Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the past number of years the Yellowknife Homelessness Coalition has been working on Betty House, which is an initiative to build and operate a transitional house for women and children that are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Betty House will help these women and children to stabilize, to move forward and to make positive life choices.

Today I am pleased to inform Members of the Assembly that the NWT Housing Corporation, on behalf of the GNWT, has signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Yellowknife and the YWCA as representatives of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the communities themselves, they have very active groups that try and look after the homelessness issue in their communities. We would work with these communities. The one in Yellowknife here, most of all we helped with the infrastructure. Then the groups are usually responsible for the operation of facilities. If there are groups out there that have ideas and plans and want to sit down with the Housing Corporation, we’re always more than willing to listen to any plans that are out there. As far as funding the O and M on a lot of the shelters, we’re not in a position...

That was the intent of the New Deal right from the beginning, to transfer all assets over to the community and have them responsible for the maintenance of the infrastructure. Again, we work with them and make sure that we’re not setting any of these communities up and putting them in a position where they fail. That’s not our intent. We’ll work very closely with the community but the intent is still there to transfer all assets over to the community.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll try to give some new answers to old questions. The New Deal is one that’s been embraced very well by the community governments. Obviously, there are challenges as far as capacity goes in some of the responsibility that they’ve inherited. But the communities have come along really well, working with our partners at Local Government Administrators program. There’s a training program that Jean Marie River is actually one of the recipients of some funding for, to help train one of the local band members to eventually be in a position to take over the operation of Jean...

It is our intent to grant new leases once the whole framework is done and we’re able to. We are a government for all the people in the Northwest Territories and we do have folks that are sending us communications saying that they think this is long overdue. They think this is a good idea. So we have to listen to them too.

As far as the enforcement goes, the Member is correct; we have been lacking in our ability to enforce in the least little bit. As part of the business plan process, we’re hoping to bring forward recommendations and get feedback from committee. Obviously this is one, because if...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This whole process was one, as the Member said, that was much needed. It was one that was actually endorsed by Members of the 16th Assembly to start to carry out the work as they felt there were a lot of squatters out there and the issue needed to be dealt with.

As far consulting, we do our best to try to consult with all affected stakeholders in this. As I responded to Ms. Bisaro, we are trying to get a product out there that they can actually see and make their assessments and comments based on the discussion paper. So it’s not a perfect scenario, but it’s one that the...

I can assure the Member that I will work with my colleague over in ITI as far as the parks side of it goes and see if there is anything that we can do as a government to address some of the issues that were raised by the Member.

Again, as far as the discussion paper, I said on a number of occasions now that it is our intent to get feedback from all affected stakeholders and public on the discussion paper that is presented now and possibly have a product out by June 30th. Again, we want to make sure that it is a product that is a very good product and one that is acceptable by most. It will be a...

I believe the department has done some work in identifying the density of the cabins out in these particular lakes as they have done around the airport like in Inuvik, just to ensure that there is room for growth and able to get more cabins on there. Some of that work is done. Again, I will assure the Member that we need to make sure we get a good product out there and this is one that we are going to take our time, make sure we get the right product out there before any kind of implementation because it is very important to residents not only of the lakes surrounding Yellowknife but the...

Obviously it is something that we would have to look at. If we’re getting more requirements or needs for the money that we have, or more demands, then it’s something that I think as an organization, as a department that we would have to have a look at and see how we can best support those groups that are actually out there delivering these programs to their communities. We understand the importance of volunteerism and every one of us in here has volunteered at one time or another. We need to ensure that we do our part in assisting volunteers as much as possible.

Thank you. Volunteer has a budget of $150,000 in the past year and that goes out to help support a lot of the volunteer groups under that particular umbrella organization. As well, the volunteer organization development contribution increased from $20,000 to $70,000. Again, our preference would be to put money right into the volunteer groups themselves and not in an umbrella organization. However, we’re coming up to a business planning process and it’s an issue, obviously, that the Member will raise and it’s something that we’d be more than willing to listen to. Thank you.