Robert C. McLeod

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...

Thank you. We have committed, or we will commit to going into the community. As a matter of fact, we will go into the community of Nahanni Butte on Monday and we’ll have some senior officials from the different departments that have infrastructure there. We’ll also be joined by our colleague. The honourable Deputy Premier has agreed to accompany them and we’d like to invite the Member and the chief of the community along also. This will give us an initial idea of some of the damage that’s done. As I said before, we’ll be able to go in afterwards and do a follow-up and do a more detailed...

Mr. Speaker, I rise to update Members on the status of the recent flooding in Nahanni Butte and the incredible efforts of many individuals and organizations who are working together to help ensure the safety of residents.

As is the nature of most emergencies, this event caught us by surprise. Water in the Liard River basin reached heights not seen in many years, and in fact, it may turn out to be a record year.

Despite the fast moving nature of floods, residents were not caught off guard. Officials from Nahanni Butte worked together with a number of organizations to ensure residents were...

We see our role at MACA now as more of a support to the community. MACA has a lot of experience in helping communities try and realize some of their projects, working on capital plans. Communities will submit capital plans for the next five, 10, 15 years, and if they identify any particular project as part of their capital plan, we would be more than willing to sit with the community, meet with them, review their capital plan and see what the best way is to make it happen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Most communities have a capital plan and they identify projects. In some cases in the capital plan, where the cost is very high, then they would start putting some money away. They work with our department in trying to assist in identifying best ways to put the infrastructure up. Once they go through all that, at the end of the day, the ultimate decision is up to the community as to how they want to proceed.

We give the communities their infrastructure money every year and there’s also the gas tax money that goes to the communities. They have money coming every year, as far as their infrastructure needs are. They get this money every year. It’s a line item in the budget. They make the decision as to what their needs are in the community. If the community feels that a water treatment plant is one of their high priorities, then they do have the ability to make that happen. We’ve worked with other communities before, where they’ve done a bundled water treatment plant, where it kind of kept the costs...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to welcome Mr. Roland Rogers, the housing manager in the community of Aklavik to the gallery. Welcome.