Frederick Blake Jr.

It’s more of a comment. You know, over the years I’ve seen a lot of benefits that this program provides and I hope that it does continue to go on through the years. For example, in Aklavik the drainage that the community has done has actually helped during the spring. We’ve noticed less floods because of drainage, the drainage plan that they did. We still need a little assistance with the riprap and building up the roads there, but that’s something the community is still working on.

The other thing was in Fort McPherson, the hamlet that they built and they’re also building a new garage. It’s...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just speaking to the funding allocated to the communities, I am somewhat disappointed we’re going back to a needs base just because I’ve seen firsthand the process that we first started with this for the communities, which was great. I know the Minister did mention that some communities weren’t spending that money, but I’ll use a small community like Tsiigehtchic, for example. To build whether it’s a garage, with the funding that’s given, you have to save up for a number of years to actually have enough to build that piece of infrastructure. That’s what many of the...

My next question is: Why was the project on hold this summer for over a month? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In follow-up to my Member’s statement, I have two questions for the Minister of Housing. As the Minister recalls from his visits to the community of Aklavik, when we had the old Joe Greenland Centre we’d have a place set out in front, a small deck where elders usually sat, whether it was during the spring, summer, fall. With this new facility, a great facility, as I mentioned, but one thing, I’m not sure if it was due to our budget, but they didn’t build much of a deck on each side of the Joe Greenland Centre.

I’d like to ask the Minister, will the department build a...

It sounds like we have a possible supplementary coming about here with the Willow River Bridge. I’m just kidding.

The only other comment I wanted to make was I’m really happy to see we’re starting to do some brushing along the highway that’s with the Building Canada Plan funding, I believe. Some has been done just as you leave Inuvik to the airport, roughly 20 kilometres underway at the moment from Tsiigehtchic, 20 miles north towards Inuvik. This brushing is beginning here, which is great. Anywhere else you travel in the country, whether it’s leaving here from Yellowknife, you have almost...

Just something else, there are possible plans to continue this to the Yukon. I suggest the next time that we do this sort of infrastructure that we insulate where the cable is going to go so that, whether it is woodchips or something along those lines, it will keep the ground from thawing any further. I am sure that is what the cause of this was, plus with all the rain that we have had in our region this summer it created a lot of landslides and it has really increased in my riding. As I have travelled around, I have noticed this. It’s just something the department can look into for future use...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have two questions and comments. I’m very happy to see we have some units coming into the Mackenzie Delta, also the replacement of four units in Fort McPherson. As I’ve said many times, with waiting lists of up to three to four years, we have some young families that are expecting children, expecting newborns, ready to start a family but yet they’re on the waiting list. You know, they have been for anywhere up to a year, some for three years and there’s a real need for additions to our present stock. I can’t stress that enough. We have to start planning here...

The other thing, as I mentioned earlier, with the assistance that MACA provides to the communities. I’d like to ask the Minister, as we move forward, you know, a lot of planning needs to go in place and architects. Does the department provide that assistance or does the community have to go out and spend some of this money for architecture work and design or is it just design build? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of comments, questions as well. As you know, both Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson have a fairly new school in each community, but our school in Tsiigehtchic is fairly small for providing nine grades with the new junior kindergarten that’s coming into effect here. We only have four classrooms in our school, and trying to control that many children in different grades, some teachers have to deal with students, like three grades. They’ve got one grade, you know, my hats off to those teachers trying to control the environment. Something needs to be done in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few comments on the capital, starting with education here. The Moose Kerr School is not going to be on the plans here until 2019, but just from what’s happened here with our capital process with Moose Kerr School, it is up for major retrofit or replacement, and that’s the same case we had here with the Stanton Territorial Hospital. I hope in 2019 that we follow the same practice as we did and replace Moose Kerr School when the time comes. I’m sure we’ll see the cost savings there.

Also under health, the health centre in Tsiigehtchic was built in the mid-‘80s. It...