Sahtu

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 41)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask the Minister, in terms of the federal, provincial and territorial levels, are the Ministers coordinating a strong strategic position to continue hammering the federal government on the other ways that they can support them with their housing declining dollars that they need to keep the federal government on those? Right now it seems like they are offloading the social housing to the communities, or to the Territories, and for us it is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars if we take on this role here.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 41)

That’s quite a considerable amount of money that’s declining. I want to tie this into the core needs housing survey that was done in 2009. Some of the high communities in the number were my area. Listening to the Minister, I was hoping we could match some of the funding that would address some of the core needs in the Northwest Territories. I’m hoping what the Minister’s wishes were if we were to do another survey, I hope to see the numbers come down. That’s what I’m hoping for. I know that won’t happen within the life of this Assembly, again, to do another needs survey.

With this in mind here...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 41)

Mr. Chair, I wanted to say to the Minister here and the staff here that the housing units that we have in our communities, I certainly look forward to the Minister’s suggestions in his opening statements in further detail as to how we’re going to help people in those units, help people get into those units. We were in Deline and a statement was made at a leadership meeting with the Premier. Again, there are 100 units, I think, and there were 50 percent that were vacant. A lot of people were out of those units. That was just a statement in the meeting. I just want to clarify that and close that...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 41)

Mr. Speaker, certainly I look forward to the new policy. I’m so happy I just about choked on it here, Mr. Speaker. I’m very pleased to hear what the Minister has said. I wanted to ask the Minister, there are 600 families in the Sahtu and 330 families make less than $75,000. I want to ask the Minister in regards to the public housing units in the Sahtu. Will the Minister also be coming forward in terms of rent scale adjustments so that families do have an equal chance to make it in society in terms of adjusting their rents that is liveable in the public housing units?

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 40)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask the Minister about the student grants for post-secondary education. Does the Minister have a sheet that he can give the Members showing how these grants are distributed to the northern students and which students, not which students names but how much is distributed each year?

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 40)

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Are we on page 10-19?

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 40)

Mr. Chair, the programs that we have here to help people in need, I can certainly see the benefits of helping our elders as simple as possible, or helping the young mothers especially, or helping the child as simple as possible and also helping the seniors with some of their benefits from the federal government and also from the territorial government. What I want to ask the Minister in terms of what support we give to our people in the Income Assistance Program, has the department looked at the way we are dealing with people in terms of we are creating more dependency. Are we moving towards...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 40)

Mr. Speaker, certainly the leadership was happy again to have the Premier there and listen to the people. I want to ask the Premier, in terms of going forward with the Sahtu, they certainly want to make sure the communities were not going to be excluded in the management or administration of public lands and resources and other interests that could be pushed out or overlooked. We want to know if this government here is serious in terms of how do we implement the strong chapter 6 of this agreement where it talks about true partnership, because right now we are not seeing it here. We want to ask...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 40)

Would we then see the elders in our schools this fall? Thank you.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 5th Session (day 40)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier. Yesterday the Premier and I, with staff members, met with the majority of the leadership in the Sahtu. We talked about the devolution. I appreciate the people in Deline for hosting us and thank the Premier for taking me down to Deline.

I want to ask the Premier, as he heard the leadership speak on devolution and the Sahtu’s position in terms of going forward we want to work together, however there are some serious concerns with the present draft AIP as it stands now. I want to ask the Premier about chapter 22, whether that chapter will be...