Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my right is Ms. Eleanor Young. She is the deputy minister for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The honourable Member is incorrect. Actually, last year's funding did not have any increase for capital; it was only for operating and maintenance. This year is the same, so we have been trying to leverage the funding through the federal government to address the capital needs at this point.

I think it should be noted, though, at this point the capital for the next two years, the gas tax went up 2 per cent last year, was what he was talking about. With the federal infrastructure money the communities are actually fine for the two years because of the federal infrastructure...

Yes, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had made a commitment previously to not change the funding that is given out currently, even though we did do the funding review and found that some communities had surpluses and some communities had deficits. This funding is actually based on the old model. But, like I said, all new monies that come in are based on the newer model where we do address the communities and deficit first before the communities that have a surplus or their needs are met. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Earlier in today's session, the honourable MLA spoke about wanting to be able to reach a time that he would no longer have to say that housing on the Hay River Reserve was an issue. I would also like to reach a time that I can say housing within the Northwest Territories will never be an issue; however, I am not so sure that that will come during my term, but I can say that we are working diligently to address the issue of the wait list.

Housing is a major component of peoples' wellbeing. It's critical that people have a house. With the program renewal that we are currently in, there's a number...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You will see a strategy before Christmas. I will not be giving Christmas presents to everybody, though. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The process to actually get the 10 units under the Housing Corporation has taken a few years, actually. It was a huge process trying to negotiate with the federal government to get the land turned over to the Housing Corporation, so we are still in the process of trying to get the other six units secured from the federal government. I cannot give a timeline. All I do know is it took quite a bit of time to get the initial 10 units, but we are working diligently with the federal government to try to get this done as soon as possible.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, every community is expected to do a capital plan on an annual basis within that. That capital planning process looks at not only what communities need, but also the infrastructure that's in place and how long they're serviceable for, when they will need to be restructured, climate change, addressing climate change, addressing energy conservation, so all that is taken into consideration during the community's capital planning process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is important to note that not all communities are actually in a deficit position. Some communities are actually in a surplus position. However, any new revenues that we get, we try to focus on the communities that do have the deficit and within the needsbased model that we have developed to assess communities' financial standings. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs recognizes that physical literacy, physical activity, is actually something that we need to be promoting with youth from the very beginning until actually when people pass on. There are a number of ways that we actually support, specifically for Indigenous children and youth. We support the Aboriginal Sport Circle, which was stated with nearly $1 million for sports programming. That includes the traditional Indigenous Games, including the annual school championships that they do. We support them with canoeing, lacrosse, and archery, snowshoe...