Tom Beaulieu

Maybe that’s supported lease. I think an orientation program is very important when clients are signing documents. I know of a case recently where an elder did not sign documents and at the end of the day that person was one signature away from the family owning a house because the elder passed away without signing the document. However, my question for the Minister is when signing documents -- this is now just if the individuals get approval -- is there a guarantee that the individuals understand? Is there any way that the corporation guarantees that individuals understand what they’re...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to ask some questions to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. This time of the year the NWT Housing Corporation has application deadlines for homeownership programs. Depending on which community, these deadlines may vary. In many cases residents are not fully aware of the deadlines. My question is in regard to a communication strategy. Can the Minister tell this House if the Housing Corporation has a communications strategy for its homeownership program in the application phase?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as indicated in the Minister of Education’s Minister’s statement, aboriginal language…March is Aboriginal Language Month. I am going to…I can’t read the language, Chipewyan language. I am trying to learn. Hopefully that will be a goal of mine, to try to be able to read the aboriginal language next March.

---Applause

So right now what I am doing is a difficult task that we ask the translators to do. I have a Member’s statement written in English and I am going to try to translate it into Chipewyan. [English translation not provided]

Mr. Speaker, I seek...

Mr. Speaker, today in my Member’s statement I spoke of the need to have environmental monitoring in the Tu Nedhe area around Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution. I have questions for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. I would like to ask him if he could tell me if ENR has allocated any money in the area of environmental monitoring that could be transferred directly to the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I don’t have a whole lot to add to it. I think the majority of what had to be said here has been said. I think this will also help the government, because allowing more people into homeownership does create a bit of a market. A better private market we have in all of our communities, the better off we all are.

As people know in the Housing Corporation, communities with markets have much lower needs, on a percentage basis, than non-market communities. Some of the communities where there is absolutely no market, the needs are very high to extremely high. If this...

Mr. Speaker, today I would like to talk about the need to deliver environmental monitoring programs for residents of Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e. Mr. Speaker, Lutselk’e is a small, isolated community located on the East Arm of the Great Slave Lake. It is right in the heart of the proposed new national park and sees a lot of resource exploration. Fort Resolution is situated on the south shore of the Great Slave Lake near the mouths of the Slave and Taltson rivers, both of which have been impacted by hydro and tar sands projects and is a close neighbour to the former lead/zinc mine in Pine...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the Housing Corporation take immediate and comprehensive action to assess all housing association programs with a view to increasing the income thresholds that are used to determine client access to the various housing programs; and further, that the Housing Corporation establish reasonable income thresholds that better reflect the current state of the northern economy particularly the high cost of living in small communities and that the programs be designed to address affordability, suitability and adequacy of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 20.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is something I was going to ask later on but I can’t really find a better place. I suppose this might be on the debt repayment; that might be the spot to do it. As we all know, we are dealing with a declining fund from CMHC. I’m wondering if the Housing Corporation has developed a strategy on how they’re going to address the issue of the loss of O and M dollars as the loan gets paid off. Are you going to reduce the amount of public housing? Are you going to take money from capital and put it into O and M or ask this Assembly for more money to continue to...

The Minister touched on something here that I would like to explore a little further. On the collective bargaining issue, it has always been my understanding that it wasn’t a union issue in negotiating because if you are providing subsidized housing to someone in a non-market community where, like I said, it is difficult to provide staff housing for staff because of high carrying capital costs and so on and so forth, it is difficult to get contractors on. I am curious to know what type of actual collective bargaining issue this creates, because I can’t see how the people in market communities...