Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MACA is interested in ensuring that our consumers are protected from practices such as these, but we want to go about it in a way that we consider the other roles and responsibilities of the regulatory bodies.

My understanding is the CRTC has announced that it will hold some consultations to probe the state of the wireless competition, and then they’ll determine whether they should actively regulate wireless service contracts. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, on Saturday it was a very special day for a graduating class of Samuel Hearne Secondary School. Every year we have graduation ceremonies all across the Northwest Territories, but what makes this one extra special is it is the final graduation class of Samuel Hearne Secondary School, which is slated for demolition later on this summer.

Of the two schools we have in Inuvik, SAMS, was built, I believe, around 1959, and Samuel Hearne was about 1967. They are a significant part of the history of Inuvik. As a kid going to SAM School, which only went up to Grade 6, you couldn’t wait to...

The Housing Corporation works very hard to try to get people into units. However, we have to make sure that these folks are able to maintain the units and we’re not setting them up for failure. We are working that particular situation. I know we’ve tried to make some contact and I’ll have conversations with the Member about that. We work very hard to get tenants into a lot of these units, the ones that have been vacant for awhile. We don’t want any more vacant units. We’ve managed to turn a lot of them into public housing units just so we can get them occupied. It is still a bit of a challenge...

I appreciate the Member telling me how many vacant units are in the Sahtu. We had a very aggressive vacant unit strategy a few years ago because of the investment that was made by the federal government. We had 135 units. We’re happy to say those are all full. We have a few new units that are going up. There may be a couple vacant in each community, but what we’re planning on doing is we’re hoping to get more and more people into those units as they qualify for some of our programs. We’ll move them in there. Compared to the situation of a couple of years ago, I think we’re down to very few...

Thank you. I can commit to the Member that from MACA’s perspective, we’ll do some research and see how much work is required to put this into force, and that’s where the feasible part of it comes in. There’s always going to be a cost to everything, but I will commit to the Member that we’ll do some research as far as the other jurisdictions go and see where we can enact some of that or maybe borrow some of their legislation, but it’s going to be quite a piece of work. Again, we kind of wait on CRTC to see what they come up with before we decide to go the next step. But I will commit to the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to attend the 2012 Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse this past March and first of all I want to thank the City of Whitehorse and the organizing committee for excellent games. I want to congratulate Nunavut for their being awarded the Stu Hodgson Award for best sportsmanship.

I was very impressed with our athletes in Whitehorse both on and off the field. On the field they gave it their all. Off the field they were great ambassadors for the Northwest Territories and had many positive comments from a lot of the other families that were there.

We had...

The strategic framework Building for the Future: Northern Solutions for Northern Housing, released on April 16, 2012, outlines the direction that the Housing Corporation will be taking in delivering housing programs and services to NWT residents.

Our new strategic framework has refocused the GNWT’s approach to housing delivery based on what we learned from the shelter policy review. Building for the Future capitalizes on the successes of existing housing programs and services, provides improvements where there are gaps in support, and makes changes to programs to better suit the needs of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently we have 21 communities that have community emergency plans. We have four communities that have updated plans. We have four communities that don’t have community emergency plans. Thank you.

If the Member is referring to a wait-list to get into public housing, I would have to get the information and relay it on to the Member. Obviously, a lot of our communities across the Northwest Territories have some waiting lists, but I will gather the specific information and relay it on to the Member for Hay River North. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further answers. I am also concerned with this situation. Thank you.

---Laughter