David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have a program that we have joint ventures, of partnerships, through the residual heat concept. Again, it's all based on the costs and it is burdened by the community by way of the way that we bill our communities. It's based on the actual cost to produce that power, but it's also charged on the number of residents in those communities. But we are looking at communities and looking at new initiatives such as residual heat, but also through the new technologies that are out there we are looking at that and we are open to the possibility of seeing...

Mr. Speaker, I do admit we do have housing packages in our communities, we do have boarded up units, but the fundamental reason in the majority of the cases is we are having a challenge by way of land allocation, getting the appropriate leases to acquire land to build on. The other situation is that we are presently in the process of replacing the majority of our public housing units in regards to the boarded up housing units that we are presently…Through the Affordable Housing Strategy, 50 percent of those units will be replacing existing public housing units by way of making more energy...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Speaker, like I said earlier, we are having some land approval issues, especially where areas of unsettled claims are. There are presently lease-only policies in place, and there's also the question about having the capacity to build. We do have a number of public housing units that are boarded up. Because of the cost it's going to take to renovate or replace these units, we are better off building new units, acquiring the land that they're on so that we are able to deliver the 530 units that we are going to build in those communities and take advantage of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as all government departments usually use the stats Bureau of Statistics that we do collect every four years. It was collected two years ago, along with Stats Canada and the NWT Bureau of Statistics. That is the basis of the information that we have used in determining exactly where the core needs are. But also internally we have done core needs surveys in all the communities in the Northwest Territories, as we had a long debate in this House where a motion was passed to increase our core needs in some 20 communities throughout the Northwest Territories...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I commit to the Member that I will sit down with him and the community to review the emergency measures plan, what investment we made in the community by upgrading the existing power plant to ensure we avoid these situations. More importantly, we will assure the seniors that we do have a safe and secure power distribution system in the community so that we do not have the situation we had last year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, presented 12 aboriginal youth from across Canada with the National Aboriginal Role Model Award during a ceremony at Rideau Hall yesterday.

Each year, the National Aboriginal Role Model Program celebrates the accomplishment of 12 aboriginal role models aged 13 to 30 from across Canada, the First Nations communities, Inuit and Metis communities. The role models are nominated by their parents and also selected for their accomplishment under leadership skills initiative through...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, under the existing process we’re going through now, the Housing Corporation is now responsible for basically collecting rent for the units based on a cost recovery basis. The subsidy portion now comes to Education, Culture and Employment in regards to how people will be subsidized for the portion of those rents that they will have to either pay themselves or receive a subsidy to top off what that rent is going to be. Now it’s our responsibility, as a corporation, to get full cost recovery for the cost to operate those units from the clients that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the responsibility that we have, which basically has been shifted in regards to the subsidy that we now provide to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to cover off the O and M costs of those seniors' facilities. So right now we’re basically charging Education, Culture and Employment for the cost of those seniors’ facilities for units, but before we used to be covered off by way of a subsidy. So the cost of that subsidy, basically the arrangement has changed, as everybody knows, that basically the Department of Education, Culture and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, having the facilities identified in our communities as a central emergency facilities that do have backup systems, again, it’s worked into our emergency measures plan with MACA, ourselves and other agencies. Again, because the situation happened in Behchoko, we have to see exactly the recommendations that come forward from the emergency measures report, review those recommendations and act on them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I have to sympathize with the Member and I am sorry for the incident that did occur. It was a natural occurrence where the power system went down when one of our towers collapsed under the weight of the ice that was on it. It was an unforeseen accident that occurred. The other situation we ran into was the backup system we had did not work because it was not maintained. So the Power Corporation has replaced the existing power plant in Behchoko with a modern power plant, so the system does work. We are trying to avoid this situation from happening...