Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Unfortunately, the request from the MLA requesting that I extend it because of the low numbers within the community just came to me the other day. I felt that I am working with them, working in consensus government, to try to meet the needs of the Members, and, in all honesty, for the best programs for the residents of the Northwest Territories.

I did not sit down and do a cost analysis. However, the survey itself can take between  it depends how much time you want to put into it. It can take between 15 minutes to three hours. Some organizations have taken many days to...

The MLA is correct that the survey is actually open to whoever wishes to fill in the survey. The majority of results are coming from people that are accessing housing programs. Again, that is compiled through Survey Monkey. I have stated that I will not hire someone for every community  it would be a huge amount of money  but I can look at any community that does not have either a local housing organization or a government service officer in that community, if there are any communities, then I will consider hiring someone for that community, but, any communities that have either a local...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was no intention during the development of this process that we would be looking at cutting these positions. We value them, as well. A future cut, I can say that within my term as the Minister of MACA I will not terminate these positions. However, I cannot state further than my position. So, there was no intention. I can't give a guarantee forever, but, as long as I am the Minister, that is not my intention. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I thought it was Housing for a second. Yes, so we can talk about it. At the beginning, the three positions that the MLA is referring to, we are still working on it, and the reason is because within the Sutcliffe Report there were some recommendations on job descriptions. We also felt it was important, so we consulted with stakeholders in the areas, the applicable stakeholders and the staff to develop more comprehensive job descriptions. Because we are looking at being able to utilize our skills in a more appropriate way, so we're hoping that we can actually have positions...

Unfortunately, the mayor for the City of Yellowknife was not at the meeting last night. We are still committed to working with the City of Yellowknife; however, we have an obligation whenever we make any legislative changes that we actually consult with all of the concerned parties, all of the municipal governments concerns. So we will abide by that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last evening, ironically, I just met with the NWT Association of Communities and they also had some concerns regarding the recommendations from the City of Yellowknife, so I have agreed to also work with them. So at this moment we are just in the process of pulling together a meeting so that all communities' municipal governments have a say in where we're going with the recommendations from the City of Yellowknife. Thank you.

The department actually reviewed and considered all of the recommendations contained within the report. At the moment, we are working on the implementation of the most critical ones, so right now we're looking at establishing in our legislation a special fund for the lottery operations. We are also in the process of calling together our five partnering sports organizations. The purpose of that will be to review the sectorialwide policy, and, also, we will be looking at all of the recommendations within the report, to obtain their feedback on where we should be moving forward.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs selected the contractor for this project through the standard request for proposal process, so that means we put out a call for proposals that was publicly distributed. The Sutcliffe Group was the only respondent to this request for proposals, but their bid matched the criteria that we were looking for in the request for proposals. Therefore, we awarded the contract to this group. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I do recognize that the Members have issues that they want to ensure that I push through during this Legislative Assembly, but the Members have also asked for transparency and accountability. So within that, in trying to honour the wishes around transparency and accountability, we need to do due diligence, and that does mean consulting with all stakeholders when any major legislative changes are to be made.

Since the meeting that we had last night was my first meeting with the NWT Association of Communities, we never actually set a date. We did agree that we would meet, and so as soon as I know more when the date is confirmed, I will let the honourable Member know.