Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The role of Municipal and Community Affairs is to support communities as best as possible. When it comes to water and waste water, we provide annual funding to the communities to develop it. We support them in developing their annual capital planning process. That planning process actually usually guides the communities to develop strategies for long-term projects such as a water treatment plant or big infrastructure projects. Then, once that has gone through that process, we will support the hamlets and communities in actually looking at what federal funding they can...

We are working diligently on it. Like I said earlier, we are on the timeline that we had talked about with the City of Yellowknife and the standing committee. We've been putting that timeline forward for over a year now.

What is stopping it there? There is nothing stopping the bill itself. However, to meet the timeline that the Member is wanting, if he wants it introduced during this sitting, it will be of great difficulty. We are just finishing the drafting of the legislative proposal. At that point, it will go to standing committee to accept their recommendations, which are processed. After...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't speak for Ministers from the other Legislative Assemblies. I'm not sure why they didn't move that forward. I'm sure that the honourable Member would have researched into that. However, I am committed to moving this forward within this Legislative Assembly.

Some of the feedback that we did hear right across was not only from the hotels, but there are a lot of stakeholders who we had to engage with. Some of the feedback that was voiced as concerns was: were territorial government employees going to get taxed? Were municipal governments going to get taxed? Were the...

For clarification, three of the units are currently occupied. They are not looking at it, so, out of those seven units that are looking at needing renovations, we are working with Chief Fabian. Because of capital plans, we have to make sure that we spread the wealth throughout all communities, all 33 communities, so, in this fiscal year we are looking at them working in partnership with the chief, with the band, to actually develop five units. Five of the remaining seven will be renovated. Like I said, we are hoping that the chief will come forward and provide us a proposal so that we are...

To divide down the actual monies from what we spend on actually supporting of youth and taking part in sports activities, and from what we pay staff, is a process that would take some time. If the Member would like, he can either present a written question or he can come to my office and I can provide him that information. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As stated, we do try to support local labour, whenever possible; sometimes it's not doable. We have committed. I mean, we do learn from previous mistakes; we're trying to better the programs so that people have better access to housing and better work experiences. So there are some things we're doing. We're doing a community initiative program that works with Aboriginal and municipal governments, in partnership, to deal with issues in their community; everybody having something in the pot. We are looking at individual community plans, such as we've done with Fort Good Hope, which was one of...

Basically, Mr. Speaker, why did I include the line in the bill, is my understanding of the question. So I'm going to try to state that without getting into trouble for talking about the bill. Basically, it's important that the -- I'm struggling to not talk about the bill.

It's important, Mr. Speaker, that all of the monies that are obtained through the Lottery Fund are protected and that we can actually use it for sports and recreation, which was the intent of that funding. So I am proposing that we would maintain that, as we have historically done, that we would do that in the future.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the NWT Housing Corporation does use the BIP process as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

No. The department doesn't consider funding provided through the youth programs as sports and recreation funding. Those are treated as separate budgets and have separate program delivery.

As a resident of the Northwest Territories myself, I have always felt that often people who are living in the South do not really recognize the needs of the Northwest Territories. We are often fit into models that "one size fits all." I do not believe in that model. I do not believe that one size fits all. I believe that every community, every territory, every province, has distinct needs and distinct strengths.

Within that philosophy, my own philosophy: every time I go down to meet with any federal Minister, I not only invite them, I almost beg them to come to the Northwest Territories to see...