Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of housing. Earlier the Minister responded to my oral question from last session and mentioned two projects here in Yellowknife that are being are supposedly work of the department in order to combat homelessness. Can the Minister tell me how much money that the GNWT contributed to those two projects, Lynn's Place and Spruce Bough that were mentioned in the return to oral questions. It's my understanding that money was from the federal government, not the GNWT and the two NGOs involved. Can the Minister please speak to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Happy New Year, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to welcome yourself, my colleagues, the interpreters, and all of our staff back for a constructive and productive winter Session, and for the last year of our Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you had a wonderful break, full of rest, relaxation, and time spent with family. I wish this was the case for all the residents of the territory, however, for many of my constituents and others, there was no break from the daily struggle of surviving. With soaring fuel and electricity rates, escalating rent and grocery prices, most residents are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank you for indulging my question. So as I sit and listen to the fact that we have not collected this data and hear the Minister explain that the housing wait list is what she's going off of, I think we're conflating two different issues here. Homelessness does not equate to the number of people that are on the housing wait list, especially whether you have NGOs like the YWCA taking and housing people in lieu of the government doing it themselves. Given that there is no data being collected and I've yet to see the Minister come to my riding or any in Yellowknife...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't think I asked about the number of units. I asked the Minister how much money, besides the one position that hasn't done anything, did the GNWT spend on Lynn's Place and Spruce Bough. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to welcome my new constituency assistant Maggie Mercredi to the Chamber. Maggie is a longtime constituent of Great Slave, both as a youngster and currently, and I'm very excited to have her working with me. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And I do appreciate the Minister's office responding quite quickly and having that done so that the student can return to school this week.

Can the Minister speak to we are going to have a greater snowfall this year. That has been predicted and such. And it just does seem to happen that we're getting these greater and greater sort of weather events. Can the Minister speak to how this is going to go moving forward? I do understand that it is the owner of the property's responsibility to clear and keep the accesses and entrances clear of snow and ice; however, there is...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. There are a lot of people before first, I'd like to acknowledge Tom McLennan who is one of our newly elected Yellowknife city councillors. Welcome to the Chamber.

I also have a group there's a group here from I believe it's pronounced Videa. And in that group we have Kate Herchak, Taleetha Tait, Diane AnawakDunford, Ruth Kaviok, Delaney Drachenberg, and Twyla Etchinelle. I'm not sure if I'm saying everyone's name right, I apologize, but as a Nokleby I feel that pain. So thank you, and welcome to the Chamber.

Sorry, just chatting about housing, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move that the chair rise and report progress.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Speaker. And again, I guess I just really struggle with the idea that we have to rely on NGOs who are notoriously underfunded in order to take care of our most vulnerable people. I just really find that to be unacceptable, and I do hope that the department is looking and considering that they do need to continue on being the operator of the shelter. My question, though, is around I know that when we were in Inuvik with social development, that there was a lot of conversation around even just proper food for people at the shelter. You know, we brought in some fruit and...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I do understand the trouble of trying to get an NGO in a community to run something when there aren't really any NGOs in that community that would want to take that on. And as a result of that, you know, and given the sensitive nature of this type of work, you know, hiring minimum wage workers here and that are not going to be adequately trained, as the Minister said, is not the solution. So can the Minister speak to whether or not the department is considering running the shelter themselves and having workers there be GNWT employees? Thank you.