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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do plan on assessing the damage that’s in Nahanni Butte. We would like to do an initial assessment and then do a more detailed assessment once the water recedes, and we’ll work with the Member and the community to see how we go on a go-forward basis. There’s obviously going to be a lot of damage there and we need to assess that and work with the community, find out where we can possibly access some money for the community to help them deal with the damages they face. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents, entitled “Shaping Northern Housing Options: NWT Housing Corporation Annual Report 2009-2010” and “Sustainable Housing for NWT Residents: NWT Housing Corporation Annual Report 2010-2011.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We’ll do the work that’s needed. Obviously, there are some groups in the Northwest Territories that do some fairly good work as far as dealing with the homelessness. It would be wise of us to have some discussions with them, get their input, and get the input from folks all across the Northwest Territories, because if anybody knows the conditions of homelessness in the Territories it would be the folks across the Northwest Territories, especially those in the larger centres that are seeing a migration of people coming into the communities. We’ll have discussions all across the Northwest...

While we have a group that looks at shelter standards called the NWT Housing Corporation, who is now responsible for the homelessness files, we use that opportunity and expertise that we have there. The Homelessness Coalition, the Member pointed out that we are going to have a dedicated person that will be coordinating the homelessness activities across the Northwest Territories. There’s progress made on that. As far as how we’re going to deal with homelessness, we think public housing is a good start. Obviously, there’s more work to do. One of the things we’re going to task our new...

Thank you. Again, I’m with the Member. I do commend the work that’s being done by the committee and Nahanni Butte and the residents of Fort Simpson. Obviously, this committee would need to sit down and have a discussion as to some of the ways we can mitigate any further disasters.

The one thing I can point out is the possibility of a new federal government program called the Disaster Mitigation Program. It’s for situations such as these, where communities are prone to flooding. We don’t know the exact details yet. We should have more information by the middle of summer. So once we get that...