Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a Minister, I work with all of Cabinet, actually, to put forward our needs for finances. As stated earlier by me many times, actually, is that every department and Minister sitting here would like to have more money. The reality is that we do have to live within a fiscally-responsible environment considering the economy and, therefore, I do put my concerns forward. Unfortunately, the money tree is not as deep as I wish it would be. I can only cut off so many branches before the tree dies. So I do put forward my needs as every other Minister does, but we are all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, this fund is not meant to provide core funding. This fund is meant to provide stabilization to non-government organizations so that they can provide critical services for the Government of the Northwest Territories. There are requirements that are application-based. I would like to say that we wish that we could give to everyone. There are requirements though, etc. such as societies that apply for this fund have to be current. Those are some of the guidelines that we have. I will adhere to those guidelines because it is important.

As stated earlier, I wish I had...

It is important to note that this, the NGO Stabilization Fund, is not the only funding available to non-profit organizations within the communities. As a non-profit administrator for many years, this was actually supplementary funding. This was not the core funding that we received, so it is supplementary funding. it is about a state of pride and stabilization funding to non-government organizations that provide a critical service for the Government of the Northwest Territories that if we didn’t have them, we would have to provide those services ourselves.

Mr. Speaker, part of my role as the Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs is to ensure that we have a modern, responsive, and made-in-the-North legislative framework. This is no small task as Municipal and Community Affairs administers 19 statutes in areas that range from property assessment to emergency management to local elections. The department is currently working on several major legislative initiatives that were identified in the 18th Legislative Assembly’s mandate, or that have been directed by the Financial Management Board.

Mr. Speaker, the department is in the...

As stated earlier in my answers, we are actually just in the process of doing a full review of all services available to seniors, identifying how many seniors, what their needs are, and what the most effective way is to keep them not only in their homes, but comfortable, so that they can be in their homes and age in place. That process is just starting.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is actually just beginning to do a full study on seniors' needs, not only where they are most populated and where we should be building, but also what exactly they want within those buildings. We will be working with the Department of Health and Social Services because I know they have quite a bit of information. We will be working with the NWT Seniors' Society. We are looking at how better we can serve seniors, not only what their necessities are, but also what their wants are as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, after any kind of an emergency or an evacuation within a community, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs does do a review of the situation to see if there are issues that we could make better. I do want to put a call out to the community of Nahanni Butte. They did an awesome job of the evacuation. It was without incident. They did a really great job. There were some things, like I say, transferring to Fort Liard when they should have gone to Fort Simpson. Those are issues that we are looking at to see if we can make their plan better for the next time - hopefully not next...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Municipal governments are actually responsible for evacuation plans. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs works with them to develop their emergency evacuation plans and also to review them. If the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs asked residents to leave because we have deemed a need for an evacuation, then we will cover the costs. If the community takes it upon themselves to ask people to leave, then it is up to the community to deal with those costs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Every five years, the government of the Northwest Territories does a statistical analysis of all the residents in the Northwest Territories. Part of that actually addresses the housing needs within the territories, and that gives us our core need report. The last one was done in 2014; so I am expecting that fairly soon another full report will be done. At that time, it will break down exactly where the core needs are, if it is suitability, adequacy, or affordability. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do have to say that I am the Minister for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. I do not run the Department of Infrastructure, and I do hope the Department of Infrastructure is also working on winter roads because winter is right around the corner. I can say that we have 700 seniors currently in public housing units. We have 374 public housing units that are designated for seniors and/or disabled people. We built seniors' complexes within the last couple of years in Fort McPherson, Fort Good Hope, Fort Liard, Whati, and Aklavik.

We have increased programs for seniors. We have a...