Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Chairman, that is doable.

Mr. Chair, part of the $300,000 would be to work with the communities, as we were saying before, in their training. The Member used Aklavik as an example and it’s actually a very good example, because having been in Aklavik for a few of the floods that happened there, I got to see firsthand the local emergency planning group in action. They get together, they have a plan and when emergencies such as this happen, they put the plan into action. They do it with whatever folks they have in the community, they do it with their own resources and a lot of it volunteer. It’s a working committee that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member raises a good point because there is quite a decrease in the funding that we have been receiving from Ottawa, but we’ve taken the necessary steps. Obviously, because of the lack of funding, we’ve had to cut back on the dollar amounts. So on the number of programs we offer... We’re doing an evaluation of all our housing programs right now, housing choices programs. So until we see that, it’s going to be awfully difficult to determine which programs we may have to cut because of the loss of revenue. Our preference is not to cut any, because the ones we have we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be here today to discuss the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs 2011-2012 main estimates and the activities MACA is planning to undertake in 2011-2012 that supports the visions and goals of the 16th Legislative Assembly.

MACA has a very broad mandate which focuses on community governments but also provides a range of programs and services to individual and other sectors such as sport and recreation, youth and volunteers.

The department’s 2011-2012 main estimates total is $93.3 million in operations expenses. Of this funding, approximately 78...

Mr. Chairman, we are always wanting to do what we can to support the cultural activities of the youth across the Northwest Territories. In this particular one, it would either go on a youth contributions, youth corps, but I caution the Member that we support the cultural aspect of it. But when it comes to competing for prize money, then MACA is very hesitant in supporting groups that go on a competition for prize money. We have had requests for some hockey teams to contribute to them, but they are going to play for prize money. The cultural part of it, where they just go and showcase their...

That’s one of the things we are looking at doing, is a rent scale review. We’ve tied it in with the Shelter Policy review because we feel that this is one that will be a way forward document for the NWT Housing Corporation.

We’ve heard many suggestions from Members, we’ve heard many suggestions from members of the public and all the general assemblies that we go to as to how we should calculate rent. I can assure the Member and all Members that we’ll look at any way possible to try and be fair and just be sure that all tenants from across the Northwest Territories are treated the same and...

Mr. Chairman, in some cases we will assist them, as I mentioned in my response to one of the other Member’s questions. There are some uncontrollables that we assist them with. The more money they generate, then the less assistance they would receive and the more money they receive from revenue, they would be able to put that back into their operations. That would keep them out of running a deficit situation. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we have budgeted $300,000 for fire emergency training and that is what we intend to use the money for, because we realize the importance of getting out there. We probably have quite a few places that we would have to work with. As I was saying in response to an earlier question, some communities have identified firefighting equipment in their capital plans. We would continue to work with the community, do an assessment with them and have the communities take up the responsibility of bringing in the needed fire equipment with their infrastructure dollars. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have a number of units across the Northwest Territories at any given time that are being renovated. Our preference is that a lot of this work happens during the summertime when it’s easy to do the work, but we run into some situations where the work is taking a little longer than expected. I’m not sure of the particular details of this situation, but I will commit to the Member that we’ll make some inquiries and we’ll follow up and see what is the status of these particular units and I’ll pass that information on to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We haven’t identified any exact numbers. We don’t have a line item yet for the work that’s going to be undertaken at the Joe Greenland Centre. It is one that we are hoping to bring forward and get approval for, but it’s not a line item in this particular budget. It is work that we are planning on doing.