Robert C. McLeod

The communities can take everything else on, they’re not obligated to take the lands.

Mr. Chair, I’ll have Mr. Aumond respond to that.

Mr. Chairman, we have seen in some communities, they will take it upon themselves to…the fire equipment they usually have. If there are opportunities for, and if funding permits, then it is something that I think we need to have a look at, because they do a wide range of operations within the volunteer fire department and search and rescue. Search and rescue on the water is one of them. There is an opportunity there for the assistant fire marshal to work with them in identifying things that they might need.

I think the biggest part of it here is the training and work with the communities. I...

Mr. Speaker, I will make a commitment to all 11 Members that we will be doing what we can to bring the housing needs down. There is an adequacy issue, obviously. A lot of this is homeowners that have received home packages from the Housing Corporation that are looking to make some repairs to them. We are doing what we can to assist them, Mr. Speaker. I have made a commitment that once we are through this two-year cycle of the major investment that we have had, I am very confident that we will see a decline in the needs numbers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is our intention in the future to transfer the responsibility of administration of lands to the communities, within community boundaries.

Mr. Chair, they can apply to the regional offices or to headquarters. What I can do, and I can commit to the Members, is that I’ll put a bit of package together and I’ll give it to all Members, because, as Mr. Bromley said, you can be conduits to the folks out there that may not know that this initiative exists. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me on my right, Mr. Michael Aumond, deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Also with us is Ms. Laura Gareau. She is director of corporate affairs with MACA. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, because the investments made by the federal government and matched by the GNWT over the last couple of years we’re expecting that these numbers should go down. The Member is correct; we have approximately $19 million going towards major M and I’s this year. Then there’s the home repair program where a lot of money will be going to. We’re not adding so much new public housing into the stock. A lot of what we’re doing now is replacement of older public housing units. So all these are taken into consideration, but we’re quite confident that when the last of this major investment...

I will assure the Member that we’ll do some research and see what we can find out and then I’ll get back to the Member with some of our findings. Thank you.

One of the youth corps pots is for territorial-wide initiatives. The other youth corps funding goes to the regions for regional activities. Thank you.