Déclarations dans les débats
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe for the benefit of the public – I’ve heard this answer before, and I’ll explain it when I say it – maybe the Minister can help us understand what “fully qualified” means.
As we all know, things like housing maintainers are not Red Seal tradespersons, so I want to make sure we have the right people on the ground making the assessment. The only thing I would say, Mr. Speaker, is a housing maintainer – this is my last question, Mr. Speaker – cannot go in and identify an electrical problem. They can suspect there’s an issue there, but they’re not qualified to say it...
I think I got most of them. Just to drill down slightly deeper, how many people are actually qualified at his point? I think the Minister had said they are training some folks, so let’s get that on the record. How many people are specifically qualified to identify mould and send it out for testing? Nobody can just stand there and say it’s this type of mould. It has to be sent out.
That said, what regions do they typically work? The Minister said just a moment ago, every public housing unit is condition rated every year, so I just want to make sure we’re doing this regularly and in which regions...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s exactly why I’m asking about the implementation plan, how we get this into the input of those regions into this plan so we actually get developing business, because business is the right people to help create the economy. That’s the detail I’ve been trying to get here today and I look forward to what the Minister is now going to say. Besides the plan, besides the implementation plan, let’s hear the details of how we’re going to get there and get people working. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it’s my understanding that we were going to work on about three Economic Strategy plans and it was my understanding that they would be at least in the range of about $50,000 each. I’m doing that off memory, so it may not be the exact number for each plan, but I’m sure it’s a close number bracket.
That said, I’m trying to source out which particular regions this government is going to help focus in on and what type of discussion are we going to have to ensure that we focus in on those regions that need a lot of help and see if we can get their economies bustling so they can work in...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk today about a very important subject, and that subject is jobs. Jobs are critical no matter where you live. They help your family, they help you and they make sure that the economy runs. Economic opportunities are absolutely critical throughout our Northwest Territories because they do bring those jobs so we can have Northerners working. A Northerner working is certainly a much happier one than one living on the system.
With true employment rates as low as they truly are, we cannot wait for the federal government to step in or some other person such as a...
I want to thank Member Moses for his very ministerial technique of dealing with that.
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It’s funny no one on the Cabinet side is laughing. The only other thing that I think, I think pretty much it’s self-explanatory on some of the changes that folks who do read this very closely will probably figure out. Maybe we could get Mr. Moses, or if he would again use his technique to help us find out why we’re repealing some of the prohibitions on broadcasting. I think that a bit of a detailed answer on that would probably help the general public. It’s probably the only area that I show...
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this issue. I am going to support the $40 million, but I do that with sort of the side comment of saying I feel that we have little choice. By obstructing the $40 million, I feel that we put the project and other types of headaches for us and we view them as let’s frustrate the process by causing a delay, I guess, in some manner or form.
Members have been very unhappy with the $40 million and how it has come about, but at the same time, I’m a realist and know that if we struck this $40 million, what frustrations have we caused? We...
I want to give deep and sincere thanks to the Minister for recognizing my concern about public housing. It’s an important issue for me. I will accept every offer he just made about providing that information.
In the spring I was asking some details about certain public housing units and they were in the Nunakput region, interestingly enough, the one that you represent, Mr. Speaker. I had some concerns about the particular condition rating. I drilled down a little further later on, asking about if they were as qualified to do it as such and was the information fully contained.
I’d like to know...
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I love asking questions and I certainly enjoy the answers that I sometimes get. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Housing Minister.
We all know mould is a serious issue in the Northwest Territories, certainly in public housing. Quite often we hear a lot about it. I want to know how often public housing units are tested for mould, who does the testing, what skills do they have, how do we ensure authorities are testing them properly and what expertise do we use. Those are the bulk of the questions and, well, let’s find a way to get through them.
I can appreciate from the very first response from the Minister that he’s maybe not able to fully answer the question, so maybe I’ll take a slightly different tact.
Does the Minister agree that regional grassroots input is important so each region can identify what’s critical to them to help spark their individual economy?
The example I gave in my Member’s statement, I’m sure you’ll recall, Mr. Speaker, was I mentioned how maybe in Tulita the fishing industry isn’t quite the same as it is in Hay River, where we need to support Hay River slightly differently because they have a big fishing...