Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled "Follow-up Letter for Oral Question 477-18(2): Housing Engagement Strategy." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The department provides supports to all community governments in the administration of their obligations as a government. When we notice that communities are having a little bit of difficulty, we actually bump up our support to those governments and offer to go in. It can be one-on-one. We can be working with them intensely. Again, once communities have identified a problem or we see a problem, we intensify our support to that community. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our beginning meeting will be at the beginning of the fiscal year in April. I am very hopeful that we will have it done in time for the end of the fiscal year. The reality is we are dealing with five organizations, so what I would like to see as a timeline might not be the same timeline that all of the five organizations -- there are some issues that need to be hashed out, so I do see it taking a little bit of time to deal with it appropriately. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One thing that I did forget to mention also, besides the radio and television, was the social media that we use as well. I do see it as quite cumbersome, and perhaps not very safe, actually, to be knocking on doors or calling residents individually, but when we develop the emergency plan, we will take that into consideration. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that was a master trainer position. It was a two-year term that sunsets, and it was never filled the whole time. That is why you are not seeing the difference. The money from that sunset was returned to Brilliant North, so we returned $100,000 to Brilliant North. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Currently, our commitment is that we would provide the findings of the survey to the Aboriginal and municipal governments. If they wanted to provide some feedback to us, we would be open to receiving it. However, we have asked each municipal government and each Aboriginal government to fill in the survey, not only independently but as a group, individual groups. We have them identified within the survey, so we will be taking the feedback from the municipalities and the Aboriginal governments and we will be considering that impact as well within our survey. Will I be doing another open house on...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The commitment to look at the positions isn't because we are doing the cuts now and looking at it later. The commitment to actually look at restructuring of the whole department is because we have a new Minister and a new deputy minister, and so it makes sense that, with new upper management, we would be looking at efficiencies and revisiting the whole of the department's services and programs.

I would also like to say again, to reiterate, that only three regions actually had this position before, so two regions were totally off the map and, those two regions, we never had...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is a variety. The ones that will meet with the organizations will be more towards the group sports and recreation activities. We do have some programs that individuals alone can apply for as well, schools can apply for. We have a whole host of programs to meet the health and wellness needs of residents of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, when there are emergencies such as a forest fire, we do have a public alerting protocol that we have in place. We are working with corporate communications as well to develop a more thorough public alerting. We are reviewing our emergency plans as well, so we are in that process currently. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I am trying to be as inclusive of the Regular Members as possible, so once we have done this review, any work that we do with the stakeholders, we will actually bring forward to the standing committee to provide a report. Thank you, Mr. Chair.