Glen Abernethy

I know the LHOs are incredibly busy and adding a whole bunch of work may not be good for them, but I think there can be some generalization done as to what the findings are, whether or not people are finding themselves not in arrears.

I was wondering, given the good news that we’ve received, whether the Minister would commit to putting some additional pressure on the LHOs to get out there and do the assessments. I mean, the news is good, right? I mean, we have individuals who don’t owe. Let’s use that information to help encourage more people coming in. I was wondering if I could get the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation. They follow up on my Member’s statement earlier today.

In October I asked the Minister about some outstanding arrears that individuals in the Public Housing Program have and particularly concerned about the perceived “false” arrears that are out there. The Minister committed to working with the LHOs to have people come in and do reassessments to determine whether in fact their arrears were accurate or not. I was wondering if the Minister could give us a bit of an update on the progress of that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the Minister for his comments. Just following up on Mr. Ramsay’s comments, please get the bridge built on time and within budget. That would be fantastic.

There are some other things that I think are quite positive in here. I’m happy to see progress on the Mackenzie Valley Highway in any capacity. I think that’s great news. Moving forward, obviously, it would be great if as much as possible we can involve Northerners in any construction and planning that takes place. I know that there are different groups from different communities that are very eager...

Mr. Chairman, clearly there is a significant number of challenges in that area. I am intrigued. You talked about basically hundreds of places they are doing assessments of the water. It is difficult to pull them together. Is that actually part of the fed’s plan, is to pull together the data from all of those different individuals or groups or organizations or companies, pulling together the data? Are they only going to be compiling the data they collect themselves? The reason I ask is, if they are not, why would we wait for somebody else to compile it? Is there not an opportunity for us, if...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has already been summed up earlier today about the NWT Water Stewardship Strategy. I think the department has a lot done, a really fantastic job, and so far a lot of really good work. I have attended some presentations on it. I am quite happy with what I have seen so far in the department moving forward, but I am concerned about the water flowing into the Northwest Territories.

I recently have read a report by an independent scientist who studied the Slave River downriver from the oil sands project. It pretty much indicated that there were significant amounts of...

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. And that’s the University of Saskatchewan, I believe, in Saskatoon. Next, I have on my list Ms. Bisaro.

Mr. Chairman, I will make sure I ask the Executive then.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just being really quick, I’m very happy to hear that individuals are coming in, but I’m sure there are still some individuals that are not coming in because they’re uncertain about the process. I think we have some real positive results here and I was just wondering if I could get the Minister to, once again, sort of commit to using the data we have to create some sort of campaign or awareness campaign to suggest to come in, come in and be assessed. I think that the news is positive. I’m happy to hear people are coming in, but let’s try and grab the rest of them and get...

That’s, actually, really good news. I’m especially excited to hear the sample provided where the individual went in for the assessment and it turns out they didn’t owe anything.

In the information that the Minister has committed to providing, could he provide us with a bit of a breakdown of some of the results of those assessments? How many are actually showing zero or no arrears and how many are owing what they were told they owed beforehand? A bit of an analysis of what’s owed and what’s not and what the findings are.