Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT Housing Corporation is always changing directions and my question is for Premier Handley. I’m wondering if this government has ever considered following suit and creating a department of housing whose sole mandate would be to provide safe, adequate and affordable housing? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have committed to providing I think it’s $250,000 a year for a period of four years to the Nahanni Butte access road. It’s something that we are very interested in doing and in a lot of cases it’s to create partnerships with the communities or the development corporations in the communities. We have had discussion in several other communities about the possibility of doing so. We, of course, would have to involve the Department of Finance in this whole discussion to ensure that the FAA is followed, but we’d be glad to do so. We’d be glad to sit down and...

Lend some technical experience when required and asked for, but for our sake, stay out of the business end. We can’t afford any more blunders. How many units could have been put on the ground in the NWT, Mr. Speaker, with all of the money that we have lost so far? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. People in social housing who are paying the high end of the rent scale are people who I hear about who want to get into EDAP, but they can’t because they make too much. Now we are talking about starting a whole new subsidy program, another layer of public housing. So it doesn’t seem that that is the group this is geared for. I will ask my final question again; will this affect the other programs that the Housing Corporation offers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, the work continues to go ahead on the Bear River bridge. We did some early design work. We have done some early scoping and costing of the area. We have also had several meetings with the community to talk about the actual location of where this bridge can be accommodated. These meetings were very well attended. There was some good discussion. We feel that we are quite comfortable, along with the community, as to the actual site of the bridge. We have hired a company to do some pricing on this project. Some early costing has shown that this bridge will more than likely...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is always good to get a compliment on some of the work and initiatives we have done in the different areas of the North. We have certainly put a lot of effort in the Sahtu. We have been working this year, I think, in the Sahtu region. We are working on two fairly large projects in terms of bridging. Big Smith and Little Smith creeks, those will be going ahead. We started doing some of the initial work this past year. We will continue to do that. The cost factor is a concern. Our prices are coming in fairly high. We are looking at ways that we...

Mr. Speaker, the money included in the budget is money identified on a cost-shared basis through agreements with the federal government. There were a number of projects that were included in our submission called Corridors for Canada. There was also the Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program and other agreements signed with the federal government. Some of these were earmarked for specific areas. In the case of the bridging program and the Mackenzie Valley roads, it was to deal with some of the resource development pressures. We had included the Tuk to Inuvik stretch of road in our...

Madam Chair, I don’t believe any of our acts spell out a formal process to appeal any infractions under this bill. There is, of course, the standard procedure, as in the highway act. If you don’t feel you were treated fairly, you could go to the staff, you could go to the senior management, or you could go to the Minister. If it’s a traffic ticket that is issued, then you can appeal it through the court system. There is a legal process. We don’t have it spelled out, written anywhere in that respect, but neither do any of our other bills lay that out in a step-by-step manner.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the issue of gravel in the community of Tuktoyaktuk and the source of gravel has been a long-standing one that the community has raised on a number of occasions and the department has been looking at for a long time now. In the 1990s, they were able to construct a kilometre road and there is still another 22 kilometres that have to be constructed. We did have several meetings with the community and members of the community over the last while to discuss this issue. We looked at different ways that we could try to fast track some of this with the federal...

Madam Chair, the act is fairly clear on the accountability process. There are a number of ways to enforce a lot of the stuff; whether it’s through the enforcement officers or through the Minister’s authority. Also, we have to remember that a lot of these lands that fall under the airport jurisdiction also are within the city. We follow very closely with the zoning requirements. We also require our leases to have permits that are issued from the city. So we have a number of ways, checks and balances, that we ensure that the proper rules are followed.