Wendy Bisaro

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions of the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.

I spoke yesterday in my Member’s statement about the difficulties encountered by regional boards in providing housing for their teachers or ensuring that their teachers have adequate housing. They have sent a letter to the Minister. It describes the need for available, adequate and affordable housing, and it talks about housing shortages, substandard and unsafe living conditions in housing and exorbitant rents.

I’d like to know if the Minister has any plans to tackle the...

Mr. Speaker.

I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on June 19, 2008, it shall be adjourned until Wednesday, October 1, 2008.

AND FURTHER, that any time prior to October 1, 2008, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice and shall transact its business as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister for the information. I’m gratified to hear it, and I think it’s going to be a workable process. I guess I would like to ask the Minister: if there are communities that don’t feel they have the human resource capacity to develop their own community capital plan, will the department be able to help them to finish off these plans in a timely manner so they can get their priorities known to the department?

Thank you to the Minister for the clarification. I guess I need the clarification, then, on the money that is going to the communities.

The first priority is water treatment plants, and I have no problem with that. It then says the balance of the funding will be made available to communities to address their own priority projects. If I could get some clarification on how communities are able to use the $6.5 million they are going to get annually.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s good to hear, and I hope we can find a solution for housing in every community that currently has a problem. One of the options suggested by the boards in their letter was to allow regional boards to have the same authority as the local Yellowknife board and that they be given the authority to acquire and dispose of real property.

I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not this is something the department will or can consider and when we might expect to see a change in the legislation before this House.

I was very glad to hear the Minister finally mention the education boards. He mentioned a lot of different organizations and finally mentioned the boards that he is consulting with as well. That’s a good thing.

The Minister has received a letter from the regional boards, and there are a number of recommendations in that letter for the Minister. On a similar vein, I’d like to know what action the Minister is planning to take to address these suggested options, apart from meeting with these board chairs.

I’m pleased to hear that they’re discussing a female facility. But I need to point out that homelessness…. I’m not speaking about homelessness just from a Yellowknife point of view but from a territorial point of view. It’s a problem in all of our communities. I’d like to ask whether or not the issue of homelessness and reducing the number of homeless people that we have in our communities is going to be a priority for these social program Ministers in our ’09–10 budget?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke yesterday about homelessness and about the need for us to address it across the Territories. I was pleased to hear the Minister indicate yesterday that the social programs Ministers will be meeting to discuss options with regards to housing for the homeless. It’s recognized that having a continuum of housing is part of the solution to homelessness. My question for the Minister responsible for the homeless is whether these discussions, which are going to be held over the next weeks and months, will consider expanding the continuum of housing within the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke yesterday about housing needs in the Territories, and today I’d like to address a specific aspect of housing. It’s a topic that’s been mentioned several times already by Members of this House over the last weeks and months. That is the need for available, adequate and affordable housing for our teachers.

NWT teachers consistently face housing shortages, unsafe living conditions and exorbitant rent. Last year some 130 teachers were recruited to the North. Of those, 94 were replacement teachers, and 75 of those moved to our small communities. We experience a 20 to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister. It’s nice to hear that it’s important to the government. I guess my next question would be: if it is that important, if it’s going to be a priority, will the Minister be assigning more financial resources and human resources than we currently have to this problem?