Robert C. McLeod

The Member is correct; the communities do have the option of hiring whoever they want to assist with their project, and that funding does come out of the capital money that’s advanced to the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When a community has a project that they are working on, they require assistance from MACA. Our regional staff will go into the community at their request and assist them in working out their capital plans and also advising them of funding and anything else, any other help that they might need, then the community would take it from there. We are available from the regional office to assist the communities. Thank you.

That is a concern that’s raised across the Northwest Territories. Housing has taken some steps and they do have training workshops for folks that apply for particular programs. There was some concern that some of the seniors didn’t understand how the programs worked and would somebody else be able to take it in their place. The answer was yes. We made those arrangements. But we’re always willing to see how we can improve our services, especially to elders that don’t understand the English language very well. It’s not their first language. So we’re always willing to look at ways that we can...

Mr. Speaker, I’ll commit to the Member that I’ll have that discussion with the department as to whether we can cc the band or not. If it’s confidential information, then I’m assuming that we’re not going to be able to. The elder could take the letter to the band, I suppose, and have a discussion with them, the interpretation. But I’ll follow up on the Member’s request and see if we’re able to cc the community government on the letters that are sent out to the elders. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it is true that there is more operation and maintenance required. The operation and maintenance budget is reviewed every two years and if adjustments have to be made, they’re made at that time. The last couple of years, recognizing the fact that there is new infrastructure, the O and M budgets have gone up for the communities and they’re well appreciative of that. But it is reviewed every two years and if adjustments need to be made, then they’ll be made then.

We continue to work with the federal government and bring our case for the need for more operation and maintenance along...

Thank you. I appreciate the Member’s comments. He’s absolutely correct with the infrastructure that we’re putting in the community. I think the department has taken the lead in trying to get as many community people trained as possible. It’s an initiative that we’re quite proud of and I think we’re seeing a lot of positive results come out of this. So I thank the Member again for his comments.

By soon…I have to remember to do that when I’m responding to the Members’ questions, because I always leave myself open for that. So in the future I will come up with a specific date; November 25th, 2009, type of thing. So I will follow up with the department and see where we’re at with this. Hopefully, if there’s an opportunity to get this out within the next month, then I would commit to doing that.

There’s always opportunity for input into some of the things we’re doing. We are proposing an LP come forward between now and the May/June session, so we can introduce the bill in May/June and...

Obviously, all our water treatment plants meet the Canadian standards for drinking water. Then we’ll have to, I think, deal with the wastewater potential being imposed on us when we come to it. I’m not quite sure where that’s at right now. So we’re monitoring that quite closely to see if they decide to impose that on us, then I think we’d have to have a serious discussion as the Legislative Assembly and with the federal government as to the funding for these new sewage treatment plants. It’s going to be awfully expensive for one of our smallest communities like Kakisa with 42 people to be...

One of the questions in the consultation/discussion paper was around the issue of residency requirements and a lot of the folks that did respond did say that there needed to be some adjustments made to the residency requirement issues. So this was taken into consideration and then we will be preparing a report to present to Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comment. We are constantly, when we do meet with our federal counterparts, we are always mentioning the fact that they do flow a lot of money into the Territories. We need to start looking at the O and M, because there are a lot of projects going on the ground, so we need to increase the O and M funding. I think we all know that there has been an increase in the O and M for the last couple of years, recognizing the fact that they are getting a lot of new infrastructure on the ground. We will continue to work with the communities and will...