Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Chair, as I was saying earlier, we have three applications for this year. I think we had one from last year. In the Member’s community, one of the communities that we thought this would be best geared towards has not ever accessed the money. I would encourage them, because they would qualify for it or they would be eligible for it. I would encourage them to apply.

The uptake is not being where we thought it would be with the communities that we had identified that would have been able to access some of this funding. As I said, we have three this year and we had one last year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do try to make it a point and I will keep the Member up to date on any developments not only in his community but the other communities where we’re facing some challenges. I will keep the Members apprised of the goings-on in their ridings. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, all the money has been allocated and there are some communities obviously facing some challenges. We’re just in the process of having some discussions as to how we can best assist those communities either by an extension of the time they have to complete their projects, but we’ve had fairly good success and a number of communities are getting their projects and will be done on time, but for those that are challenged, we’re just having those discussions now as to possibly having an extension. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to the land lease use and policy, we have invited them to be a part of the process. We do plan on consulting with them and also with the area in question. I think the lake borders the Gwich’in claim, so there’s going to be a committee of Gwich’in, Municipal and Community Affairs and the Town as to how to best manage the development along the lake. We are consulting with the Gwich’in. Thank you.

Agreed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In a lot of cases the LHOs have switched to the higher efficiency bulb and we’ve seen some of the difference in that, and as far as the appliances that we use in the units -- fridge, stove and the washer and dryer -- they’re usually responsible for. But having switched those out to higher efficiency models, I think we’re seeing a difference there. Also tenants are becoming more educated as to the more power they use, the more they have to pay. So they’re taking steps on their own. We have a communication plan and we try to work with the tenants to ensure that their power...

It’s not something that we’ve ever considered, because we have some of the larger centres that use their actuals in some cases may be more than $200,000 and that won’t leave very much, if any, for some of the smaller communities that are hoping to access this funding.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are working with some of the LHOs that have found themselves facing some financial difficulties. We have a stabilization fund we’re hoping will help them stabilize a bit.

The Member speaks of the rent collection. We ask LHOs to collect 90 percent of the assessments. We’ve had a lot of people across the Northwest Territories...and the Member talks about the capacity of tenants to pay. A lot of them have realized now that they have to start working on their arrears, they have to start paying their rent. I think we’re starting to see a bit of a shift in attitude. I do...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This line item reflects the federal government decrease in the funding that they’ve provided for us and we’ve tried to respond to it by putting a line item in for the $300,000 that would go towards doing an assessment of some of the emergency services available in the communities. Thank you.

The answer is yes, I’m very confident that what we’re doing is working in conjunction with our sister departments. Thank you.