Wendy Bisaro

I appreciate the work that you’re doing and I think it’s really valuable work. I’m sure the communities appreciate it as well.

If there is a community that feels that they need to get some assistance from ENR, if they feel that they aren’t quite sure what they need to do, or they have a particular plan that they want to put in place, is it conceivable that they can go to ENR and ask for that assistance and presumably get it in fairly short order? Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that information. That’s good to hear.

My other question has to do with communities and what I think the department calls wild land fire risks. My recollection is that there were assessments of wild land fire risks around communities that were being done. I guess I would like to know two things. Have all the communities been assessed in terms of wildlife fire risk? I’ll start with that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a couple of questions here with regard to two things. Two questions, two things. The first one has to do with forest resource inventories and with the development of a potential wood pellet business in the South Slave. I know the department has done some work, I believe, on forest resources and doing inventories of our forest resources. I gather that it was done in the South Slave. But I believe there was also plans for the department to try and do forest resource inventories throughout the NWT.

Could I get an update on what percentage of the territory we’ve...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. I agree that the Healthy Families program is a good program, but I would suggest to the Minister that the lack of focused money in the ‘13-14 budget, apart from that one program, is not going to the recommendations from this report.

Thanks to the Minister for that. I guess I’d have to disagree with the Minister, I don’t think it’s the majority that are legislative changes. Certainly, there are a lot of changes suggested to legislation and I’m really glad to hear that there will be an LP coming in 2013. That’s this calendar year. So that’s a good thing.

The Minister mentioned one of the actions the department has tried to put into place, and that’s child and family service committees within our communities. I appreciate that there has been some difficulty in getting these committees organized, but I have heard from my...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today is not only Valentine’s Day, as evidenced by my colleague Mr. Dolynny, but it is also the 15th anniversary of V-Day.

V-Day is an organized response against violence towards women. Today is also the launch of a new campaign, the One Billion Rising Campaign. One Billion Rising invites one billion people, representing the number of women on the planet who have been raped or beaten, to walk out of their jobs, schools, homes, and dance. I won’t be dancing today, but maybe next year we’ll all be dancing.

The One Billion Rising Campaign can be a catalyst. It can unify and...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I was really pleased to hear that e-waste is next on the recycling list. I am glad that’s what the department is looking at next. I hope it’s sooner rather than later.

I wanted to ask a question with regard to waste sites in the NWT. I know it’s being dealt with through devolution negotiations, but I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not he feels comfortable, his department feels comfortable, that we are cataloguing all the waste sites we have in our territory in advance of devolution. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’m a little concerned to hear the Minister say that Yellowknife is over-allocated. He also referenced other communities. I guess I need to know from the Minister what that term means.

We have a great need for public housing here in Yellowknife. There’s a need for public housing in every community, I think, but I think Yellowknife, as the capital, although it’s a different situation here, we do need more public housing.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he could please explain to me what the term “over-allocated” means. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. The Minister is aware of a very difficult housing situation here in Yellowknife. A number of leased units that the Housing Corporation has leased from a landlord are being removed from the public housing inventory here in Yellowknife. Apart from the disruption to the lives of the tenants, which is a major disruption as anybody can imagine, the action also causes headaches in the ranks in the GNWT, in particular the Housing Corp.

I’d like to know from the Minister how many units...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to say that I agree with this motion and I agree with my colleague who’s spoken already. I have been struggling with the energy initiatives as presented to us for the ‘13-14 budget. They do not make a serious inroad into reducing our energy costs. There are a number of them, but some of them, I think, are minimal enough that we can put the money into a better project and I think this is one such project.

The Arctic Energy Alliance, in their proposal, which I think Mr. Bromley mentioned, estimates that there’s about 1,000 electric hot water heaters in thermal...