Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t get as many concerns regarding mold as we used to. It was quite an issue a few years ago. We have taken steps to try and remediate some of this. Education of the tenants and our own maintenance staff, I think, was a big first step. The reports of mold in some of the units, not only in the Sahtu but all across the Northwest Territories, are coming down a bit. We look forward to having that number down to basically zero here very shortly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a former colleague and good friend, Floyd Roland, former Premier. With Floyd is Angela Young, who has worked as an educator in Inuvik for the past 12 years. I’d also like to recognize former colleague Mr. Henry Zoe. Welcome to the House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member had mentioned before on the core needs study that was done in 2009, and since 2009, as a government, I think we’ve spent over $151 million across the territory to try and address some of the issues contained in that report. There was $17.5 million in Nahendeh alone, plus an additional $5.7 million, I think, we’re debating this year and I’m glad for that.

As far as working on transitional housing goes, we are currently looking at a new initiative where we’ll identify some communities that could possibly have one of our housing units there converted into a bit...

I know there has been an attempt to serve the owner of the houseboat. I believe the sheriff has even gone out with a boat and tried to locate the particular individual. I can assure the Member that we are looking by the end of the week if we can’t serve these papers, then we might have to look at other options. My understanding is that once we do that, if there is a concern that boat is going to be there next spring, to make a bit of a commitment that once we get all the proper work done, then the boat should be removed. If it happens to be this winter, it will be this winter. Thank you, Mr...

Mr. Speaker, if it’s Commissioner’s land, I don’t foresee much change. Once devolution happens we’ll still be responsible for that land within the boundary. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. We’d be more than willing to listen to all proposals that come in from the community. As I said before, we’ve made contributions in the past to some of the infrastructure side of it. The O and M, we haven’t made too many contributions to that. With the new initiatives, again, we’re looking at a partnership with a local organization and we will provide the infrastructure again, and we’ll work with them to see if there’s an agreement we can work out where they provide kind of the supervision of the place.

So as we roll out the details on that, I will be sharing it with committee...

Mr. Speaker, we have a homelessness coordinator who was hired in August. She is actually planning on going to all regions in the Northwest Territories, compiling some data, a bit of a report, and then we’ll take that report and look at that as possibly a future way that we can allocate more funds into some of the communities again.

The pilot project I spoke of is a start. Once we hear back from our new homelessness coordinator, we look forward to working with the Members and seeing what we can provide to some of the communities that are most in need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we will be more than willing to sit down with the City of Yellowknife and discuss the jurisdiction of the lakebed.

Again, the Member is right; from the correspondence that I have been getting, it is a favoured spot of a lot of people that use the trail. There is some concern, and I have received e-mails directly, about the houseboat that is there. We are looking at trying to, again, locate the owner and have the houseboat removed from the area. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have jurisdiction over that. It is Commissioner’s Lake that land is called. We have been trying to locate the owner of the houseboat so they can be served and have that houseboat removed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, Yellowknife is a much larger community and a lot of people do come here and end up homeless. We recognize that. We work with some of the organizations in Yellowknife and provide some type of funding. Most of it is on the infrastructure side, but we make contributions. It’s starting to be recognized that out in the communities it is getting to be more and more of a problem. We have replacement public housing units we’re hoping to put into some of these communities. I think we’ve identified 14 for the Nahendeh this year, but that still is not going to address the homeless.

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