Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I’ll be glad to have a conversation with the officials and ask them about the units being shut down in Fort Simpson and how that’s going to affect our numbers there. I will gather that information and I will have conversations with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have 12 on the waiting list. As for the length of time, we don’t have that information. We will contact the local housing authority and let them know there was a concern raised with the length of time with the waiting list and how long is the average time on the waiting list. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it is our hope to try and address the homelessness. It used to be that it was more of a regional issue, but I think we’re finding more and more that it’s continuing to branch out into a lot of the smaller communities and that’s one of the reasons that we’ve come up with this program to try and assist with that.

There are opportunities there to tie into the Anti-Poverty Strategy and all the different pieces of work we’ve got going out there. We have identified some money through our corporation to help deal with this and we’ll continue to do so. I think we have about four or five...

Mr. Chair, the president has committed to providing that information. We don’t have the numbers offhand, but we will provide the information to the Members. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, we work closely with the NWT Teachers’ Association. They provided some of the information as to some of the communities that are most challenged as far as housing goes. We relied a lot on some of the information, some advice we got from them. I will have Mr. Stewart add on to that, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, we have, through the PATH program – providing assistance to homeowners – and the HELP program. The HELP program is one where we try to transition people out of public housing. They’ll stay in a HELP unit for a couple of years and then if they feel that they would like to be homeowners, they can transition into the PATH program, which is providing assistance to homeowners. They have the option, I think, of purchasing the HELP unit that they’re in and I think they’re given a $10,000 incentive to move into homeownership.

We have $7 million that we have invested into CARE and PATH for...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. New units, we’re doing 40 replacement units in ’15-16 and we’re doing the 36 market rental units in ’15-16. We will be glad to provide a list to the Members. I believe we have all the locations and everything. We have all the locations, so we’ll provide that list to committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, the contract in McPherson has been awarded and my understanding is they are going to start the work this summer. The one in Aklavik, they are doing a great job on it. It should be opened in late spring. It should be completed in late spring. So we are looking forward to seeing how that rolls out.

Some of the Member’s comments, he was talking about the units in the communities. We recognize that we need places to stay in communities. It’s one of the reasons this government has committed $21 million over three years to put an additional 100 market rental units...

Yes, I do, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, the Department of Lands has made significant progress since taking over the management of public land in the Northwest Territories as part of devolution last April.

Much of the department’s progress to date has been due to the hard work of its employees. While about 75 percent of our positions were filled by existing federal and GNWT staff when devolution came into effect, the remainder of the department’s positions had to be staffed.

Mr. Speaker, April 1st was just the beginning. Since its creation, the Department of Lands is setting priorities, planning and managing new issues as...