Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Chair, I seek unanimous consent to go back to 5-55.

Just on the one there, I just left off and I haven’t yet talked to the Minister about this in terms of when they have packages for home units in the communities. I wanted to ask the Minister, has he checked into this issue? I don’t know if it has come to his office yet in terms of some of the units that have missing supplies. It takes them a bit to get the supplies flown into my region where everything is flown in this time of year. Now the winter road is open so they will probably be driving. However, when the packages are there, they are going to build a unit and sometimes they open the...

Mr. Chair, could I then dare say that if these issues are not resolved in terms of the land tenure issues for housing that’s allocated for a community and they’re still working on a land issue here, that this community, any communities, you know, would they lose their unit? Would it go to another community outside the region, within the region because the units are there? I think sometimes that’s under the impression of the leadership, that if we don’t get this unit, and because we know the urgency and the need for housing, that would make a, what do they call it, a time compressor...

So it’s going to be part of the operations in terms of these mortgage collection specialists. Now these mortgage collection specialists, are they going to be in the region or is that going to be coming out of the headquarters to take care of the regions and the communities?

With the federal funding, the one the Minister made a reference to, is this going to be one year or is this ongoing? Is it going to increase sometime in terms of the ongoing positions for the corporation?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have comments on the general observation of the Housing Corporation. I was reading the Minister’s comments to the House here. Probably somewhere down the line I will ask the Minister in terms of the federal funding for the housing programs in the Northwest Territories. I know there is a decrease every year. I believe the Minister at one time, I must have forgot in terms him stating the amount that the federal government is decreasing revenue towards our housing in the Northwest Territories. So far, I understand that there is $43 million for 2010-11 for housing...

Mr. Chair, just more of a comment here in terms of the programs that are under this budget here in terms of the homeownership entry level program. I just like to give a comment to the Housing here in terms of these programs. The STEP program, the HELP program and the other programs, they offer the PATH program, the CARE program. I think that’s probably one of the best written up programs I’ve read. I had the opportunity to read the STEP program. It’s dynamite stuff that’s there that should be going to the communities. Hopefully, it will be somehow, when we have aboriginal peoples taking these...

One comment I heard at the Northern House was they hope they can come to Yellowknife, jump on a plane, and visit a diamond mine. It really intrigues them, these diamond mines. That was one comment. We’re getting that type of interest at Northern House. I want to ask the Minister with respect to promoting the Sahtu that it would be nice to have these German people hike the CANOL Trail, jump in a boat, go up the Bear River to visit the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada here, as we promoted it. It took a lot and had a lot of interest from the southern papers there in terms of this claim to fame...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the LHOs’ ongoing operations, I made comments in the opening of this committee here with the transfer of the new program, the old new, whatever you call it from...(inaudible)… Is there somewhere in here that that’s going to be the transfer? So is housing now going to be assuming the control or the responsibility of the…(inaudible)…program?

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of ITI in terms of our recent meetings down in Vancouver and more particularly to the media people that were interested in the Northwest Territories such as the German newspaper and the Chinese television people there. They talked about the Northwest Territories and particularly important to the media person from Germany in terms of the tourism. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of the feedback that we received that was very positive from the media outlet in terms of promoting a place to visit, the Northwest Territories, is the Minister taking...