Frieda Martselos

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in October 2021, Housing NWT released a document titled Strategy for Renewal outlining various actions that Housing NWT proposed to do with housing within the 19th Assembly. That document was light on details and includes no mention of seniors or assisting seniors with their housing needs, which is concerning given the rising number of seniors we have in the NWT.

Mr. Speaker, according to the 2021 census data, there are currently 2,455 seniors above the age of 70 living in the NWT. Further, according to the data from the Department of Health and Social...

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I'm not going to ask any more questions but, you know, it's a disgrace that we have private industry who abide by law to give they even have to give notice when they want to evict people. But the housing corporation just goes up, boards the house up, all their belongings are inside, throws them out before Christmas, and then it's okay, you know.

So when government is saying yeah, you could do this and then the other hand is doing something else. And private industry, those are their own homes. Those are their own units, whether they be apartments or single...

Madam Chair, just before Christmas there was an issue with a mother and a daughter that were told they had to leave their housing unit, and it was all boarded up. This is just a couple weeks before Christmas. And now they're couch surfing on mats and I was going I might table the whole thing before session ends. And then the place is all boarded up. The Indigenous government has agreed to go in and try and to correct the situation because they're members of one of the Indigenous groups back in Fort Smith.

We created that situation. And then we come back and say oh, we're going to fix this up...

Ok that's a really bad deal. We are we're you know, that is not a business Madam Chair, that's not a business transaction because it sounds like if it's 50 years and one million, that's $50 million, and most of those houses are costing from 1.3 in the South Slave to whatever in the further up. So, really, it's not a really good solid business revenue decision. Who made that decision? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, is 56 percent of the 2900 units?

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, we have 2900 rental housing units in 33 communities. Could you tell me how many units are located in Yellowknife and then I could sort of figure out the 33 communities, please. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us what type of feedback Finance has received from healthcare staff about these retention and recruitment bonuses? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Finance Minister explain why finance is providing recruitment bonuses to brand new eligible health staff but is not providing any retention bonuses to longterm healthcare staff in similar positions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

No, I don't.

While we're on this subject, you know, I would Madam Chair, I would really appreciate if the housing corp would adopt a policy where they're more clientbased rather than administrativebased. You know, we're serving people that most of the people are either underprivileged, or have many problems with addictions, many things that happened with residential school, and we seem to be more administrativebased. And, you know, this should be a clientbased department. I just want to ask if that's true or false. Thank you, Madam Chair.