Robert C. McLeod

There have been a couple of cases where we’ve had to go after those that are squatters. We’ve had some complaints from people who hold legitimate leases. We’ve taken action against them.

I have to say that I’ve been very impressed with the buy-in that we’ve had from folks out there. They’ve had a lot of opportunity to come in and legitimize their leases. A lot of them have taken us up on that. I have to say I’m particularly impressed with the folks up in Inuvik at Airport Lake, where every single cabin out there has come forward and gotten applications to fill out.

We see this as a process that...

There is an opportunity and commitment that was made by the federal government that we’ll have to explore to ensure that we take full advantage of it so that we don’t have the glut that we’re having over on the east side of Prosperous Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we close out another sitting of the Legislative Assembly, I think that we’ve all come to realize that the work we do here is quite important. We all have some challenges in that, but usually at the end of the day I like to think we come to a common conclusion and that we’re here to do the best for the people of the Northwest Territories.

We heard yesterday Mr. Roland saying that he was not intending to run again and I just wanted to use this opportunity to thank him for his mentorship. I remember when I first came in, in 2004, Floyd was the Finance Minister. At our...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t really have the information, so until I can gather it, I’ll take the question as notice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We did recognize, as this whole Assembly did, that this was quite an issue. We’ve come up with a plan to assist our tenants, whether it be public housing or mortgage homeowners, we’ve come up with a plan to help them deal with their arrears. There’s a repayment plan that they can enter into with their local housing authority where they pay so much a month on top of the rent that they’ve been assessed.

Our collection rate as of March 31, 2011, was at 79 percent, which is an improvement. A lot of the local LHOs, I think we have a high of 161 percent. That indicates to me...

This government and this Minister do not disregard policy. You can’t, obviously, go against policy.

We understand we’ve gotten letters of support. We’ve entered into two more negotiated contracts with contractors in the Member’s communities, two in one community, even though both have requested a negotiated contract, and according to the policy, if two or more request a negotiated contract, we could have used that as an opportunity to go public, but we recognize that we need to help the local economy. So we entered into a negotiated contract with two companies in the same community and we did...

We make a contribution to each community. I think last year we made the contribution of $825,000 to the recreation in each community. We have it broken down by the communities. If they’re wanting to they’re able to use that money to… I mean, again, it would be the decision of the community. We can’t tell them how specifically to spend it. Through the committee of Rural and Remote Communities I believe we had identified some money that we wanted to funnel into the communities to help the communities with creating some employment that would obviously include summer students.

At the end of the day, it is our goal to see our tenants become more independent and honour the commitments that they’ve made. There’s also, and I’ve stated in the House in the past, an appeals process that we’re hoping to roll out here fairly soon. I won’t as a rule try and dictate to the LHOs what they do. They make their own policies. They’re the ones that actually came to us with some of the ideas they’ve had which they figure work quite well in their communities.

There’s an appeals process that we’re hoping to roll out here. Tenants will have the opportunity, if they feel that the board...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Housing Corporation recognizes the importance of having as many local people doing the contracts as possible. That’s why we ventured into some negotiated contracts with local contractors to help them build up the capacity so they can compete in an open market. We see that in the case of some of the ones that we’ve negotiated contracts with in the past. They are competing in the open market.

The Member says that there was $800,000 in negotiated contracts. Some of the numbers I have put that number a little higher. I mean, the one particular contractor, almost $1...

Again, if we are doing small capital projects that go out to the communities, even the smallest contracts are usually tendered out or sole sourced. It again would be up to the person doing the work as to whether they have or would need any summer students.

I do know that some of the LHOs will use summer students in some of the projects that they’re doing. That would be a determination that the LHO would make and, again, they would be able to finance that internally.