Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, we know exactly what our responsibilities are, that’s why we have these people go and take care of these units. On behalf of all housing maintainers across the Northwest Territories, I take offence to the Member’s comments, because it is a full apprenticeship, they do three years of training and a lot of it is basic home repair. But I would challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified.

I say, Mr. Speaker, I challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified. For him to stand over there and question the ability and the...

I appreciate the Member’s interest in the state of housing across the Northwest Territories. I can assure him that our folks on the front lines are fully trained, that they are all qualified. As far as who is qualified or how many there are, that’s more of an operational question. I can get the information for the Member and share it with the Member and committee. The condition ratings, again, those are inspections we do every year with the local housing authorities. I can get the information as to how many individuals are actually qualified and which region they work in. Thank you, Mr...

The public plays a great role in helping with the inventory. As I mentioned before, we do get a number of calls from the public, identifying or questions that they might have to someone’s occupancy. Sometimes we are able to satisfy their inquiry, and in some cases we find out it may be somebody that’s illegally on that land, so we will act on that.

There is an opportunity for them to call our department. I think we made it available on our website. We have developed a communication plan that we want to share with the public to let them know what they can do as far as reporting and having their...

Before devolution, in recognizing some of the situations that we were facing, we had actually helped our enforcement division within Municipal and Community Affairs to deal with some of these. Since devolution and all the folks we got over from AANDC and the number of people that we brought on board, our enforcement division is a lot larger now. As for the exact numbers, I’d have to get those to the exact dollar figures. I would have to get those.

But I made a commitment to Members during briefing that we are committed to dealing with the squatting issue out there, and if we have to increase...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize the mayor of Aklavik, president of the NWT Association of Communities, Mayor Charlie Furlong. I’d also like to recognize Karen Wright-Fraser, whose family is originally from Aklavik. So, welcome to the gallery. Thank you.

We have a pretty good idea of the numbers out there and names that are attached with them. We had over 550 personal and recreational use leases that came over from AANDC, not including the ones we had in MACA, which wasn’t that large of a number. We also know of fewer than 200 documented unauthorized users. So we know those numbers right now and we’ll work off those numbers as we work to complete our inventory of all land occupancy across the Northwest Territories and Territorial land and we will update our numbers again.

I’ve committed to provide updates to committee on a regular basis on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve received a number of complaints from citizens out there as to citizens hauling material out. We did some follow-up, and in most cases, these were leases that were let. They have up to three years to put a structure on there. So most of them checked out and they had legitimate leases.

But for those that are squatting on Territorial land, as we call it now, we will take action against them. I think we’ve got 12 cases in the hopper right now that we’re working on, and as we continue to get more reports of people squatting out there, we will go and investigate. If we...

Mr. Speaker, I’m not quite sure of the status of the application. I will follow up with the department and provide a response to the Member. I did say we did meet with our partner organizations to start the application process. I’m not quite sure where that’s at right now. I will find out and I will respond to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are partnering with the Heart and Stroke Foundation in trying to develop some of our curriculum through the School of Community Government as to training on the AEDs and the maintenance of them. As far as the St. John Ambulance, I’m not quite sure of that one in particular. Again, I will follow up.

Any partnership that we can form to help us train first responders or people in the communities on using these particular types of equipment would be more than welcome. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not quite sure of the status of the application right now. I can tell the Member that we have met with the NWT Fire Chiefs Association, the NWTAC and the Heart and Stroke Foundation to partner up to access this national application-based funding. So, we’ve started the work with them. We also started the project plan. We have initiated project plans, and stakeholders will be surveying all the communities to determine their needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.