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The honourable Member is correct that each Territorial Sport Organization is supposed to have a selection process. Within that, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, however, does not take part in the selection process. We do know that we are notified whenever an appeal is brought forward. I will make sure that all of the Territorial Sport Organizations do have an appeal process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As I said before, the Sport North Association paid for transportation costs to get all the youth there. Based on that, then, I cannot ask them to refund for youth who took alternative methods. I will look into it, though, and make sure that Sport North only had the charter from Yellowknife and that there was no other option, understanding that, of course, the charter, if there was one from Simpson, was weathered in. If there was a charter arranged to get the youth from Simpson, then I will not reimburse that. If there was an expectation that the youth would have to find their way to jump on a...