Caroline Cochrane

As a Minister, I am committed to addressing the wait list of people waiting for housing. It's a priority of my own. It's also a priority for all of the MLAs who have made a motion in the House to address 250 homes taking them out of core need; and so I am working diligently at meeting that figure and exceeding it is my goal. So, we have quite a few. Currently, and they remain in force, we have a CARE major program that gives up to $100,000 a year. We have a CARE minor program that gives up to $10,000 a year. We have a SAFE program that gives up to $10,000 a year, and with the SAFE program, you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Evictions are not an easy thing. When I first came in, my objective was to be able to provide people with the tools so that they could obtain, maintain, and retain their housing. Eviction does not fit within any of those priorities of my own. It is a last resort. It has always been a last resort for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. The process we go through is, first of all, the local housing organizations work closely with the tenants to try to get them to deal with their arrears and set up a repayment plan. If that follows through, then the process is...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 1, Western Canada Lottery Act, be read for the second time.

This bill establishes the Northwest Territories Lottery Commission. It also establishes the Physical Activity, Sport, and Recreation Fund, a special purpose fund that will receive proceeds from the operation of lotteries by the Western Canada Lottery Corporation. The commission is responsible for the conduct, management, and operation of lotteries. The Minister will administer the fund and distribute proceeds for limited purposes, including the...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents entitled "Towards Level Ground: Addressing Persistent Core Need in the Northwest Territories" and the "NWT Housing Corporation Annual Report 2016-2017." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As stated earlier, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has actually been working quite diligently with the federal government to leverage the infrastructure monies that are coming. Communities such as the City of Yellowknife are actually getting a substantial amount of the federal infrastructure monies, whereas other communities who have a surplus are not getting that amount, so I am not a hundred per cent convinced that any tax increases to the residents of Yellowknife are only because of the $1-million shortfall.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are in the process of developing a long-term plan to address the funding gap for municipalities. That is a commitment. Currently what we are doing is every year, there has been an increase in some of the areas from the territorial governments, and we are leveraging with the federal government's monies to access more infrastructure money.

Communities that are at a surplus currently have been kind of topped, or are staying at that level, and then we are focusing on the communities that have a deficit with the new monies that we are bringing in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, it was kind of interesting when I started this position. My understanding as the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation was that I was to put houses on the ground. It was a short time later that I realized that actually a large percentage of the Housing Corporation's money does go to providing employment in communities. Not only do we provide jobs for maintaining and building units. We have 23 local housing organizations in communities that we provide support for, too, so a huge amount of our money is actually going...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, the delivery of modular units throughout the whole Northwest Territories, that has kind of kicked me off. I am going to try to answer this. My belief is that we had 19 constructed, to be constructed with Concept Energy, and one to be constructed with the Energy Wall here, in Yellowknife. So, we have eight that are partially built with Concept, and we have one completed with Energy Wall. We have four that are delivered to communities at this point, we will still need some work on, so at this point we are still short some, but I cannot do the math at this point.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to make a clarification. In my answer before, I had said that we were half-Indigenous and half-Caucasian. That is incorrect. I have been corrected from the other side of the House, and they are absolutely right. We are about half Indigenous and half non-Indigenous. I do clarify that there are other people within our territory as well.

In regards to directing the staff to look into the history of the social housing, I will make my answer short and say yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, that was two questions. I will do my best at answering. I can say that no, I have not examined a treaty, but I can say that the federal government last year gave the territorial government $28,673,000. That is $28 million. That works out to less than a million dollars per community. It actually works out to $868,878 per community; that is less than a million.

The territorial government put in last year $81,702,000, which works out to almost $2,500,000 per community. Statistics show that our population in the Northwest Territories is half Indigenous, half Caucasian...