Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, colleagues. Mr. Chair, I have a motion, a committee motion here.

The Minister is correct in that it does have an effect on the contractors in terms of their reputation as builders and suppliers. Paying off the suppliers for the materials or whatever. It has an effect on their business and has an effect on the regional operations in terms of getting the materials in there. I’m glad the Minister said they’re looking at it and hopefully next year we won’t see this as a major issue for us in the communities.

I know there’s a real ambitious plan here to put all units into the communities. It’s a lot of stress on everybody, especially when you have materials...

Thank you. I think the Minister and I are somewhat agreeing and on the same page in terms of the issue of land tenure and that whole accountability issue with the Housing Corporation. But we also have accountability to our own people, so I think we’re on the same page. I talk about the experience because of my own grandfather’s house and my mother that lived in the house, that Housing told her when they moved into a public housing unit and that house now that my grandfather has, there’s a public housing unit sitting on there right now. So why is that public housing on my grandfather’s lot? How...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The land requirements. Some of the issues that we have with land requirements in some of our communities and because it’s quite complex and sometimes we don’t get the houses we want built for that year because of the issue with the municipal or, as in our case, with the Sahtu municipal lands there are certain agreements that need to be put in place before the Housing Corporation puts houses in the communities. Sometimes when these agreements don’t come in time because of the schedule, sometimes we’re told that if you don’t get your land, it’s too bad, you can’t have a...

Thank you, and now the mortgage collection specialists. Is this going to be part of their long-term O and M or is this going to be a program where they’ll train or work with the local housing authorities to take more of a role into it and the mortgage collection specialists would ease their way out? So is this going to be a part of the ongoing O and M?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the increase of nine positions, could I get a little more detail on that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to continue working with the Minister on this issue and probably many other issues or situations like this in the Northwest Territories. In terms of a situation like this, can he work with his counterpart Minister Robert C. McLeod and look at low cost housing units and their thresholds to help a person like this make a living in the North?

I go back to the specific questions on increasing thresholds on GNWT programs, specifically to low cost housing. It’s staying the same and I’m not sure if this Minister can answer for another Minister. However, programs like that, Legal Aid, child support payments, those types of programs certainly help single parents out there. Is there some general type of communication plan that this Minister will put out in terms of thresholds of programs in the GNWT?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You go back into communities. This question always comes up to us as Members in terms of the authority of the federal government, the authority of the territorial government, even the authority of the federal government in the region. I guess I want to ask how come, instead of going to the Members across here, this government decides to go to the courts and look to seek authority? Certainly they could have come to us, consulted with the Members and talked about this issue here. Now it is fighting our people. I am not here to fight my people. I am here to support my...

Thank you for the clarification, Minister. So it’s the barren land caribou. The barren land caribou covers a wide range of jurisdictions. I want to ask, in terms how it affects the Gwich’in, the Inuvialuit, the Sahtu and the Tlicho in the Mackenzie Delta in terms of the authority, because we certainly have land claim agreements that speak to the authority. I want to ask the Minister in terms of how this is going to be impacted on the various other land claim groups and also the groups that would have treaty rights, groups that are not in the land claim discussion right now, in terms of Treaty...