Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as inspecting them, we don’t have an inspection regime, and it is one we have been exploring the possibilities of. People are able to have them inspected by wet-certified inspectors. The numbers are starting to go up as far as those that are certified to inspect the installation of wood stoves. It is a very tricky subject because there is a lot of liability to it. They are unable to see the full installation unless it’s new construction, so existing wood stoves are very difficult to see. They wouldn’t be able to qualify for home insurance if they’re not inspected...

I have said that all our public housing units are compliant. We’ve spent a considerable amount of money. We’ve installed carbon monoxide detectors in well over 1,300 units, because we have a lot of multiple family-type dwellings. They’re all compliant. But if the Member wants all this in writing we will assign someone to put all this information together and we will share it with the Members. Not only that, if that’s not good enough, then we’ll table it in the House so everybody across the Northwest Territories knows that what I said here today is the absolute truth.

As far as the actual budget amount to help with the awareness, I’m not sure of the actual budget amount. I could get some numbers for the Member. I do know that through the fire marshal’s office they had a very good awareness program. They were actually giving away carbon monoxide detectors to those that needed them.

On the housing side of it, I know that in all the public housing units they’ve spent a considerable amount of money ensuring that all our public housing units have carbon monoxide detectors that are up to code. Any new construction now, I think since 2005, is required to have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This past Friday in Winnipeg, a well-known NWT musician – and, I have to add, a constituent of Inuvik Twin Lakes – Mr. Louie Goose was honoured by the Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Awards with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

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People may not hear it, but there are some folks in here singing “40 Days” right now.

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Louie was taught at an early age by his mother, and he spoke during an interview about as he was growing up chording at some of the old-time dances for many of the old-time fiddle players who were always playing all night for the dances. He...

I can commit to the Member that I will do some exploratory work and see how we can advance this. I do know that a lot of those folks that are building $300,000 to $400,000 homes, it will be to their benefit to make sure that all installations meet code, otherwise they may not qualify for insurance. But I will commit to the Member that I’ll just start some exploratory work and see how we can best advance this issue.

I can say that we are acting now, and we’re not ignoring the fact that these are very important components in each home, and I think that was my response to a couple of the questions...

Mr. Speaker, we are just doing the preliminary work and we are reviewing our options right now. Our plan would be, and it should be, to have a decision made very shortly here on renovation versus new. If we decide to go new construction, then I think it would be in the best interest of the community that we begin construction possibly next summer. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, after determination is made whether we should go new construction versus renovating the existing facility, of course, it goes without saying that we will be consulting with the community of Aklavik on possible location and what they might like to see in the facility. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to update Members on home ownership clients that have direct mortgages with the NWT Housing Corporation and steps we are taking to work in partnership with these clients to ensure they are able to provide their families with affordable, adequate and suitable housing, while meeting their responsibilities as homeowners.

There are about 400 homeowners who have their mortgages directly with the NWT Housing Corporation. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, many of them have struggled to reduce their loan balances and a significant amount of arrears have accumulated. The accumulation...

Mr. Speaker, if we do need to build a new facility, we’d have to look at some of the options related to space for Health and Social Services. Obviously, we would be having discussions with the Minister and his department. We need to realize that this type of space would add to the overall cost, and again we would have to have discussions with the Department of Health and Social Services.

This is a service that’s being utilized in the community right now. Of course, the community, I think, would like to see this particular part of it carry on. We would like to do what we can to have the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. After reviewing the cost of renovations to the Joe Greenland Centre, we had to go back and look at whether it was feasible to do the renovations again on building it. It is over 35 years old. It has had two or three major renovations. We had to have a look at that and see if it would be easier to just construct a new facility.

After we reviewed the proposal, we realized there was a lot more work that had to be done to significantly upgrade the facility to bring it to meet current codes. Thank you.