Tom Beaulieu

Marci cho. Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, everybody's talking about the houses on this side here with the Housing Minister. We're going to be asking the Minister of Housing. I too will continue with the NWT Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, the NWT Housing Corporation has the ability to touch on every aspect of our mandate. It can impact the economy by providing communities with local housing projects that will see five or six people in the communities trained and working on renovating homes. These projects can also look at employing the 18-to-30-year-old group as youth employment rates are very...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I don't know where the positions went to so I don't know if we're better off. I don't know if the positions were taken out of communities that had low employment rates and put in the larger centres that have more crews. Larger centres that have more than four crews that could within themselves create… If they had 20 firefighters, for example, they could easily go from four crews to five crews without any impact. Or if there's three crews and there's more people needed they'd have to come from some community. All I know is that the impact is felt by...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just wanted to dig a little deeper into the reconfiguration of the fire crews and the loss of positions in the communities. I notice that there's still the same amount of firefighters and I knew that; the Minister had advised me of that. I'm wondering what process was used to determine that some communities would lose positions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we wish to continue on with the consideration of Tabled Document 5018(2), Main Estimates, 20162017. Mr. Chairman, we would like to continue our deliberations on the Environment and Natural Resources, and time permitting, get into Health and Social Services. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister has there been any discussion with her senior officials at the Housing Corporation towards developing a plan for what we’ve been talking about through the mandate, aging-in-place for seniors. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask if the Minister would consider looking at developing a housing plan which has all aspects of housing that we look at in the communities, meaning that they look at not only the public housing, but all of the home ownership in the communities and all of the market housing and all of the staff housing in any particular community. I recognize that this would be a difficult task in a place like Yellowknife and Hay River, Inuvik. In the small communities where a high percentage of people are reliant on social housing, I’d like to ask if the Minister would develop a...

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. I too, would like to recognize people for the Official Languages and Aboriginal Languages Revitalization Boards. First, I’d like to recognize John Catholique, also mostly known as “JC”. Marci cho. Also, I’d like to recognize Vance Sanderson from the Metis Nation. Vance is my grandson’s dad. I’d also like to recognize Angela James, from the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, and Angela is part of my big family. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I move to report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, that's good there's more crews, more efficient crews. However, the process of eliminating positions, whether they be casuals or not, at some point there are two less jobs in communities where there are two crews and there's one less job in a community where there is one crew. We are going through an exercise here at this point where we are talking about some half-time positions in Yellowknife, as an example. Some part-time positions in various communities across the NWT. We've been talking lots about the employment rates in small communities. Above all...

Marsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I talked about the reduction of crew sizes for firefighters across the territory. I'd like to ask the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources questions. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister advise me how the overall crew configuration comes along with no actual job reductions? However, looking at it from a constituency point of view, there appears to be job reductions not only in one community of Fort Resolution, but I understand in Lutselk'e as well. I'd like to know where those positions have gone to, whether they have been...