Kevin A. Menicoche

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just want to follow up from the biomass initiative and some geothermal initiatives from my riding. Of course, I’ve written to the Minister’s office in trying to move those forward, particularly the Jean Marie initiative. But I think the Minister’s...(inaudible)...may have slowed down there a bit, but it’s something that I think our government should, of course, continue to support. We’re looking for, I think, because of the technology that’s there and the capital program, I think some of the ideas out there, of course, are looking for pilot dollars. I noticed...

Will this program be expanded after March 31st to other communities? I know that the language symposium will give us lots of direction and lots of good ideas as we’ll have the experts from throughout Canada, but I’d like to know if our Interpreter/Translator Program will be expanded to invite other members of the public to join it. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement with regard to the Interpreter/Translator Program. I’d like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment what is the existing programming that we do have available for residents out there currently. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to raise a few issues, as I travelled around my constituency. A couple of my communities still have capacity problems. They still have problems managing the money that’s delivered to the communities. I think certainly part of their issues is that a lot of the planning is specialized stuff. It requires engineers for buildings. Particularly in the community of Wrigley where they’re telling me that they have the money but planning is specialized. They have to talk to engineers and pay all that additional cost. It’s kind of not fair to the community...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Minister for quoting me some of those millions of dollars of investments in the Nahendeh riding. I think the key thing is that I’m not too sure why the core needs numbers remain high. I think one of the things we’ll have to do in the interim this coming fiscal year is to do another survey for the Nahendeh number. I know that lots of units are indeed coming up, but I’d like to see progress in the Nahendeh riding and not the numbers going the other way.

Mr. Speaker, I understand there are some investments already in the Nahendeh -- I have six communities -- that may alleviate some of these numbers. I think the survey is completed every three or four years. Is there a way for the Housing Minister to do an interim assessment to track and see how our core needs is in the Nahendeh riding? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’m going to speak about housing problems in Nahendeh. I have to tell you that I get no joy in finding that I have been right about the dire straits of housing in my constituency.

The 2009 NWT Community Survey of Housing confirms that the number of households in the NWT that are considered to be in core need has increased from 16 percent in 2004 to 19 percent in 2009. Core need refers to households with incomes before the core need income and whose housing costs are more than 30 percent of the household income or housing without running water and indoor plumbing or...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. With respect to regional operations, I don’t really see the line item here or if it’s in here at all, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention summer student positions in the different regions. Actually, I don’t see it so it’s probably… I’m not too sure how it operates in the budget or is it an HR function to provide internships and summer student positions? Maybe the Minister can answer that. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As the seconder of this motion I am a strong supporter of providing as many services as we can to our small and remote communities. This is one of the needs that is consistent in my riding.

The motion speaks for our support of Fort McPherson. At the same time, I still believe it’s a strategy that our government has to work towards for all our smaller communities.

Our people have asked me time and time again for long-term care facilities in their communities and I believe that our strategy has to work towards that. I know that we certainly do have it in our...

I certainly would like to see the Minister commit that there is a new survey or at least a mini survey for the Nahendeh riding that can be done this coming fiscal year. The numbers are true. We have huge overcrowding issues, we have lots of old houses that need retrofit and/or replacement.