Robert C. McLeod

We’re a member of the Community Advisory Board and we have had some initial meetings with the mayor on the task force and the Housing First concept. They are leading the work and we’ll continue to work with them.

The Housing Corporation, being an infrastructure department, we would be in a good position to provide technical advice on any infrastructure projects that they may need to work on going forward Thank you.

We will commit as a government, as a Department of Lands, that going forward we will aggressively negotiate all future land lease securities. I think because we have the authority now, it’s more important that we do our due diligence. I do know in June of this year there was a water licence amendment for the mine and I think the revised security amount was set at $30 million. So again, we will do our due diligence and I will confirm these figures and share them with the Member. Thank you.

Part of our process now, plenty of security is set. Our division at Lands will negotiate with the proponent the form of security. There has been some concerns in the past, raised with promissory notes and other forms of security that is believed doesn’t hold much weight. So, we will negotiate with them.

As for the actual figures on this one again, I will confirm those figures and share it with the Member and if there’s an opportunity to renegotiate that, I mean, they’re in a situation right now where I don’t know how difficult it would be for us or make it difficult for us to negotiate with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have stood up many times and talked about the value of our Youth Ambassador Program. I’m very proud today to have a number of our youth ambassadors up in the gallery. They were receiving, I think it was the 2015 Pan Am Games team was receiving the Minister’s Culture and Heritage Circle Award, so we’re awfully proud of their accomplishment. We have four youth up there representing the youth ambassadors. We’ve got Jacob Peffer from Inuvik, we’ve got Ryan Tourangeau from Fort Smith, Karl Gardlund from Yellowknife, and we have Stacie Bengts from Yellowknife, and we also...

We work closely with the Department of Health and ECE. We sit as members on the Community Advisory Board. We have a number of programs that we deliver to help try and alleviate the problem of homelessness. We make contributions to some local groups that try to combat that. So it is, as the Member I think said, getting to be a problem that is increasing and we have to be part of the solution with a number of different parties. Good on the City of Yellowknife for taking the lead on this one and we’ll do what we can to support them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have done some research into Housing First and we are working with the Department of Justice to integrative case management and we’re exploring the possibility of a Housing First model. I believe that the City of Yellowknife is one of the only communities in the Northwest Territories that’s large enough to access some of the funding that the federal government has made available. So I think they’re also trying to pilot a Housing First project and we’re working with them. Thank you.

I wouldn’t have those figures. It’s too early right now. I think we’d have to do an assessment of the potential reclamation costs. So it is fairly early right now. We are holding $11.6 million, but as for the rest of it, again, it is fairly early and we will have an opportunity to do an assessment to see what the actual reclamation costs may be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; we are holding $11.6 million, but as per the form, I would have to confirm that and share it with the Member.

The NWT Housing Corporation has a number of programs that are designed to keep people in houses. We’ve got, I believe, 2,400 public housing units across the Northwest Territories and we have a number of third-party units. We have a number of income support clients in some of our public housing. So, we are playing a small part in trying to alleviate the homelessness issue.

Again, it is something that the lead was taken by the City of Yellowknife. We will continue to work with them to provide any assistance we can, but still trying to maintain our social housing issues that we face and trying to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is we have an eight-plex in Fort Good Hope. I believe this is what he’s referring to. That is empty. I think we’re in the process of selling that particular unit. I think we have another eight units that we might be in talks with the local government about taking on these units.