Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, we are still not at the point where we can indicate how those programs will be delivered in the Northwest Territories and neither have we heard how Nunavut is going to get their money. There have been some communities identified in Nunavut. We will continue to follow up on what’s available and to whom. Our understanding is that right now the dollars are earmarked for fisheries and fishing communities. That includes some of the dredging programs that are being put in place for supporting the fisheries in the communities.

We make every effort to ensure that the client is fully aware of the agreements that they are signing and any kind of arrangements that are done through the Housing Corporation. In terms of how do we guarantee that the elders understand or people understand is a difficult question to answer. The response, I guess, is we do ask the client if they do understand. If there are areas that they are struggling with in terms of comprehension of what it means, then we certainly take the time and effort to make sure it’s explained to them. We really, in the last while, incorporated programs that would...

The concern that the Member raises has been very close to being a reality on a number of occasions. We are able to compensate for it by adding additional resources and making the resupply happen. But I guess in a hypothetical situation, the community that was not able to get its supplies in on time or whatever the case may be, we would probably be forced to go to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs that has emergency measures or emergency operations within their responsibilities and we would have to look at flying or another mode of getting the product in or the supplies in.

Mr. Chairman, as I indicated, we have submitted year three for consideration by the federal government. We have not submitted anything...We have and had submitted a tentative plan outlining what we would do to fast-track, however, that has not been agreed to yet. There are still a number of communities that have indicated they want to come forward and MACA has been dealing with those along with the NWT Association of Communities. So there is some discussion ongoing regarding community projects. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is no, we don’t have any plans at this point to chipseal the airport.

Mr. Chairman, the commitment for the detail of information that the Member’s requesting has been committed to. We’ll provide that in written form. Mr. Chairman, there has been one reduction in the Member’s riding. That person will be treated fairly and will be compensated as per our layoff policy. I believe that individual is already working at other employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Communication of our programs is indeed an area that we have been trying to focus on in the last few months. We’ve really been working towards trying to set up a system where the people in the communities would be more aware of what our deadlines are, what’s really in our new Housing Choices programs. Currently we have embarked on informing the Members that the deadline is soon approaching, if not already in most communities, to put in their applications for the different programs. This has also been put in the newspapers so that the general public is aware. We plan to...

Mr. Chairman, we have done a number of things over the last while to try to enhance the Winter Road Program, including signs for safety reasons. We have tried to step up the highway patrols on the winter road system. We have also tried to incorporate new technology into building the roads and increase our maintenance cycles. We have requested some of the industry people that were utilizing certain portions of the road to invest. We have managed to build quite a few bridges over the last while that have extended the season. The winter road system is still usually dictated by weather. We have...

Mr. Chairman, this is really not an issue for us to intervene on. It has been raised by some of the contractors that the payment to them was not as quick as they would like. There has also been concern that our approval process is very rigid in terms of having all the required approvals. This is a project that falls under the Canadian Bridge Code and everything has to be approved for quality assurance and stamped and signed off. It can be fairly lengthy in some cases. I am not aware of any subcontractors that have not been paid. It is an issue we have raised with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation...

Mr. Chairman, the deputy informs me there was a recent assessment of the Aklavik Airport on the runway and the indicators are that it’s sufficient to meet the needs. Thank you.