Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, numerically they are factored in, but the nature of these costs is not. That is to say, child care expenses would be considered the same as a car payment.

Of course, costs like these represent two completely different circumstances with varying degrees of need. As such, more often than not the applicant’s true discretionary income is not really captured, so a single parent’s eligibility many times falls just over the predetermined Core Need Income Threshold, and they become ineligible for public housing. This is happening all too often to single people who are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just general comments on the Housing Corporation from what I have dealt with over the past nine months or so since our election.

To date, about 80 per cent of all of the concerns from communities in Tu Nedhe have been on housing. The majority of those concerns have been on seniors’ housing and home ownership. I look at this as a serious problem. I see it as a problem that started with the fact that the NWT Housing Corporation changed completely. They changed their focus on housing without completing a needs survey. The needs survey is essentially a tool that allows you to...

Can the Minister advise if the NWT Housing Corporation would look at a different way of determining Core Need Income Threshold? I can’t see how they could capture all community-assisted expenses if they’re using the Core Need Income Threshold handed down from the federal government.

Can the Minister advise if at some point the corporation would look at having all expenses to determine that core need income be community-specific?

My understanding of reporting PYs is that it is supposed to be by function. I am just trying to determine if all of government reports PYs the same way, or if some departments choose to report PYs in different manners. My understanding is that the North Slave region just happens to be where the location of the corrections facilty is. Also, the Fort Smith region happens to be the location of the other corrections facility, which is based in Hay River. But that is not exclusively responsible for working in the South Slave region or the Forth Smith region only. The North Slave Correctional Centre...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The request by MLA Krutko on the distribution of the money for Community Justice committees and then the response from Minister Lafferty on the federal funding…. I was wondering if it would be possible to indicate that, also in addition to the request from Mr. Krutko, if the federal money, once they have determined where it is going to go…. I am assuming they already know, since they made the cut. In accordance with that, I would like to have the federal funds incorporated into Mr. Krutko’s request also.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to get some more information on the….

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

During my last constituency visit to Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e many residents were concerned about the lack of industrial arts, home economics and physical education teachers in their school. Aspiring trade students may not pursue journeyman status without getting some experience in those trades. These days with the robust diamond and mining industry, the importance of exposing junior and senior high school students to trades cannot be overemphasized — particularly increasing their employment opportunities, as I mentioned a couple...

I would like to see if the Minister could provide this request, to myself or to the committee in writing, for how they count their headquarters and regional positions. I don’t believe that everybody in all of the departments is reporting regional and headquarter positions in the same manner. This, I think, downloads a lot of headquarter positions into the regions that are actually headquarter functions. There are headquarters positions in other communities. That’s fairly well understood. But every opportunity that the government gets to report them as a regional position, it seems to happen.

I...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The same line of questioning on this from me, as I am still not clear on how the positions, the PYs, are being reported. I just want clarification on why there are only nine positions in headquarters Yellowknife, and 136 positions in the region, and also 69 positions in the Fort Smith region. I am trying to determine if the department is counting these positions by where the individual is located or if it is a question of function.

Okay. The total reduction in this area has been $433,000 just in these last three motions. The department had indicated to us that that was offset by the federal government. I’m only seeing an offset of $170,000. To me, it still seems like a fairly substantial cut, so I’m going in favour of the motion.