Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That information is not in this. This is about money we are spending, not money we are collecting. That is in our audited financial statements. That amount is in there as a receivable. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, I can make that commitment. We had planned, as soon as the survey results were all compiled, that we would be providing a report on what we heard, and we would be providing that to committee as well. I am hoping that after that that we can actually meet more regularly with the committee to look at all of the feedback that we have got, to look at the areas that we are doing well, to look at the areas that we need improvement, and to actually work together to define the next steps.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. A few months back, in the fall I believe it was, all of the departments provided their business plans to the Legislative Assembly. Within that business planning process was broken down a list of capital projects, and so each community has, within those approved business plans that we have already done, a list of the capital projects for each community. That is what I am referring to. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the Member is correct, it does not have anything to do with land claims; however, the guiding principle is that the Government of the Northwest Territories does believe in self-governance, does believe in land claims, and so within that we are looking at ways to partner appropriately with our Aboriginal governments. It is not okay to just put lip service to it. So we are very flexible on what they look like. For example, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, they get their money now directly from the federal government. We have a partnership that says we'll provide land...

Thank you. I will take that as a comment. We are trying to address the issues. The other thing, too, is our communication. We do acknowledge that we are not the best about communicating and so we are looking at how to work that to get the word out to more people. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do believe that we are working with the Hay River Reserve as best as possible. These units that we're talking about, the 16 units, actually belong to them. Because they did not want to deal with the provision of community housing we did an agreement that we would take them on as NWT Housing Corporation.

We are more than open to meeting with them if they wanted to look at other options and other suggestions that they have to address the housing needs within their community.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our aim is to try to spread out the apprenticeship programs throughout the whole of the NWT as best as possible. However, in saying that, though, we do take a more of a community focused needs. If, for example, in one community, we already have two or three oil burner mechanics, we might not look at that community for an apprenticeship program at that time. We might focus it more on a community that has no oil burning mechanics at the moment. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. People who currently owe arrears to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, we try not to penalize anyone. Although at the same time, we do have to be fair to all residents in the Northwest Territories, so we cannot allow people not to pay their rent and then expect their neighbour to be paying their rent, and we have people waiting to get into units. People do need to know that if they come in and they make a repayment plan, and they pay for six months consecutively, they get back on the waiting list, so nobody actually should be penalized for longer than a six...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of arrears was a serious concern for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation for many years and, during the last Legislative Assembly, in order to try to assist communities and the local housing organizations with the collection of arrears, the decision was made by a past Minister to actually bring the collections internally into headquarters, which was, in my opinion, a very good move. It meant that the community people did not have to address their own neighbours with that, so a great move that I support 100 per cent.

Currently, what we do is, because...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The direction that we have given to the local housing organizations is that they need to use their surpluses, provide us with a plan on how they are going to use those surpluses to reinvest in housing stock and/or to do renovations to existing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.