Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to rise to speak on the increase in natural gas for customers in Inuvik. It’s become a real concern to the residents of Inuvik because they feel like they have a forum or a hearing to express their displeasure over the increase in the price of natural gas. The supplier is allowed to make a reasonable profit, but a lot of people up there think that it’s an unreasonable request that they are putting forward, a 16 percent increase when they had to deal with another increase last year and the supplier is saying that they are going to be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have already had some early discussion on this. We’ve had some face-to-face meetings with industry. We have had some discussions on some of the options with different stakeholders. So we have already embarked on looking at how we can deal with some of these initiatives. Of course, this coming winter is going to give us a better understanding of what we are really up against. Are there ways we can look at alternate routes? Are there ways we can consider some other options is something we will have to decide.

I want to point out though that we have already, along with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have a firm number on what it would cost to build an all-weather road. We have been working with a joint venture company, stakeholders that utilize this winter road and had looked at a number of options including an all-weather road. I think there were 18 different scenarios that we were looking at as options. They narrowed it down to two or three. We haven’t scoped it all out. An engineering firm has been hired to do some of the early assessments. We certainly will work with them and support them, but I don’t have a firm number at this point. Thank you, Mr...

Mr. Speaker, we certainly will involve our regional staff in our discussions with parks. We will also consult with them as to any prior discussion that may have been held and be able to relay that information to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the department does have a condition rating of all the highways in the Northwest Territories including Highway No. 5. In our rating, Highway No. 5 has come back as a highway that is safe and reliable. There are some areas that we have included for attention in terms of chipseal. There are two sections is particular that we are looking at. We will certainly take the recommendation from the honourable Member to speak to the parks people and see if we can look at some cost-sharing initiatives. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to recognize the former MLA for the Deh Cho and the Speaker of this House, Sam Gargan.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have our own focus groups and I call them constituents.

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They do call us and they do tell us that this program is absolutely not working. It's affecting the LHOs; it's affecting their flow of funding. Some of them may go into deficit because of this. So I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit his department into revisiting this whole transfer and if it's not working, let's go back to the way it was. It was working for the tenants. I don't know how well it was working for headquarters, but I do know it was working for the tenants...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I spoke on the transfer of rental assessments and that from Housing to ECE. I'd like to ask the Minister of ECE, there's been a lot of concerns brought to my attention, and I'm sure other Members on this side of the House as he heard yesterday, so I'd like to ask the Minister, one of the reasons that they gave was they wanted one-stop shopping; you have to have the shops set up, the shopkeepers have to be trained properly, so I'd like to ask the Minister if they have a review of whether this program is working or not. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to speak about the government’s decision to transfer rent payments from the housing authority to ECE. Before I came down here, I made some rounds in Inuvik and talked to a lot of people there because I have been hearing some concerns about how this program is not working. I hear from tenants who have never been in arrears in their life being in arrears now because it’s taken too long. They bring their assessments and their pay stubs over to ECE and they do their assessment and say we’ll mail it to you.

When the local housing authorities...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to declare a potential conflict of interest in relation to a person's name in the schedule to Bill 10, Forgiveness of Debts Act, 2006-2007. I will withdraw my discussion on this item and remove myself from this House.