Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Norman Wells Land Corporation made application for this land and we had a look at the application. All the proper processes were followed and so the land was hereby leased to the Norman Wells Land Corporation.

So I can assure the Member, regardless of what he says and the accusations he makes about a deficient application having not seen it, then I can assure the Member that all proper processes were followed. Thank you.

Thank you. The Member disagrees with the Minister because he doesn’t like it either, as he disagrees with a lot of things that go on in this Legislative Assembly. Mr. Speaker, the land in question is not going to impede the Norman Wells community from expanding. There’s still plenty of Commissioner’s land within the municipal boundaries. The Norman Wells Land Corporation saw an opportunity to acquire some land for the future of their people and what they want to do with them, so they made application. The application was reviewed. Hereby they now have the land.

Again I say, Mr. Speaker, that...

Thank you. The Norman Wells Land Corporation has indicated that they want to use the land for future economic base for their membership and they do have some ideas as to what they want to use the land for. Obviously if they go to develop it in the future, there are a few issues that need to be taken care of and the appropriate bodies have to be applied to, but they have made it quite clear that this land is supposed to be and they have a future economic base for their constituents. They also have indicated preliminarily what they want to use the land for. Again, I will say for the fifth time...

Thank you. I’ll be sure to relay the Member’s concerns on to the TSOs. Again, the TSOs have their processes of selecting athletes for some of the smaller teams. They may train in the region. I’ve seen cases where they’ve gone out into the region and had their training camps. But this is a serious concern and I share the Member’s views on this. I’ll be sure to pass his concerns on to the territorial sport organizations and see how best they can maybe accommodate some of the athletes in some of the more rural ridings or communities. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately it is one of the many challenges a lot of the smaller communities face, is trying to get athletes to make the Team NWT to compete at a national level. I know for the Arctic Winter Games that they have all the regional trials in the winter there and go on to the territorial trials. For a sport like Member Krutko has raised, there is a territorial training camp that they tend to have and bring all the athletes or all the athletes have to come in once they are identified. I do know that there was some contribution made from the Beaufort-Delta and Sahtu Recreational...

We invest a huge amount of money in youth and through the Rural and Remote committee we had a $400,000 budget item a couple of years ago that was approved where we were able to bring athletes from the region and have regional games where they don’t have much of an opportunity to get out there. I hear the Member’s point, though, that, again, it would be a decision that would be...(inaudible)...the territorial sport organization. They would have a process of how they want to select their team. Part of the process is identifying athletes from the regions to come down and take part in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve outlined on several occasions in the past that under some of the new programs, seniors are eligible for more funding. Under the old Senior Citizens Home Repair they were eligible for up to $20,000 in funding. The funding we have nowadays is based on income, so a lot of seniors that qualify have very low incomes, so they quality for higher amounts of assistance. Then under the Preventative Maintenance Program the seniors are eligible for up to $2,000 each year.

Under the priority allocation and selection system, seniors and disabled persons receive extra points, so...

Obviously, being a private homeowner, they would be responsible for the remediation of their piles. However, the Housing Corporation does offer the CARE program where, if they’re eligible, they would qualify for home repairs and get the piling work done. As far as a program designed specifically for that, it doesn’t exist right now, but clients will have an opportunity through one of the home repair programs to get the work done to their units.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Those that find they need to replace their fuel tanks or pilings would be able to, if they qualify, access money through CARE, the home repair program.

We’re always looking at ways that we can improve the delivery of our program. We have allocated, in the past number of years, a large amount of resources to the communities. I can stand here and quote some numbers from the Member’s constituency where one particular community received $4.7 million since 2007. Another community got about the same amount. We try and distribute the resources that we have equally. We’ve been fortunate in the last number of years with the federal investment. We’ve been able to allocate more resources. With that money being sunsetted we’re back to our historical...