Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Later today, at the appropriate time, I will be tabling, on behalf of the residents of Inuvik, a petition related to the need for improved rent control legislation to protect the residents of the Northwest Territories from unreasonable rental increases. Our economy is booming, particularly in Inuvik and Yellowknife. With the boom, the price of rental accommodation is rising on an annual basis. Some of these increases are for legitimate things like power and electricity costs, but some increases, Mr. Speaker, seem to be only to take advantage of an over-stimulated...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it would be my hope that this time next year we won’t be having the same discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point, the amendments the Member is requesting us to take a look at haven’t been included as part of what we are planning to do. My understanding is our department has been having discussions with the Territorial Farmers’ Association, so I will certainly reconsider that request. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have received several requests from communities to do a comprehensive review on the PATA. At this time, we intend to do a review over the long term. However, for the immediate future, we are only looking at doing several amendments. We are going to look at the issue of exemptions to land where land is granted through a land use permit and we are also looking at some technical amendments. We haven’t been able to commit to when we will do a comprehensive evaluation or review on the whole act itself. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we have been working hard to accommodate some of the needs of our youth. We have been doing a lot of planning. We have been able to convince our Cabinet, our Financial Management Board, that we need more dollars in terms of infrastructure and where we are looking at some flexibility so that some of this money can be used towards recreation. We’ve also been establishing a program called the Community Initiatives Program, where there is $1 million there that communities have been tapping into for baseball diamonds, youth centres and soccer fields, so that they are not out there...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly I can appreciate the Member's concern for the small communities. We have a number of communities that need gyms. The price tag on a gym is $1.5 million to $2 million. If we start adding the number of communities, which are Nahanni Butte, Enterprise, Kakisa, Detah and Gameti, we are looking at over $10 million if we start factoring in all the communities that we need.

We would like to be able to address their needs in recreation in the next little while. We have some money, we have some flexibility now that we didn’t have for many years, but at...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, many of our communities in the North are very young compared to other jurisdictions. A lot of our communities are not even 60 years in existence, and we are struggling to meet the infrastructure requirements. We have just recently done an assessment of all our communities across the Territories. We recognize that there are a lot of infrastructure needs and we're not meeting them, especially in the small communities. It's good to hear that a representative from a tax-based-municipality would encourage us to spend more money in the smaller communities.

--...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, active living has been a priority for this government for some time and we’ve increased the pressures on ourselves to commit more and more to stimulate that whole area. We have been focussing on the smaller communities. We have put in a multi-purpose hall in the community of Nahanni Butte. We have also been working with the community to put up a youth centre. So it’s not as if we have been ignoring the community. At this point, with our current standards and criteria, the community doesn’t have a population for a gymnasium. We want to be able to review...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could have some good news. Unfortunately, the budget is before us and we have yet to approve it before we will really know how much we have to put towards infrastructure. There have been a number of announcements over the last while, including the Finance Minister’s announcement yesterday, to put more money towards capital projects in the communities, both in non-tax-based and tax-based. However, that has yet to be approved. Although the federal Minister has announced how the money will be allocated by jurisdictions across Canada for the gas tax...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has asked if I would work hard. I think we work hard every day.