Robert C. McLeod

Thank you. There have been a lot of changes in the Housing Corporation with the shelter policy review, a lot of proposed changes. We have a very extensive communication plan that we’re planning on rolling out very soon here to make the public out there aware of all of the programs and some of the changes that are going on within the NWT Housing Corp. So we’re hoping to roll that out fairly soon, and get the information out, and be on the website and a fairly extensive communication plan. I’d be willing to sit down with the Member or Members and share that with them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In our discussions across the Northwest Territories during the very extensive consultation process, it was pointed out that there was need to assist, as the Member pointed out, the working poor. We have a lot of people that are just starting in the workforce; we have a lot of people coming out of school going into the workforce. So we felt that they needed a bit of help for the first couple of years and then after that they would either graduate into home ownership or be able to afford private market housing. So we designed a program called the Rent Supplement Program...

Thank you. Again, this is not all contingent on cell phone service, but we need to improve our communication across the Northwest Territories and that’s one of the things that I had said. One of the things we discussed in the FPT Ministers meeting in Victoria was the fact that some of the information now they want to send out via Twitter and Facebook and that’s not available to a lot of communities.

Again, I go back to it is our intent to sign on to this. We’re in discussions with the service provider and the providers in the Northwest Territories. So we’re in that process right now and we...

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We recognize that we do have a lot of seniors across the Northwest Territories that try to be very independent and live in their homes. Through Housing we try to support them as much as we can. We have repair programs for seniors. Within the other departments they have some programs within their departments that are geared towards assisting seniors, because seniors like to be independent by nature and the fact that a lot of them want to live in their own places, but living on fixed incomes, with a lot of them, it is a bit of a struggle, so as the government we recognize...

We can have discussion with our representative on the International Games Committee and see if there might be a way that something could be worked out, because a lot of kids look forward to the opportunity to compete in the Arctic Winter Games, compete in the sport of their choice, and having to respect the next host, which is actually Greenland and their lack of a lot of ice facilities, I think some kind of alternate arrangements might have to be worked out. We’ll have to have those discussions to see where we go from here, because it is going to be a concern for a lot of people in the next...

First of all, this is not an excuse that we’ve used. We don’t make excuses. The Member has said, as well as I have, that we have great faith in our communities’ ability to build quality products and put them on the ground. However, it is felt that there is some need for this particular service and I’ve committed to the Member that I will follow up on this and see where we can take it from here and put all the proper research together and see if it’s something that we can carry on further here in the Northwest Territories.

I will follow up, and obviously, as with all the departments in the government, they’re over there monitoring the conversations we have in here, so I’m sure that they’re putting some information together for me right now. I will follow up and see where that went. It’s a very novel idea and it has some merit, but we’d have to follow up on it further.