Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, we are in the process of doing that right now. We are hoping to have an appeals committee in place by April 1, 2011. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once the application process is over today I will be able to provide some numbers to the Members, if they wish to see the number of applicants in their communities.

I will commit to working with the different groups and seeing what was included and what was not included. The Member mentioned earlier on in his statement about the infrastructure that transferred over to the communities and how some of it was aging, which is true. Had we gone about doing business in the old system, a lot of that infrastructure would never be replaced for a long time because they’d be at the end of the line in priorities. So by doing this, giving the money to the communities, having them have the responsibility, I think we’ve seen some good work towards some of the...

My understanding is there weren’t any regulations that were in place. It was something that the community would identify to the Power Corporation and try and have the proper lighting installed. The communities worked with the Power Corporation to come up with the needed lights in the community.

Each fall and winter we work with the community governments to support their revised capital investment plans and if they identify streetlights as one of their priorities, then we would work with them to include the streetlights in their capital plans. The communities have done quite good at doing their capital plans, and I can inform the Member that one of his communities has actually identified street lighting as part of their capital plan and they’re hoping to do the implementation during this fiscal year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The way it worked before was that the Power Corporation would install the poles and streetlights and then bill MACA, when MACA had the responsibility and all the infrastructure money. Since the implementation of the New Deal, it is now the community’s responsibility to work with the Power Corporation in having streetlights installed in the community.

Providing programs to seniors is one of our priorities. We do have some programs that are designed specifically for seniors through the Housing Corp and through MACA. We have preventative maintenance programs. So we do have some programs geared towards seniors, but as I was mentioning before, we will look at all ways that we can improve our service and delivery to seniors. We could look at possibly identifying a lot of the seniors out there. The Member has actually been very helpful in identifying a lot of seniors in his constituency that might qualify for some programs. So we continue to take...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT Housing Corporation goes a long way in trying to assist seniors in home repairs and getting work done on their units and getting into homeownership. There are many things we do for them. If this is something that is a concern, I’d have to explore that with officials from the Housing Corporation to see if there is something that we might be able to do to address this concern. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Listening to all of the Members speak, I don’t think there is really much more I can add. What I am quite surprised about is, is there anything you haven’t done? I hear Michael talking about you driving a Cat. I think when we were in Inuvik for an elder’s speech one time, you actually worked on the utilidor in Inuvik. That is why I was thinking there is nothing this man hasn’t done.

I just met Tony recently. I haven’t had an opportunity to know him that long, but you meet him the first time and he just makes you feel like you have been friends forever. I appreciate Tony...

This is a concern that we’ve heard from some of the Members on how we deliver programs to the seniors and I had committed earlier to the Member for Tu Nedhe that we do have district staff going into the community. If there were seniors that needed our staff to go see them and help them fill out the applications and also with translation, they’d be willing to do that. So we continue to refine how we deliver our programs for seniors because we do want our seniors to have a nice, comfortable lifestyle and if there is anything we can do to assist with that, that’s something we are constantly...