Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am as confused as the Member in trying to understand why we got short-changed in the northern housing strategy, and so I am actually flying down to Ottawa this Sunday to meet with the Minister responsible for the CMHC, Mr. Duclos. Mr. Duclos, right after the budget was released, did give me a call the next day and promised me that he would provide me a funding formula, because we do support our other territories; however, Nunavut has double of the amount of needs for housing and got eight times the funding. We are asking for an explanation for why we got short-changed...

We are working diligently with the federal government as well, and CMHC has made an agreement to put a hold on the declining funding just for this year, but they have still stated that in 2038, those operating and maintenance monies will be gone. With that in effect, we have to look at ways that we can actually support our residents in the Northwest Territories in meeting their housing needs.

At this point, I am not looking at increasing our public housing units, but I do believe that the Rent Supplement Program for the City of Yellowknife would address that need. For example, if I build one...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Diversifying our economy was one of the priorities identified within this Legislative Assembly, and so it is important that municipalities also look at diversifying their economies, as well. Tourism is a great opportunity within the Northwest Territories, as proven by our capital city and the City of Yellowknife, so I would recommend that all municipalities, towns, et cetera, contact the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment to find out what programs and services they have that they can actually access to support tourism within their municipalities.

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has done a cross-jurisdictional analysis of hotel levies to see within other jurisdictions how they are presented, how they are run, what the costs look like, et cetera, so we have done that research. We are also working with the City of Yellowknife very closely. We have had over six meetings with them since October, developing a discussion paper that we will be bringing forward to other stakeholders.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a member from a constituency from Range Lake, also the chair of the Montessori school, Mr. David Wasylciw. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Sport North right now has the Kids Sport program, and they provide support to families that have a demonstrated economic need, so lower income families can apply for that to access sports and recreation facilities. We also have the two regional recreation associations that will take applications to address accessibility, and the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is willing to provide the information to any families that need support in not knowing where to get the applications for these supports provided.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs actually supports the various sports organizations throughout the Northwest Territories to provide services to the residents. The territorial sports organizations themselves decide where the selection of camps will be. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

They are a little bit different from the municipal government courses that we provide through the School of Community Governments. There are two types of community governments. They are governed by different legislation, they have different authorities, and the reporting arrangements, as well, are different to deliver their programs and services.

Bands generally perform services in the areas of governance, culture, language, membership services, and areas in health, social services, and justice. Municipal governments, on the other hand, generally perform services in water distribution, waste...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The availability of the training online is one method of reaching people to access their training needs. The reality is that online training does not work for all residents in the Northwest Territories. We also want to make sure that we can also provide face-to-face training and community group-based training as required, so that we meet all of the different learning styles that people have. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Rent Supplement Program will be exactly that. It will not be supplementing units that we already own within the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. They will be supplementing market rental units so that we can reach more lower-income families and individuals within our market communities.