Robert C. McLeod

I think that’s a point that needs to be clarified. I did see it in the media that $900,000 was unused, which was in my response to Member Bisaro the other day.

We had $1 million originally budgeted for this program. We have reduced that to about $900,000. We were doing some math the other day and it comes to about $75,000 a month that we are trying to assist transitional rent supplement clients and that works out to $900,000 per year. Our uptake right now is not where we want it to be and we need to make people more aware that the program is out there. We have had some ads in the paper. We have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are just in the process of working with ECE to identify possible income support clients that we could transfer over to this program. We find that this program is going to be a good step going forward because, in the past, income support clients have had difficulty accessing private rentals. We feel with the NWT Housing Corporation having the lease, or sub-lease, then we would be able to make it a little easier for these clients to access housing. As soon as we come up with a progress report, or as we are moving along, we will be sure to update committee on the work...

We work with the communities and if there’s a desire from the communities to change their name to their more traditional language, which a lot of them are doing, this government would fully support the position of the community, and if that’s their wish then we will respect that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a coordinated approach between Municipal and Community Affairs and Education, Culture and Employment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have a few more communities that we need to visit, to do our consultations. Once we do that we’ll work on putting together a bit of a draft consultation and the overall policy is expected to be fully completed in mid-2016. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, that would be part of the feedback from the consultation, but our initial plan is if we’re going forward in letting any leases out there, a ballot draw we’ve heard is the fairest way to do that. We respect that and we would take that into consideration, but our plan now is if any lands were to be disposed of I think the ballot draw would be the fairest process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. The focus area in and around the capital here is our highest usage and the most demanded for the recreational areas in and around the focus area that we have around the capital.

So we’ve heard some concerns, such as the Member raised there. As far as all of the NWT, the demand out there is not as great as it is here within the focus area. But I’ll have a discussion with the officials and we’ll see if there’s any movement that we can make because we have heard the concerns from not only the Member but a few of the constituents from Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Lands’ inspection services are essential for responsible and sustainable development in the NWT. Their success hinges on building the capacity of the inspections program through training and professional development planning. Inspections services help companies comply with relevant legislation and meet the specific terms and conditions set out in authorizations issued by the department and NWT land and water boards.

In establishing the Department of Lands, a key consideration was a made-in-the-NWT approach to the inspections process, one that would...

The consultation process that we’re going through right now will give a lot of people the opportunity to raise their concerns. I think the Member raised in his Member’s statement, there was a lot of good feedback from the people that had taken part in the consultations here, and I think he even mentioned some of the areas outside of the focus areas. So we use this consultation, and it’s been a great opportunity for folks out there to let us know their feelings as we continue to develop our policy. Thank you.

I don’t think we had a timeline on this. It was a program to help those that are living in market communities that were dealing with an affordability issue. We had originally, I think, budgeted just over $1 million. We’re down to about $900,000 now. I don’t believe we had put a timeline on this. Again, it will be part of the whole evaluation process to see how well the program is working and we’ll take that information as we move forward. Thank you.