Kevin A. Menicoche

Mr. Speaker…(English not provided)

Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak with you today about the need in Nahendeh for housing; housing for singles and single parents in particular. Mr. Speaker, in my constituency, 25 percent of our households have a core need for housing. This means that there is an issue with suitability, adequacy or affordability with about 200 of the 754 households surveyed by the Housing Corporation; or, in the most simple terms, the types of housing we have now is inappropriate, too expensive, and there is just not enough of it. Yet over the next three years, Fort Simpson will...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That concludes my comments with regard to income security. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I beg the Minister’s pardon if I offended him in any way, but my immediate concern is that the Public Housing Program…I must have missed something because that’s how I understood it to work, that the people currently getting mortgage assistance in that area would be going to ECE for subsidies. The Minister is telling me this is not the case. Why is the subsidy money in ECE, Mr. Chairman?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Minister for that answer. It certainly seems appropriate that department officials had to have some input into this. Of course, the community is going to have some input. I don’t know if the Minister is the lead department for this, but at one point the community is going to have to have input because in my constituency meetings, people were saying it’s a shame to lose this building. In fact, if it can’t be a government office, can we just keep it? Can we maintain it for a training facility, because it’s ideal for that kind of stuff? I don’t know if it...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. While I am glad to see that we are almost in agreement, the fact remains that we may have similar programs, but they are succeeding and we’re not. That is all I wanted to explore and say okay, fine, I didn’t realize that we had a similar model and I am glad that the Minister pointed that out. But just the same, they are succeeding, we are not. Why? What is the difference here? We are going to have to learn from them, at least have a really good look. We don’t have to do anything more than have a good look. If there is something to be learned from it...

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have to beg the chair’s indulgence and make some general comments as we go along here, because I haven’t had an opportunity to address the line item that’s important to me in the last couple of weeks. Aside from that, I think what was the key to one of my issues that came out of the election was inclusionary schooling, Madam Chair. So I gave it a lot of thought, and it's one of the big issues, of course, with moving our children along, bumping them along without giving them the skills they need. I don’t know how the system came to that place. I was...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I, too, rise in support of this motion and just wanted to point out that a lot of the issues that I face as an MLA, about 80 percent of it is housing. I travel to the communities and that’s one of the first things that people point out to me, is that we have to keep addressing our needs. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been urging, I’ve been working with the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to try to find solutions in the Nahendeh.

In my Member’s statement today I spoke about single housing. That’s one of the biggest needs that’s...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I was just wondering if the Minister had enough time to review the federal budget, in terms of its allocation towards housing. Does it have implications for us and can we expect, in the foreseeable future, to address more of our housing needs in the regions? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The committee wishes to consider Bill 19, Appropriation Act, 2005-2006, Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am glad the Minister will be advocating for the needs in the smaller communities. I am sure that there is going to be some mention of it in the federal budget. Has the Minister given some thought to what would be a fair distribution of the resources when he brings it home to the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.