Don Stewart

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in terms of the schools in Hay River, as the Member noted, Ecole Boreale was constructed in 2005, so it’s about a 10-year-old school, so it would be a while before it would be in a retrofit situation. Diamond Jenness was just completed in 2012. In the case of Harry Camsell, it was constructed in 1990 and had a renovation in 1996, so it would be starting to get to that point where I think it would be getting towards that point of looking at another retrofit, although obviously it has to be assessed against all the others that are in that timing as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Minister said, as the Member would know, there was an appeal of the court order. The Francophone representatives have indicated that they are appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada, and we’re waiting to hear from the Supreme Court as to whether they’re going to take up that case or not. The Francophone Association suggested to us that we should wait until we get that answer back before we proceed from there, and we agreed with that proposal that we’ll hold off on starting anything until we hear whether the Supreme Court is going to take the appeal or not.

Sorry about that. It is an older school but it was renovated in 2002, so it’s about 13 years since the last renovation there.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe the Member is talking about the eight-plex in Fort Resolution. There were some land issues that we had to straighten out to be able to get the proper land tenure there. We are prepared to sell that unit off, if there are interested parties in that. However, there has also been interest expressed recently to use that property for other purposes within the community that we’ve heard from the community leadership. I think Public Works and Services is looking at that request to see if it’s appropriate for what they would like to use, so we’ll hold off selling it...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on the comment around other departments and their role in homelessness. As the Member is well aware, homelessness is a complicated issue where there are lots of facets to it, but other departments do continue, even though there was some consolidation, to play an important role. For example, there are a number of emergency shelters that receive funding through ECE as part of the per diem that they get for income support-type payments. There are family violence shelters that are funded through other departments that are important parts of that. The Day Shelter in...

That is certainly something we could do, but obviously there’s a fixed number of units that we have available in the Northwest Territories. So if we were to add eight in Fort Resolution, we would have to take eight away from another community and I suspect there would be concerns raised about taking eight units away from another community. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The unit was empty at the time, I believe, of the needs survey. I would point out, though, that between 2009 and 2014 the core need in Fort Resolution in 2009 was 50 percent of dwellings and in 2014 it was 24.6 percent of dwellings. So I think there has been a fair amount of progress in that community in terms of addressing core need.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know we have done a technical assessment of the building in the past. I don’t have the information right in front of me, but we did look at what would be required to get it back operational and that’s something we would consider in setting the purchase price. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just quickly, as the Member is aware, we went to a bulk procurement process for our LHOs, and part of the reason for that was to some of the issues that you raised, was to make sure that there was a consistent approach to being used to inventory control and that there was some thinking behind what they bought and where we get it.

For last year’s bulk procurement, 100 percent of the tenders in there, the contracts went to northern companies. Eighty percent were local and the other 20 percent went to companies in other regions, when we did it by region by region.

Certainly...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the $26 million is for the utilities we would pay to operate the public housing or the housing stock across the NWT that we own. Thank you, Mr. Chair.