Kevin A. Menicoche

Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Transportation.

I don’t know how it’s going to relate, but it was certainly good news to finally sign off on the Building Canada Fund this afternoon. Some of my questions, of course, like with many of my colleagues, are on exactly how it’s going to roll out and how it’s going to play out. More specifically, say there is a project like chip sealing the remainder of Highway No. 1 and Highway No. 7. How would that fit in the scheduling and planning of allocating those funds?

Mr. Speaker, mahsi. [English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, this winter in my region there were many, many deaths of my people. We lost fathers and mothers, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, and it caused a great deal of pain and upset in many, many families, which affected our whole community and the region as a whole, because we’re all inter-related.

We do not always know the ways of the Heavenly Father and do not always understand why we lose loved ones, Mr. Speaker. What I would like to do today is to wish for all precious healing time and reflections upon the lives of the people...

Once again, I’d like to state the urgency of this situation, because the Deh Cho Hall will be shutting down this fall, and all non-governmental organizations will be asked to vacate the premises. So once again: will the Minister convey to his department and his officials the urgency of addressing the non-governmental organizations’ needs in Fort Simpson?

Mr. Speaker, I’d just like to advise the Minister that I’ve been getting contrary information from the people that run those organizations. There hasn’t been a meeting set up, to date. As well, in some of the back-and-forth correspondence we’ve received…. I thought the intent here, too, was to appoint a contact person, a point of entry within the government that these NGOs can work with. To date, there’s been no such person established or identified. I’d like to ask the Minister: will the Minister identify a contact person these NGOs can work with?

I’d like to recognize in the gallery my Constituency Assistant from Fort Simpson, Ms. Janice Mandeville.

As well, I'd like to recognize a former Fort Simpson and Deh Cho resident, Father Joe Daley. Mahsi cho.

Once again, we’re urging government to levelize our electricity rates in the North. Once again, we’re asking government that…. Electrical power’s an essential service. That’s something that none of our communities can get by without. We’ve got many, many remote communities that operate on diesel-generated services and our community-rate-based structure. There’s no equity in that for our communities, Mr. Speaker. We’re expecting small communities such as Nahanni Butte, Colville Lake, Jean Marie to pay for the O&M and infrastructure of our power systems in those communities.

We cannot continue to...

There’s something that’s been outstanding for quite some time. Is the Minister looking at instituting something this year? Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister Responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation some questions.

Over the course of time in my term as an MLA, I’ve been pursuing an appeal within the Housing Corporation. I don’t know how much work has been done to date. I’d like to ask the Minister: have they been looking at it, and if they have, how much work has been done with it?

Mahsi.

I’d just like to ask the Minister that I be kept in the loop as they progress forward with this issue. Let me know the times and dates they’ll be in the community — proposed meeting dates. I’d like to have that information to share with those I deal with. Hopefully, they’ll be dealing with the same people at that time. Mahsi.

I just want to follow up on my Member’s statement regarding transition times on the Deh Cho Hall in Fort Simpson.

I’d like to ask the Minister of EC&E: what work has been done to date with the non-government organizations that are using the Deh Cho Hall to help them with the transition planning, assisting them in finding new spaces in Fort Simpson. Mahsi.