Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Disaster mitigation is one of the requirements of applying for…There are many pots of money out there. If there is a disaster in the community, I know for a fact that we wouldn’t leave it to the community to deal with the effects of that disaster. We would do whatever we can to find monies to help them. Applications could be put in for some federal money, Building Canada project. There was an opportunity there for them to seek some money from there and then they match it.

I don’t mean to keep harping on this, but am I the only one in this building that has confidence in...

Mr. Speaker, this project was taken on by the community and they identified it as a priority. They funded the project themselves, using their capital infrastructure dollars that are provided by MACA. They are the project manager and they took care of all the arrangements, so they do have an idea of the issues that are affecting the opening of the community complex. My understanding is that they are taking steps to try to address some of these issues so they can have it opened fairly soon. Thank you.

I am not sure if there was a question there. I think it was more of a comment. As I said, we appreciate the Member’s comments and his concern for the welfare of the small communities.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MACA is aware of the situation in Sachs Harbour regarding the capital project that they put together. There are some outstanding issues that the community has to deal with, working with the consultant and the contractor. My understanding is they’re starting to deal with those issues as we speak and, hopefully, we’ll have a positive resolution here for the Member soon. Thank you.

We’ll continue to work with the communities and ensure that they are looking at building the highest standard. I would hesitate to go as far as imposing it on them. I mean, we can encourage and support them and we’ve tried to devolve a lot of the responsibility of local infrastructure. We’re able to do that with, as the Member mentioned, the Housing Corporation, and we’re able to do that because we basically control the capital dollars so we can impose standards on them as far as the communities go.

I’ll stick to my guns and say that I’m absolutely confident. The communities know best for...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, November 2, 2009, I will move that Bill 5, An Act to Amend the Commissioner’s Land Act, be read for the first time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of the communities have applied for Building Canada money for specific projects that they’ve identified in their communities. For example, I think Aklavik used their portion of it for the new sewage lagoon and they matched the dollars and some of the dollars came from BCP. They’ve also identified some money for road upgrades through the economic stimulus fund. So the communities will let us know what their priorities are and we continue to work with them on capital plans.

As far as Mr. Aumond said, we’ve shared findings of the report with the communities and we...

The Member is twisting my arm to get me into Aklavik, but I will make that commitment that I will make it into the Member’s community. With that, we probably will have staff. We’ll leave the chequebooks in Inuvik and then we’ll...Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Lutselk’e is forming a development corporation. They are not, as far as I know, making any attempt to become a settlement or a hamlet. They are looking into forming a development corporation so the money could start flowing to them. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, a lot of the programs that we have applications that have come through for the Building Canada Fund, I have yet to see any application from the community. Maybe we should encourage them to put an application in with some of their requirements, and then we can go and look to access some of the money. If there’s money available for doing some research, then we can pursue that too. Thank you.