Wendy Bisaro

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...

Thanks to the Minister for that; it gives me some comfort. I have read some articles over the last year or so that reference oil companies not wanting to disclose the elements, the contents of the fluid that they’re using. In terms of the guidelines that the Minister is referencing, two things: Will they be public so that people can see what it is we’re considering and provide some input into it? Secondly, will the guidelines reference the contents of the fracturing fluid and minimize the cost to our environment? I gather some fluids are really toxic. Thank you.

To the Minister, if there are sites following devolution that have not been catalogued, what’s the recourse for us as a government? If it’s a site that was on federal land when it was developed and it’s been left behind and remediation is required, do we have any recourse with the federal government for funding or do we have to eat that ourselves? Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I think I heard the Minister say that they’re going to look at things, but I guess my last question to him would be: Recognizing that there’s a need for more public housing in Yellowknife, what plans does the Housing Corporation have to try and increase the number of units in the public housing inventory here in the city? Thank you.

This is a fairly significant reduction in the capacity of public housing in Yellowknife. I think it’s at least 5 percent. I’d like to know whether or not the NWT Housing Corporation will be looking at replacing these lost units with other ones. Is this a permanent reduction or will we be able to keep the same complement of housing that we have now in public housing in Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to return to the subject of government customer service that I discussed last week. I have brought up the issue of poor customer service at least once a year during my time as a Member. It’s an area where no one government person or department is really in charge of the issue, so each department and office operates on its own which, in turn, leads to inconsistencies in service for NWT residents.

The GNWT as a whole has no culture of customer service, no standards, no policies, no monitoring. So here’s an idea, as my colleague Mrs. Groenewegen likes to say: Why...

Does committee agree?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’re on page 3-21, Human Resources, activity summary, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $4.56 million. Are we agreed?

Mr. Speaker, your committee has been considering Tabled Document 9-17(4), NWT Main Estimates, 2013-2014. I would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of the…