Tom Beaulieu

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I spoke of the issues of tax arrears and lease arrears on the land in Tu Nedhe communities. Right now the elders are afraid that they’re going to lose their homes and so on. I’m getting calls from elders every month that get bills asking to pay right away.

This is for the Finance Minister. If the Finance Minister -- because the bills are coming from Finance -- could have officers go to visit the elder homeowners in Tu Nedhe to discuss their tax arrears with them. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. In Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e there is a huge issue with land tax and land lease arrears. The problem is that taxes and leases are levied on people while the common understanding from the people is that all charges for land and taxes on their properties will be sorted out after the land, resources and government negotiations with Akaitcho are completed. Right now Akaitcho is engaged with the federal government and territorial government in negotiations.

However, invoices are being sent out to people in both communities and now some of the invoices are in the $20,000...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I’ve seconded the motion for the Member for Sahtu on this because I, too, am a believer that we have to put money in for the students, as much money as possible. I think the benefits down the road are tremendous. If we have an educated society, then we have improved health and that’s statistically proven that higher education is better health, better housing, better income. The whole thing of even the social problems and everything are eliminated. A lot of social problems are eliminated when you get into a society where you’re talking about people that are well educated...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the capital projects that are not specifically under contract but other capital projects like maybe repairs or maintenance programs for homeowners and so on where there may be materials going to the communities and some sort of contribution, would the Minister look at something like that, making contributions to the communities using capital dollars so that the communities could have some summer students working on projects?

The nature of the Housing Corporation is that they spend a lot of their funding on capital. Would the Housing Corporation look at hiring summer students as they’re doing capital projects throughout the summer?

To the LHOs, did the Housing Corporation provide additional funding to LHOs for them to hire students at most if not all of the LHOs across the territory?

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation along the same lines as summer students. Last year the NWT Housing Corporation hired seven students. To date how many students does the NWT Housing Corporation have on staff for the summer?

Thank you. Will the Minister agree to stop sending out invoices and bills to the homeowners in Tu Nedhe until they’ve had a face-to-face meeting with that homeowner? Thank you.

Will the Minister work with the Minister of MACA to then, at this point, delay any further levying of taxes to the homeowners of Tu Nedhe? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it’s good I’d have a discussion with the Minister. For me, I can give him a lot of information, a lot of detail, but one of the big issues seems to be that there’s an accumulation of taxes, due to what I spoke of. There’s a common feeling in Tu Nedhe that they shouldn’t be paying taxes until the land resources and government negotiations are complete. Will the Minister direct his staff to write off the interest on the taxes and then deal with the principal at a later date? But at this point, write the interest off? Thank you.