Caroline Cochrane

At this point, the strategic plan is actually expired, so we’re looking to do the new plan and then of course the surveys will be utilized to develop our new plan.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the follow document entitled “North Slave Resiliency Study Final Report.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, the senior management within the NWT Housing Corp. also recognizes the aging-in-place for seniors issue is huge and that we need to address it. We are taking a really proactive approach to actually providing housing so that people can age in place.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Selfgovernance is an aspect that I actually take personally, and that I do respect and honour and believe it is the right way to support First Nations people and give them back ownership of their people and all of their culture, et cetera. I am committed to working closely with the First Nations communities and seeing what we can do to provide them, because at some point within selfgovernance, there will come a time, maybe not in this government, but soon, that they will need to take ownership of all of their services, housing, child protection, income support, all of...

Yes, the NWT Housing Corporation is committed to doing a community housing development plan, specific for every community. We will be looking within that to get answers from people who live in the homes, the LHO’s within every community, the community government and the staff of course, of the corporation. As well, I will be asking feedback from our MLAs in, to also give feedback into the questionnaires within this survey before it is put out.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that the treaty does state that the government will provide housing. However, the treaty does not state that housing will be free within that treaty. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it has been just over one year since the Government of the Northwest Territories’ energy functions were consolidated in the Department of Public Works and Services. Today I would like to update Members on some of the work that this division is doing. The Government of the Northwest Territories has made commitments in its mandate to improve access to energy efficient products and to investigate and implement renewable and alternative energy solutions. Public Works and Services efforts in this area included the installation of energy efficient LED...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As stated, we do use the Business Incentive Policy to evaluate all proposals. We have sent out new proposals for this year and, coincidentally, the majority of all of the proposed proponents came in are actually northern businesses. This round will actually be all northern businesses. As well though, I do want to mention that the NWT Housing Corporation does recognize that we need to have jobs in the community. In an effort to provide jobs within each community and also to have better access to the corporation and to our services, we actually employ 128 people in the...

Compassion is really important within the homeless population. I do adhere to the Housing First model, but I also recognize that within the North, we have other models that are successful, so I give credit to that. It's important to have a northern perspective on northern solutions. The final part to that question is absolutely yes, the units that we are going to be building for the semi-independent living will not be in the emergency shelter area. They are totally separate from the emergency shelter, and they will be independent units for homeless people, for chronic homeless people.

The Minister is committed to addressing homelessness. We have put forward our agreement to partner with the city of Yellowknife within their Housing First model of housing one person, hopefully within the next three years to get 20 people in.

However, coming from this community, I know that if we were to only sit back and support only one agency providing one model, it probably would not be the most efficient use of our funds. To house one person within the community would not make a significant dent, and the other model would provide for 30 people. I must say that the other model is following...