Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have with me today to my left, Mr. Mike Aumond, deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs; Ms. Bev Chamberlin, director of lands administration; and, Mr. Mark Aitken, director of legislation division with the Department of Justice. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a former constituent of Inuvik Twin Lakes who is also the returning officer. She didn’t move out of the riding; they actually moved the line. So welcome Juanita Bourque. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I am here to present Bill 7, Community Planning and Development Act. This new legislation was developed in response to requests from municipal governments, the Northwest Territories Association of Communities, the Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories, and professional community planners.

I would like to acknowledge the hard work of representatives of the NWT Association of Communities and the professional planners on our Peer Review Group, who all made important contributions at various stages to the development of this bill.

Community planning can be simple...

I’m not quite sure of what’s in the contents of the agreement-in-principle as far as that is, but I can assure the Member that when we communicate and when we start making progress with devolution, that we’ll do what we can to ensure that all costs to clean Crown land are included. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, obviously, that is a problem, and I did commit to the Members that I would have some discussion. I have had the opportunity. We had a FPT for Ministers of municipal government. I had the opportunity to discuss the situation with some of the members down there. Unfortunately, we didn’t get as much time with the federal Minister as we would have liked. We were very pressed for time. As I assured the Members, it is an issue that we have to continue to raise, and raise with the federal government to make them aware of their responsibility and the fact that there are a lot of people...

Evictions are the last resort. Evictions are something that have taken maybe a year or two to get to. We’ve given folks the opportunity to honour their repayment plans that they’ve agreed to enter into and we don’t want to evict anybody.

All we’re asking people to do is honour the agreements that they’ve made. We’ve seen an improvement across the Northwest Territories in the collection rate. Some are up at 127 percent. The majority of them are 99 percent. Since we’ve taken it over, back from ECE, and the assessments are being done by the LHOs, we’ve seen the collection rate go from 82 percent...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me today I have Mr. Mike Aumond, deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs; Laura Gareau, director of corporate affairs with MACA; and Kelly McLaughlin, legislative counsel with the Department of Justice. Thank you.

We’ve been trying to work very hard with the tenants of Paulatuk housing. We’ve seen quite an improvement in the collection rate in Paulatuk. It’s steadily climbing. The assessments have improved dramatically in Paulatuk. The reassessments that I mentioned to the Member, I think when he asked earlier, have been completed and there’s been a substantial drop in some of the arrears for a lot of the folks in Paulatuk. I know in one particular case alone it’s almost like $100,000 has been removed from their arrears. That’s a significant improvement.

We’ve tried on many occasions to work with them. I...

Mr. Chairman, I am here to present Bill 19, Cost of Credit Disclosure Act. This act fulfills a commitment made by the Premier of the Northwest Territories, who was a signatory of the Agreement on Internal Trade (1994).

That agreement was signed by Canada`s First Ministers in July 1994, to reduce barriers to the movement of persons, goods, services, and investments within Canada. The objectives of the reforms in the agreement are to harmonize laws and develop simplified, uniform cost of credit disclosure requirements to reduce compliance costs and provide uniform consumer protection across...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We try very hard to distribute the resources for housing fairly across the Northwest Territories. I think if we add up the numbers, we’ll find the smaller communities get a higher average of money than some of the larger communities. I know in the Member’s community alone, Paulatuk, the one he referenced, this year there was a $2 million investment in the community. That’s with the homeownership, the MNI work that’s being done. We recognize some of the units need some work, and we’ve been fortunate the last few years that we’ve been able to allocate a lot of funds to...