Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, it is income tested and it is a program through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation administered here in the Territory by our Housing Corporation. The other factors there, if those homeowners have insurance, that insurance would help them in these repairs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Power Corporation does have a policy that looks at claims filed for reasons of failure on the Power Corporation’s part, but I would say, as the Member has highlighted, the issue that was facing many communities in the Beaufort-Delta in the last week were high winds and storms and the failures were due to the weather. We had a number of outages around the North that we had to send staff. We are very thankful for the staff in our communities. The Member has highlighted the dedication of our staff in the community of Tuktoyaktuk.

What we do have available to us is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member raises many points in his comments to the statement I made and I guess what I would do is reiterate the statement itself, that there has been much discussion since the signing of the agreement-in-principle about the speculation that the draft devolution agreement at the time somehow prejudices current Aboriginal rights and negotiations.

In the statement as I gave in this House, that land claim agreements, and I’ll quote again, “land claim agreements are modern treaties and therefore are constitutionally protected.” In concrete terms that means if there were a...

In the Financial Administration Act, Contract Indemnification Exemption Regulations, 1(1)(a), “contract or an agreement that contains an indemnity by the Government of the Northwest Territories is exempt from the operation of Section 66 to Section 67.2 of the act where the indemnity is made in favour of…” And there’s quite a list of these; almost 20 since 1999. Things like for the Tlicho Government. Things like directors and officers of the Canadian Blood Agency and members of the Scientific Advisory Committee established by the Canadian Blood Agency. “(f) All-State Insurance Company of Canada...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise on 23(h), that the Member in his statement and line of questioning is making allegations that in fact the government has broken rules in this Legislative Assembly and I would raise the fact that though a process was engaged, he’s referring to in fact Ministers or a Minister has broken, and suggested breaking, the rules. In fact, that has not been the case. So I would say that, again, a point of order in the fact that he’s having debate and making allegations against another Member of this House. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, the overall programs and the list we have and the criteria for the programs do look at the consideration of having people and seniors in their own homes versus a separate. For the areas of ensuring forms and our programs are understandable, through the Department of Executive we’ve recently put in place community service offices in a number of our smaller communities to try to reach out, as well, to our seniors. In fact, they do have a program where they go and visit the elders in our communities to make them aware of programs we have and help them through that process. In...

Mr. Speaker, in fact, I think we are in full agreement in our goal, is to keep our family members, seniors, in their homes as long as possible before having to look at settings of long-term care, for example. We have tried to design many of our programs. As we continue to look forward, we continue to look at how we can try to better address the needs of our seniors throughout the Territory. We are in agreement that the cost of having seniors or any individual in an institution setting versus a home setting is much more costly. When we look at those programs like our fuel subsidy, our power...

Mr. Speaker, I know in the past that the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs has spoken about working with communities on emergency preparedness plans in those communities. We would have to work with the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk to see what plans they have in place. As well, we do have other responses around the region that we do involve when there are large problems, so the weather, for example, the communications issue that affected the whole Beaufort-Delta, we had incorporated our teams to become involved in that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the issue of the outages in Inuvik and the surge that occurred that caused the equipment to fail in Inuvik was a result of the Power Corporation’s power plant operations. The issue in many of the other communities across the North is the fact that when weather comes into it, we can’t control what Mother Nature does in the Territory. As I was saying, there is funding available through the Housing Corporation Emergency Repair Program which provides up to $11,000 for assistance for low-income earners in our communities. We would be more than happy to try to align the people to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The purpose of my statement is to update Members on the Taltson Hydro Expansion Project.

Late last year I asked the chair of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation to review the proposed business model for this project. Based on what has been reported to me, it is clear we need to adjust our course.

Earlier today, the chairman of Deze Energy submitted a letter to the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board requesting more time in the environmental assessment process to address economic gaps.

Recent discussions with the diamond mines clearly indicate that...