Richard Edjericon

This is, I mean March 1st, COVID free and, this is great. I just want to also recognize a translator from our community as well. She's not up there but I just want to recognize Mary Rose Sundberg from our community from Dettah. She's also a translator here, mahsi. Tom Unka, also from Fort Resolution, and he's also a translator here as well. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to recognize respected elder from our community of Fort Resolution. I want to recognize Terry Villeneuve. I can't see her, but she's a former president of the Native Women's Association of the NWT. She also served on the Dene Nation Elder Council. She served as a chairperson on the AFN Women's Council at the national level. Ms. Villeneuve is retired and lives in Fort Resolution with her daughter Cindy Villeneuve.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I want to keep talking about housing and in our community, housing's a big issue, like I mentioned a few days ago. And I can't emphasize enough of it. I used to sit on the AFN housing committee going back to 1999, and at the national level we were about 45,000 housing short across Canada. Here in the Northwest Territories, back then, we were about 4500 homes short. And these numbers had no place but to go up. And I'm not really sure what it is today in that respect. But I wanted to touch on one thing that that was talked about here earlier is that and I...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And it's good to hear what they're the Minister's reply on that, is that when we say we talk about working with aboriginal governments and that kind of thing, we still need to work and build that confidence and trust with the aboriginal governments. For too long, you know, the we've been trying to fix the problems in our communities on home repair programs. I got like, I have a constituent in my community, they have sewer backup drain in the bathtub and they're making too much money; they can't qualify. And if so there's just so much barriers in place trying to deal...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was reviewing the fouryear capital plan, sorry, MLA plans for the Northwest Territories, and it talks about increased number of affordable housing and reduced cost housing needs. Also yesterday the Minister of Housing talked about a new vision statement for the Northwest Territories for housing. And the biggest thing I'm thinking about, we already talked about the last few days, was that housing is a big issue here in the Northwest Territories. I know Mr. Johnson, my colleague here, talked about $20 million for housing. But that's one part of it.

The other part it as...

Thank you. And first of all on housing, I just want to just briefly talk about housing.

I just want to mention that I'm also a carpenter by trade. I've worked all over the North, worked for some big companies, worked as an independent consultant, been to many meetings in the North in regards to the Dene Nation, Akaitcho, etcetera, and front and center is housing. And from the people I've been talking to up and down the Valley and also in our constituents, they say housing is broken, the policies don't work anymore for our people.

And so when I look at your plan here, and I really like looking...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister share with the House their plans as to how they're going to deal with the all units in the Northwest Territories, as to how they're going to deal with it, whether they're going to devolve it to the communities or is there O and M costs that's going to go with it, or like, I know they want to work with aboriginal governments but, Mr. Speaker, there's still a lot of big issues with trust working with the Housing Corporation because of for years, their policies don't fit the aboriginal government needs in our communities, and we still have huge...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, I think this is a be a discussion on this one here. I just wanted to let you know that I was also involved at the Mackenzie Valley Impact Review Board as a chairman for six years and we also were really concerned about the water and transboundary. So we also made arrangements to work with the Alberta government on the transboundary agreement to share information. And that information, to me, was really important because we kind of the mandate, the review board at the time was making sure that we protect the wildlife, the air, and the fish.

And I guess the other...

Just one more I think. I'm just thinking about the on the Giant Mine public hearing, we had many intervenors or proponents etcetera, like DFO, department of the environment, and all the aboriginal groups, etcetera. So if you were to find in your reports and fish studies etcetera, or water quality, you have an opportunity to probably work with the Alberta government and try to I guess address those issues. But also my question would be is that during the water licence process, are we involved in that process too as well through your department and Alberta? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker. Yes, thank you for that response. I was reviewing the budget for our riding, for the Tu NedheWiilideh riding, and this year our allocation for this year is about 3.4 million.

Madam Speaker, I guess I'm concerned about that number when we really need help in our communities, whether it be internet services, which is really slow in Lutselk'e, dustfree roads in the community of Lutselk'e. That's just to name a few. And then now, you know, I am hearing that we need to improve the winter road and barging season so we can provide essential services into the community...