Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, homelessness in our communities is a critical issue that we need to address together. Homelessness is complex and affected by many factors. People who are homeless often have traumatic past and current lives, most struggle with mental health issues, behavioural concerns, and/or addictions that need to be addressed. Because homelessness is complex, approaches that don’t include collaboration, or that are not sustainable don’t work.

Collaboration begins with those with lived experience, it extends to all sectors of government, and to each of us as individuals...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that is correct. These units are to accommodate the RCMP members. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Member is correct in many means. I mean, the Auditor General does work with the department very closely to address the areas. They look at the plan. They address the areas where they are going to look at. They ask questions. They ask for research. They get documents back. They ask more questions. So it is quite a process. The department does have some knowledge, preliminary, even guesstimates, preliminary, on where the audit is going to go. They are provided a draft. Then they are allowed to put recommendations in that. I believe it is a last chance to appeal any of the decisions that are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The lifespan that we're working towards with both, either modular, stick built or panel, all of them is a 50-year lifespan, so we are working towards that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That is a really tough question to answer directly and say yes or no. The reality is that we are in the process of doing the engagement survey, we have committed to doing community plans, individual community plans, for each community. If a community states to us that singles in their community is their number one priority, then that's where we'd be focusing our efforts. So it does depend on what the community surveys come back with.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to update the Members on how the Governments of Canada and the Northwest Territories are making investments in our communities that will bring economic opportunities for residents and businesses and revitalize municipal infrastructure.

On September 6, 2016, federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, Amarjeet Sohi, and the Northwest Territories Deputy Premier, Robert C. McLeod, signed a bilateral agreement for the Clean Water and Wastewater Fund and Public Transit Fund. This agreement will see the federal government providing over $50...

Yes, actually we just put out this year a pilot project for single/bachelor fourplexes in the communities of Fort Simpson, Behchoko and Aklavik, and we will be doing an evaluation of those fourplexes to see how they work, and if favourable, we will be moving forward with that.

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has actually come a long way in a short time. The department has really focused on water quality which is important to our residents as well. So we actually did really well in our audit around water quality so I am quite proud of that. We do have issues in other areas, but until we've actually sat down -- we were just presented the report yesterday, so until we've actually sat down and done a thorough analysis of all of the recommendations, we won't be able to look at any restructuring until we have looked at it thoroughly and see where we need...

As the Member has stated I am fairly new to the portfolio. My assumption is yes, we are adequately staffed. I have had no indication from my management team that there are any issues; however, we will be looking into it to ensure that we're using our services based on the audit appropriately.

The NWT Housing Corporation is responsible for making sure that any unit that we have, usable or not, is actually maintained. So we provide the cost of the utilities when they aren't occupied.