Norman Yakeleya

I certainly agree with the Minister in terms of his explanation to the ground ambulance services. I bring this up because one of the Rangers in one of my ridings said, you know, why don’t we utilize the Rangers, get them the training, get some equipment, if there’s an accident on the winter road they can call one or two or three or four Rangers together, a quick call, small communities, with the proper supplies and equipment. It wouldn’t take very much and they could go and help our communities.

So I’m not too sure if this could be answered tonight, but have some consideration because the...

Now, is this Arctic Energy Alliance, are they looking to maybe move out of Inuvik and come into the Sahtu region even though sometimes the Inuvik region does include some of the communities in the Sahtu in terms of their authority? Is that something that the Minister is going to look at in terms of asking the Arctic Energy Alliance to start to probably regionalize their offices? Get out of Yellowknife and go into the communities.

I’m just going to make the presumption that the increase of positions is this three officer youth positions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have comments for the Minister and his opening comments. Most of the communities, when we go out to communities, always have some issues. I think we are involving community governments where community governments want to have more control. I think this government and this department is doing that in terms of involving more authority to the community governments. One of the unique things about the community governments is that they have band governments also. You get into that issue of authority and jurisdiction. Some communities have band governments. Some of them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could I ask the Minister if he could also look at the communities in the Sahtu? Because the Sahtu has the highest adequacy percentage in the Northwest Territories with 41 percent. Could he look at it in terms of bringing down this number in terms of the adequacy means no bathroom, running water, no hot water, plumbing and electrical issues? Could he look at that in terms of bringing those numbers down in terms of a commitment that he made earlier to the MLA for Nahendeh?

Mr. Speaker, with the existing stock on the ground and because of the existing stock on the ground, it means that we have some real major problems in terms of major repairs. In the report it says out of 33 communities, 25 communities need major repairs. The Housing Minister has indicated that now with the investment now coming into the Housing Corporation, hopefully in five years, that we’ll see a decrease in these numbers here. However, Mr. Speaker, in the last three or four years we did receive some major dollars in terms of federal government and now we’re going to be running out of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in terms of the process between now and the next application cycle, in terms of going to the district, is it also possible that the applicants could go to the local housing authority boards in terms of working out some type of an appeal process? I know that’s something that could be considered rather than to the district office. Would the Minister look at something in the interim?

I appreciate the gesture from the Minister in terms of this specific person. Now I want to ask, in terms of the administration and the flexibility of this program, he’s supposed to be simplifying these programs, the government and the Housing Corporation administration. Does the Corporation have an appeal process in place where if there’s an application that does get rejected, that there can be an appeal process to a body rather than just to the Housing Corporation?

Mr. Chair, just on the last comment from the deputy minister, some of the communities that don’t feel that they will be able to access some of this $200,000 for the ground service and ambulance, does that leave an option for some of the communities who are on the winter road system that could use some of the money for winter road ground services, such as the community of Norman Wells who is asking about this here? The Town of Norman Wells is asking about this, so they’re trying to find a way to look at this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to make comments on the recent 2009 Community Housing Needs Survey. Last week we finished with the Minister of the corporation in terms of the budget. When I left and went upstairs, I received a phone call from a distraught senior in Fort Good Hope. She’s a retired social worker, she’s a senior, and she was looking for help with the Housing Corporation. She had to go through the whole bureaucratic administrative process and the application and the whole information gathering. She rushed to get all this information together so she could get the...