Caroline Cochrane

The NWT Housing Corporation already does take in the different regions. We have three different regions, so there is a difference already between Yellowknife and the areas up in the northern communities. So I'm not sure how we'll address that differently because we already have the regions, and, like I say, once the survey is brought in we will be doing a revamp of the income thresholds to make sure that they are meeting people's needs.

I should point out as well though, even though it's not part of the question, that people that are struggling to meet their housing needs may also want to talk...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently within the Member's region the income threshold maximums are, for a single person, $91,900 a year they're allowed to make. With people up to five people in their house, they're allowed to make $107,000 a year to be able to, so anything under that is eligible for programs. We do have to recognize that we have 44,000 people in the Territories, and so we have to be conscious of that to make sure that we're providing our housing programs for those most in need, so those in low- and middleincome families. A total review of the income thresholds will be conducted...

Members may be aware that I have just taken over the position of Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. I can't state what has happened historically on these subjects, but I can state that, at this point, we are researching it to see about the viability and, like I said, there will have to be public consultation with all of the communities that this may impact before we make a decision on it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is aware of the request from the City of Yellowknife. We are looking at them. We are researching into them. We do have to do a thorough consultation process before we change any legislation or acts, and so we haven't started that process on these as of the moment.

So moving forth with it and actually getting more consultation, we've actually already met with Sport North organization. We've talked to them about how we see their role. They've decided where they see their role as well. They'll be providing a business case to us within the next month or so.

As well as that, we've also committed to meeting all of the five sports organizations to come together, and so we can actually talk more broadly on what are the results in the Sutcliffe Report, where they see a policy going, some of the limitations and the assets of the current policy that we use for the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Consultation to develop the Sutcliffe Report was actually done fairly comprehensive in my opinion, so it included two rounds of consultation with sports and rec groups and other stakeholders from across the Northwest Territories.

The first round of consultations consisted of 17 people in person and telephone interviews with representatives from Municipal and Community Affairs, sports, rec and youth division, territorial and regional sports organizations, the NWT Association of Communities and local government administrators of the NWT.

In addition, interviews with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, the department is really busy at this point to try to make all the changes necessary to bring the lottery monies into the Government of the Northwest Territories. So basically, the next steps include the development of a legislative proposal that sets out the legislative changes required to implement the recommendations of the report, which will be followed by the introduction of amended legislation. After that, we're going to be looking at the development of the NWT physical recreation and sports sectoral policy to guide where we're going within the sports...

We did discuss the aspect of Sport North previous holding and delegating out the funding that was received through the lotteries. During our meeting though they did come to the understanding that wouldn't be possible, that the GNWT would be holding the funding. But we did talk about various ways that the territorial sports organizations could apply for funding. Sport North was saying some of their representatives, not all of them, did want to go utilize them to go through and to apply for the funding. So we were open to that and we're allowing that to happen.

There's a number of initiatives for energy efficiency. All new houses that are built by the NWT Housing Corporation are built to the EnerGuide 80 standards or better, so we're already addressing that. There's programs that people can access through the Arctic Energy Alliance, things such as the LEDs which will be coming out next year, so every public housing unit will getting LED lights put in.

There's a program that gives wood stoves, that's a cost-shared program by the community governments that they might want to access so people can put wood stoves into their units. Arctic Energy Alliance...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that isn't correct. The federal money is a split 75/25 per cent; however, they can use their core funding to actually -- capital funding to provide those units if that's their desire. Thank you, Mr. Chair.