Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad that the Minister mentioned "lessons learned" because my next question is about lessons learned and how does the Minister intend to ensure that lessons learned are captured from this outbreak so that we can better prepare how we will communicate future ones. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by reiterating my thanks to public servants who worked very hard during the outbreak here in Yellowknife.

During the outbreak, even constituents who were isolating and were confused were very you know, the very first thing that they always said was how thankful that they were because everybody had a friend who was working long hours, everybody knew somebody who was directly working with the outbreak. So our thanks for that.

My first question for the Minister of Health and Social Services today is who is responsible for COVID...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Ombud's sixth recommendation is to remove the restriction to investigate the director of Human Rights Commission under Section 23. The Committee agrees.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations recommends that Section 23 be amended to remove the reference to the Director of Human Rights, and further that the reference to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner be amended to Integrity Commissioner.

In the 20192020 annual report, the Ombud makes several recommendations to address procedural issues around the Ombud’s jurisdiction to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm happy to hear that and also happy to participate in any way that might be useful to the department as well if any feedback is useful.

Mr. Speaker, the World Health Organization publishes simple clear documents titled "I just found out I tested positive for 19" and "I just found out I am a contact of positive 19". Straightforward guiding documents like these would have been useful during the Yellowknife outbreak and especially where the Minister did acknowledge that there was some confusion over what category people fell into.

So I'm wondering will Health...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I guess I just disagree with the Minister on this one because we don't have enough public housing stock in order to put people in. So whether or not we're pretending we don't want to spend it because we want to put people into public housing, we don't have the public housing units. And so whether or not we want to spend it, we're still spending that money. We're just creating red tape in the process of spending it.

My next question for the Minister, though, is private sector and nonprofits and Indigenous housing providers want to work with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment.

Education, Culture, and Employment income assistance policies not only play a key role in caring for Northerners, but they also play a key role in housing Northerners.

So I'm wondering if the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment will remove the requirement that NWT income assistance applicants must add their names to the NWT Housing Corporation housing wait list, public housing wait list. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a lot of the work that we're discussing as wanting to put forward from the standing committee on social development has to do with being able to change policies so that we can see real change in housing in the Northwest Territories.

Some of those policies are in the housing corporation, but some of them are in the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment. Some of them are in Finance.

And so I'm wondering based on the timeline that the Minister just gave us as the end of the assembly, if the Minister is willing to...

Mr. Speaker, I think I'd like to report something to the Red Tape Working Group. Right now and I understand what the Minister is saying, and I appreciate they're doing a review on the income assistance policies. It's very much needed. But hanging on to a piece of a policy throughout a review that really isn't serving the people of the Northwest Territories just doesn't make sense to me. We have over 900 people on our wait list right now, and not all of those 900 people need public housing.

For somebody to have to walk down the block and in Yellowknife, it's about a sixblock trek...

Mr. Speaker, the reality of housing in the North is dire. NWT housing problems are well above the national average while funding for housing has decreased both federally and territorally. We have heard multiple times as GNWT cannot solve the NWT's housing problem alone and that the key to northern housing success is partnership. To foster these partnerships, our government needs to first create space for them.

Mr. Speaker, the GNWT's policies and regulations need to harmonize to support the priorities of the people of the Northwest Territories. But instead we have multiple policies that work...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. I have spoken numerous times in the House before about the community residency policy. That is a policy that demands that NWT residents live in an NWT community for varying times up to one year before they can add their names to the public housing wait list. Can the Minister of housing speak to the goal of this policy? Thank you.