Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled Northwest Territories Housing Corporation Annual Report, 2012-2013.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was glad to hear our colleague from Hay River South talk about Remembrance Day and remembering those who have gone off to battle to give us the freedom that we enjoy today. We have a lot of holidays during the year. Christmas and Easter I always thought as two of the most important ones, but I always thought Remembrance Day was another day that we should always make sure that we pay respect to those that have given their lives so we can enjoy the lifestyle that we have today.

I spoke to students in Inuvik a number of years ago and I talked about the fact that we look...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize a couple of Pages from Inuvik Twin Lakes. We have Mr. Cameron Wolki-Jacobson and Mr. Andrew Clark. We appreciate the work that all the Pages have done this past session. Thank you.

Just very quickly, Madam Chair. I’ve been a part of two of these now and both of them have sparked a lot of good debate. We asked this commission, which is supposed to be an independent commission, to go out and listen to what the people have to say and then come back with some of their recommendations. I mean, we’ve seen a motion today to completely dismiss those recommendations and we’ve had a few other motions.

I believe that if we, eight years from now, the Legislative Assembly of the day will ask the commission to go out and do some consultations across the Northwest Territories. They’ll...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We talk about the diversity of the Northwest Territories and we all realize each and every one of our ridings is very diverse. I represent a riding that has Inuvialuit, Gwich’in; we have people from all over the Mackenzie Delta, so we know about the diversity of our riding.

I’m going to vote in favour of the motion, in favour of the 19 but, like Mr. Blake, that is in no way showing any disrespect to our Tlicho brothers, our brothers from Tu Nedhe. It’s no disrespect. We talk about the fact that there are three of us in here that are of Gwich’in descent. All three of us...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that consideration of Committee Motion 3-17(5) be deferred.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The debate that we’ve had this afternoon has been great and it’s one of the benefits of consensus government to have debates such as this and then we move on from there.

I have a motion that I would like to move.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome this opportunity to provide a few comments on the report. I would like, as many of you have done, to thank the commission for the work that they’ve done, and commissions in the past. I think the commissions in the past have tried very hard to have representation from all across the Northwest Territories in recognizing the different regions, cultures and languages. I think they’ve attempted to try and address that in the past.

I’ve heard a few Members talk about fair representation, good representation, more and better representation, effective representation...

I’m not sure if the Member is talking about the pilot projects that we’re trying from each community or for four communities as far as helping with homelessness goes. I know on the seniors side of it we have about 300 units that are in our public housing portfolio that are specifically earmarked for seniors and we try to keep seniors in their homes as long as possible. As well, are the programs that we have for seniors that do own their own homes? We have a Preventative Maintenance Program that we’re able to assist them in working with Health and Social Services on the home care part of it...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our homelessness coordinator actually started in August of this year, and she has had the opportunity to meet with some folks here in Yellowknife and in Nahendeh, I believe, and it’s her intent to try and go across the Northwest Territories to meet with all the stakeholders and get their input on some of the programs they’re running and some of the improvements that could be made. As far as an overall report, this will be part of the process. I will commit to try to see where we’re at with that and get some information to the Members as quickly as possible.