Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t started the report yet. Work is still ongoing right now, but once a lot of the work is completed, there will obviously be a report and we’ll be sure that we share that with the Member for Nahendeh. Thank you.

I’ll have discussion with the officials and when we’re able to, we’ll be more than happy to sit down with committee and share some of the information, all of the information, not some of it, that we have gathered with committee and get some feedback from committee as to how we can best move forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I take responsibility for that. I should have passed the information on to the Finance Minister. The New Deal review was completed and it’s a review that was taken on by Municipal and Community Affairs to assess how well these programs have been working in the community and some of the potential changes that might come about. The review of the New Deal is completed and was done by MACA.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The numbers have been staying pretty consistent for the last number of years. A review had been completed. Part of the review was having some dialogue with the NWTAC and LGANT, Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories. They’re more concerned with the O and M funding and their big concern was the O and M funding. So we’re trying to address that. But as far as the infrastructure funding, they didn’t have too much concern with the amount of money that’s been going in there. I mean, understanding that there’s been a huge investment in infrastructure in...

As I said before, it’s our intent to put a call out for tender and get the work started on the Joe Greenland Centre. I’d have to do a follow-up and see exactly where it’s at now and I will communicate that to the Member.

This was one of the concerns we heard across the Northwest Territories. A lot of folks out there who are just trying to get into the workforce, however, rent was taking up a good portion of their money that they were making. We’ve tried to address that.

Obviously, being a new program there are still some things that need to be worked out, and then with most programs will be evaluated after a year, but for now our goal is to try to work with those who are in the market housing industry. There are many other cases that we can hear about and discuss, but those cases I think will have to have that...

Members have heard the answer before and they will continue to hear it: As long as we have vacant units that need to be repaired every year, we will have vacant units that are being worked on. That answer will never change.

As to what we’re doing right now, I understand the Member is concerned over the vacant home ownership units. That is one that we’ve aggressively been trying to address. Sometimes we can’t get folks in there because the income doesn’t match or there are other reasons. It’s not always just the income. The ones that we’ve had in the past, we have tried to convert to public...

Thank you. I look forward to the opportunity of going into Nahanni Butte, the only community in the Northwest Territories I haven’t been to so far. We’ve had many opportunities to try to get there to open the gymnasium and I hope the gymnasium doesn’t flood before we have a chance to open it.

I will commit to the Member and I think we are working on a possible tour of the Nahendeh, and Nahanni Butte would be one of my priority stops. Thank you.

Thank you. All the homeowners’ repairs were done. I think they were finalized and inspected on September 28th. If there are other issues that may have evolved because of the work that was done to repair those homes, then obviously we’d have to go in there and have a look at that, and assess it and see if there is any other way that we’d be able to assist so that the homes get back to their pre-disaster state. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The number has been fairly consistent for a number of years. We have been fortunate that we’ve had huge federal government investment in our infrastructure and our O and M needs to catch up with that. We need to look at that. As well, every year they get the gas tax money which allows them to do water treatment plants. They have the ability to finance a lot of the projects. We’ve had some communities that have stepped up to the plate, showed some real leadership and went out, financed and managed their whole project, and they’ve come in probably a lot cheaper than we...