Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker. our maintenance people in the communities are fully qualified to carry out the inspection. This is unit condition rating, so they go into the unit; they inspect all the components of the unit. If they suspect mould might be present, if they’re not qualified to identify and remediate it, they then will pass that information on. We will get people into the community to identify and remediate the mould.

As far as this particular unit goes, I’m not quite sure if it’s a public housing unit. I’m suspecting it might be a private homeowner unit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can answer them all at once or take them all as supps. Units are condition rated every year. We have qualified folks from our local housing authorities who go in and do the inspections, if mould is found and identified or if mould is found and suspected. Most of our regional staff are getting trained in mould identification and remediation, so they have an opportunity to go in and confirm it and take the necessary steps to deal with the situation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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...

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 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.

[Microphone turned off] …question number four is when. I will find out for the Member. We would like to start the work as soon as possible. There are other ways the community can access some money to pay for these through the money that we provide for them. There is also some money through the ground ambulance funding that we provide to get a particular type and model that’s available to use in vehicles of first responders.

We started the work. The work is underway, and once we get the results of all the work and the survey, we will be sure to share that information with Members of the...