Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In all honesty, since the time I have been a Minister I can't speak for the time before me I have had no one come to me and complain and say that they couldn't access the CARE major or any of our programs because your EnerGuide 80 is too high for them. I have never heard that complaint.

What I have heard, complaints for the CARE programs, is the copayment, so I am not a hundred per cent sure. If people do come to me and say it is because they can't meet the energy efficiency, I would look at that, but that hasn't been my experience. It has been around the copayments, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to say that I take a little bit of offence to the Member's statement. As the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation, I feel that we have done a lot of work with the Hay River Reserve. Especially, before, we didn't have land tenure; it was a huge issue. We have negotiated with the federal government. We have gotten the land tenure for the 10 units. We are still negotiating with the federal government to get land tenure for six more units. We are working with the community. The community can access services through the Housing Corporation. Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are working very closely with the local housing organizations to identify the apprenticeship needs within their communities. We do have funds for it, and we will be rolling out the extra positions right away, as soon as we can get people. Like I said, training in itself is a huge focus that we will be looking at within our program renewal, not only on training people to maintain their own homes, but training community people to be able to provide the services within their communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, there was a request for proposals out to support three communities; actually, four communities. Only three communities actually applied for that funding at the time. We did save the money for a fourth community, which allows us to branch into the Sahtu to deal with that money. We are open to all ideas to address homelessness. Homelessness is not only about having shelters. Homelessness is about having permanent residents to support people. Within that continuum of care, you need to look at shelters. You need to look at single units. You need to look at training for...

As the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, I have made it a priority to try to work with Aboriginal governments and municipal governments to try to address their housing needs, so it was really an honour, actually, to be invited to sit in on a partnership with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.

So during the next fiscal year they will be accessing $10 million from the federal government towards their housing needs. We are working with them in partnership. We will be looking at defining what the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation would like to see as their...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The total at the end of the fiscal year was $5,762,221 with the local housing organizations. I agree, it is not appropriate. We have asked all of the local housing organizations to provide us a game plan on what they are going to do with their surpluses because that money should be going into people's homes.

Also, in our budget, you will see there is a decrease of $212,000 that we have put into the local housing organizations. The reason we are doing that is, if they have over a $5 million surplus, we need to reuse that money for different areas, but it will be casebycase...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do try to do the apprenticeships through the local housing organizations. We have made exceptions, though, when the local housing organization does not have the Journeyman certification to provide the training. So again, clarification saying that preferably within the local housing organizations but we will make exceptions if there is no other option. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The increase to the Nahendeh District is actually $310,000. That is the modified SAFE program for seniors. We will get Aging-in-Place, we will get $82,000 of that and they amortization increase is $228,000 for additional assets coming into service. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have already committed to exploring the idea of more cooperatives as an option. I will also commit to bringing that to the other departments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is correct that we only have 12 certified. It does, again, lead an area that we need to look at. We do have nine who are in currently in our apprenticeship programs, and it does identify that we need to look at the reasons that people are not completing our apprenticeship programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.