Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, The boards set the security and we negotiate with the company as to the form of instrument that we’re going to use. I can assure this Assembly that we will ensure that we have security that’s, as the Member said, something other than a promise to pay. I think with these particular ones, we might be in the process of negotiating right now the instrument, so I will give Members an update once that work is complete. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do.

Deferred and carried over, it’s about $8 million, and we do have a chart with all of the projects that are on the ground right now. I think we’re at about 85 percent for this fiscal year. I saw the figure 85 percent. If it’s more, I’ll get the right number and remind the Member about it later, but I’m pretty sure we’re at about 85 percent right now.

The photovoltaic, we’re looking forward to the savings that it’s going to potentially bring the corporation. Again, we have to find innovative ways to deal with a lot of the… Ninety-six percent of our projects are out this year, so I was a little...

It’s actually 1.15, not one, as the Member pointed out before. But we’ve made significant investment in the last number of years, and I would like the Northwest Territories to be the judge of the work that the NWT Housing Corporation is doing, because they’re seeing it on the front lines. They’re seeing with the new rent scale how you go from a $4,600 full economic rent to no more than $1,600, and somebody’s rent goes from $1,200, because they’re working, to $564. I challenge anybody to say that the NWT Housing Corporation is not addressing the needs of housing across the Northwest Territories...

Mr. Speaker, I feel we’re providing more than one house per community. We looked at the community needs survey that was done. We tried to identify some of the highest needs in regions and communities, and we target our investment into those communities. Also, with the market housing initiatives, we’ve had meetings with the NWT Teachers’ Association that identified some of their more challenged communities, so we have tried to target some of our units into those communities.

We have 100 units over the next three years that are going to the communities. That’s just market housing communities...

Mr. Speaker, that’s something we can work on. We can work with the communities and say that we would like to come in at a certain time, offer some education on fighting fires and potentially a course. So, we will work with the communities and see if we can make that happen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We would like to see a good, strong volunteer fire department in every community, and the key word is “volunteer.” In every community they have to rely on the volunteers. Most communities have a fairly healthy volunteer fire department.

Once they have the volunteers or the volunteers identified, then we can work with the community as far as training goes and help them identify some of the equipment that they may need. So, we would like the communities to take the initiative to get their volunteers out, and then will work with them to ensure that there is some training that’s available to them...

If you look at the units we provide, or if you look at the housing we provide, and if you look over the number of years, we have 3,100 units; we have 23 public housing units that we have on the ground, plus our Market Housing Initiative and our other units that we provide.

I attended a conference that spoke to Aboriginal housing down south – a couple of Members actually came with me – and I think the Northwest Territories is doing a fantastic job providing houses. We heard the story of one house every 15 years for a particular community down south, so I think we’ve done a good job in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all recognize that housing is a big concern across the Northwest Territories, and in working with the Legislative Assembly, I think the Housing Corporation has done a fairly good job in trying to address all the concerns that are out there.

To the Member’s question, we have… Well, this past year alone we have 46 public housing units, replacement units; we have six new housing units; we have a couple of seniors units – three, actually, seniors units that are being built – then we have 29 new market housing initiatives where we are putting 29 units into communities...

We would like nothing more than to have all our fire departments trained and adequately equipped to deal with fires so we don’t have situations like we just recently had in Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope. However, if we were to come in and say we are running a course here and we want you, you and you to volunteer, then we’re basically dictating to them how their community is run. If they come forward and say we have some volunteers, we are interested in this training, we would love to come into the community to ensure that the community is trained and are aware of what types of equipment...