Robert Villeneuve
Statements in Debates
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I won’t speak too much about this anymore until we find out what happened and what kind of a strategy rolls out of this. Maybe I just want to ask the Minister when is this strategy going to come to some fruition, I guess, and when is the summit going to happen? You know, another caribou summit, aboriginal summit, housing summit; you know, every time there’s a crisis situation, let’s have a summit. So anyway, what’s the deadline for this strategy anyway? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that the $222,000 be deleted from the Department of Transportation airports activity in Supplementary Appropriation, No. 1, 2006-2007. Mahsi, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I can understand that, but didn’t we save any money on the winter ice road maintenance because of the short winter ice road season? Isn’t there some kind of a balance? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, you know, I don’t think we really have to study the dust issue to death here because, you know, the EBA report on dust control is very well done, as far as I’m concerned. But again, these Northern Strategy dollars, these gas tax dollars, all these sources of money that the government has offloaded on the community to tell them to spend it any way you want, you know, I don’t see anything in any of these spending requirements that mentions anything about dust and that it’s your responsibility all of a sudden. The dust control has always been a government...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have a problem with the community governments taking over their own dust control issues. Is this government going to provide an adequate amount of funding to these community governments to address their dust control issues? Through the EBA report on dust control, there’s a lot of recommendations in that report, and is the government going to implement some of those recommendations? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know that a lot of LHOs around the NWT say their needs are so and so, but basically they just want to be treated fair and equitable with other communities of the NWT. Everybody wants their fair share. That is understandable. I want to mention to the Minister, with this housing authority, I don’t see people pounding on the Yellowknife Housing Authority’s door to ask for more public housing. If I see an ad in the paper for rent, like subsidized public housing, in the newspaper, I know it is for information only but it is also advertising that, hey, we have public...
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My questions are going to be directed to the Honourable David Krutko, Minister of Housing, with respect to the Affordable Housing Strategy that’s going to be rolling out in the next three years. Having worked here and lived here in Yellowknife for quite a number of years myself, I just don’t really see the real need for more public housing in Yellowknife because the public housing units here, there are not many people pounding on their doors or phoning their MLAs everyday, as they are in the smaller communities, to raise public housing issues and the need for public...
Why is that, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I don’t have a problem with the communities assuming control of their municipal and community affairs, but is the government going to provide any money? Mr. Minister, if you could just tell me straightforward, is the government going to flag money to these communities to say okay, here’s $100,000 to address your dust control issues? Is that in the works, or is this coming out of these Northern Strategy dollars, which is for capacity building or for recreation or for youth development, not dust control? That wasn’t included in the Northern Strategy, as far as I...
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a lot of our smaller communities, you know, and our elders and people with respiratory ailments like asthma, the coming of summer means the coming of dust; the lack of dust control in these small communities. With the recent removal of $738,000 for dust control from the Municipal and Community Affairs main estimates it bereaves me to tell these people that, hey, you know what, the dust control issue is no longer a Municipal and Community Affairs priority. It probably never has been under control. The government has spent numerous amounts of dollars looking at...