Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, what strategies does Housing NWT have in place to meet the current base budget shortfall related to funding emergency shelters in the NWT? I note that there's been a pretty significant drop in the funding over the years, so can the department -- or Minister, sorry, speak to this.

Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate those answers and understanding better what's going on within the division.

I do note that the president kind of mentioned in her answer the community housing plans, and I am curious is that -- was updating the community housing plans, has that project been completed? Is there -- or is that ongoing work?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that answer. And so, Mr. Speaker, I understand that workplace morale can be a bit of a difficult thing to track and to measure. So I'm just curious has the department thought or the Minister thought about how she's going to track progress on this issue? Are they establishing measures? Are they, you know, taking a baseline to understand from staff where things are at now and where things are going? How are they going to be measuring success on this important issue in our health care system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do apologize, I'm a bit confused by the Minister's answer because what I see in the budget is a reduction from 2167 to 1305, and the Minister just described increases.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just want to clarify what was said and, you know, share my own perspective. And I just want to clarify, you know, I don't see my role in this House as always keeping Ministers happy or that the votes that I do, they may or may not agree with a Minister at any given time, and sometimes they don't. In the recent past, I have voted against the capital budget. I brought forward my own cuts. And I wanted to bring that forward because those cuts did not pass. I would have liked for them to but when they didn't, I let it go and we moved on. I don't make a point...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate that. And just -- I wanted to highlight it because I just -- I have a feeling that these kinds of programs are certainly going to be a part of what social development ends up coming forward with its recommendations. Not to preclude the committee, but it's just based on the presentations I've been seeing at that committee, and what we've been hearing from Indigenous governments, it really is the trend that I think we're heading towards, and I think it's a good one. I think we want people moving in this direction, so I wanted to highlight that. And, you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm just going through the rules and looking at the privilege here and would respectfully suggest that I am not 100 percent sure whether or not this is a breach of privilege or not and will leave to your -- humbly leave that to your expertise. I just -- I do want to note, though, that in the rules, the privileges of the House include, and there is in 2(a) there, it speaks to affronts against its dignity and authority and the after admission which impedes or obstructs the House. So the Member from Yellowknife South spoke to that. And I wanted to speak to a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So can the Minister help me better understand this a little bit better. So there's an income threshold that you have to be below in order to get it, and I'm assuming if you go above the threshold you're not eligible anymore. But wouldn't we think that people who were above a certain income threshold would be even better able to kind of own and operate a home? And so I kind of -- is that threshold really helping us in this program? I mean, certainly the idea of people starting to own a home, I mean that's the goal that we're trying to achieve here. So why do we even have a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask about the homeownership initiative program. You know, it's one that receives a relatively small amount of funding, so I'll just start first question. Is the program fully subscribed every year; do we max out this funding? And if not, why not?

Okay, thank you. And I'd just like to build upon what the president just shared there. So if the goal is increasing stock and, you know, making sure that we've got enough resources to move people through the spectrum, can the president or Minister discuss what is being done particularly within the term of this Assembly to do that, to achieve that goal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.