Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to use this occasion to refer back to my Member’s statement today when I talk about the downtown day centre. It is important that I continue to emphasize this. This is more like a territorial shelter that offers no programming as of yet, that I hope will happen, but it offers opportunity for people from around the North a place to go, who are homeless.
As I highlighted in my comments, there have been some stats taken that about a third of the daily users actually only identify themselves as Yellowknifers and it is the rest, actually, that sort of draws some strange attention to the problem.
I would like the Minister maybe to talk about what he plans to do in the upcoming budget and fiscal year to help support this downtown day shelter. Will his department be financially committed to continuing the operation of a downtown day shelter? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Health and Social Services, through the YK Health and Social Services Authority, is contributing their $125,000, plus are now contributing the share that used to be contributed in a three-year pilot project by BHP for $50,000, for a total of $175,000. That money will run to the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year, at which point we will re-examine our position. Thank you.
I want to acknowledge how, with great delicacy, the Minister avoided, really, the question.
Is the department going to fund the downtown day shelter in the next fiscal year? We already well know, in this room and on the street, that the day shelter is being funded by the Yellowknife Health and Social Services Authority up until March 31st of next year. We already know that. Tell us something we don’t know.
Will this new funding, if available, which I am waiting to be confirmed by the Minister here today, include programming funding so we can provide people with services more than just doors open?
Mr. Speaker, I don’t know if we are going to be funding it beyond March 2013, because this was originally a three-year pilot. All the partners were in for three years. Now we are alone. We are continuing to fund it. We have funded it for one more year. It has its opposition; there is no question about it.
We want to evaluate what is there. We want to see if there are programs that we are putting in there now such as a navigator type of service to help individuals to pursue employment, education opportunities. I am going to see if those things actually have an impact.
We are going to run this year out, this fiscal year up until March 31, 2013. We will take a look at those impacts and then make a decision on whether or not we will continue to fund the shelter. Thank you.
Clearly, that is not the answer I am looking for per se, but at least finally we have an answer.
There is no plan to fund it beyond this coming end of fiscal year. If that is what the Minister is truly saying, then we should make sure we are clear.
I want to know today that the people going to this centre, that the businesses depending on this particular centre to provide homeless people opportunities and places to go, we need to be clear to the public that we are going to pull out from the process. Is the Minister saying clearly today that there is no funding in the upcoming budget for this centre? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, like I indicated, we will fund it for the rest of this fiscal year. That still gives us an opportunity to evaluate and get some funding into the shelter, if that is the decision we make beyond March 31, 2013.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t think the Minister is clear on his answer one way or the other. It is a yes or no question. Are we going to fund it into the following fiscal year? Yes or no. Why do we keep talking about we are funding it to the end of this fiscal year? Why do you keep telling me that? We already know that. Everybody in the public knows. I want to know and the public wants to know, yes or no.
Is the government going to get behind this project and fund it starting in the next fiscal year that starts April 1, 2013? Yes or no. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Maybe yes, maybe no.
---Laughter
Order! If I can remind the Members, people are watching in their communities expecting us to do our job. Make your questions short, to the point and the same thing with the Ministers. You’re Ministers. Answer with all the respect as possible to the Members. Thank you.
The Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. In my Member’s statement on the Nahanni flood disaster, I raised a few concerns, but I will be more specific later on in this session. I just wanted to get some idea about has the department began looking at a post-mortem report on the flood disaster and when can I as the MLA for Nahendeh begin looking at some preliminary report, or at least the report on the response actions and some of the things that happened at Nahanni Butte. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t started the report yet. Work is still ongoing right now, but once a lot of the work is completed, there will obviously be a report and we’ll be sure that we share that with the Member for Nahendeh. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Just along a similar line, I know that the Disaster Committee is evaluating loss for claims, et cetera. Maybe the Minister can correct me; but is there a deadline for this? Because I know that some of the repairs, some of the damages sometimes it takes three months, six months, maybe even up to a year for damages to show up. Is there a mechanism in our Disaster Relief Policy to address situations like that?
Just for an example, there were some housing repairs done and in my visit last week there was a woman homeowner. She said, well, since they repaired my house, my house shifted a little bit. Is there room in our Disaster Policy to address situations like that? Thank you.
Thank you. All the homeowners’ repairs were done. I think they were finalized and inspected on September 28th. If there are other issues that may have evolved because of the work that was done to repair those homes, then obviously we’d have to go in there and have a look at that, and assess it and see if there is any other way that we’d be able to assist so that the homes get back to their pre-disaster state. Thank you.
Thank you very much. It’s a concern that there’s no firm cut-off date, because these homes are still impacted by the flood, and I don’t believe there should be a cut-off date and hopefully the Minister can raise that with his department.
Also, just getting back to a post-mortem on the community, it was pointed out that I think they have one piece of equipment, a large piece of equipment that surely could have been used, but it was damaged at that time. Can I ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs when they do their post-mortem, also to look at the heavy equipment needs of the community and how we can assist in future floods for any community? Thank you.
I can commit to the Member that we’ll look at all infrastructure and ones that may have been damaged by the flood. If they’re municipal-owned infrastructure, obviously insurance would cover those, but as part of the post-mortem I’ll commit to the Member that we’ll look at all aspects of the equipment in the community, and we’ll go from there and see what could be improved to try and alleviate some of the damage for the next time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. The situation in this case with the heavy equipment was that they were all pre-owned vehicles which did not work during the flood. They were looking at all communities should have at least like a track vehicle available to help with their needs.
Aside from that, I’d like to invite the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs to come to Nahanni Butte this fall or this winter to see the community for himself. As well, we may even finally do a gymnasium opening ceremony in the community of Nahanni Butte. Thank you.
Thank you. I look forward to the opportunity of going into Nahanni Butte, the only community in the Northwest Territories I haven’t been to so far. We’ve had many opportunities to try to get there to open the gymnasium and I hope the gymnasium doesn’t flood before we have a chance to open it.
I will commit to the Member and I think we are working on a possible tour of the Nahendeh, and Nahanni Butte would be one of my priority stops. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Continuing on with the theme of education, I’ll ask the Minister of Education a question in regard to the Aboriginal Student Achievement committees that he’s been talking about for quite a while. However, before I begin on that, I’d just like to apologize, as I forgot to recognize the Honourable Glen Abernethy, Public Works and Services, who attended the opening of Inuvik’s school as well.
Moving on, one of the questions that I had was in regard to the Aboriginal Student Achievement committees that have been working very hard over the past year to develop some initiatives into increasing our Aboriginal education in the small communities. What funding is allocated, if any, for these committees to make sure that their initiatives get started up this fall, this winter, or this spring? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. First, I’d like to commend the committee of Inuvik working on this ASA, one of the priorities of this government, my department.
The funding that we do provide through ASA, Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative, is approximately $1.8 million for ASA initiatives to fund a number of activities such as literacy coaches, the libraries, the cultural orientation for all teachers, an ASA coordinator and also an Aboriginal Student Achievement Initiative public awareness campaign. This also deals with those communities that are initiating their own committee to work with the Beaufort-Delta Department of Education as well. So it has been made clear. The Member made a statement in the House last time. I did make inquiries to the superintendent to work closely with the committee to make it a real successful project. So I’m looking forward to seeing the outcome of that. Mahsi.
Out of the $1.8 million to the ASA committees throughout the Northwest Territories and all the good work that’s going on within that money, how much of this money is actually being filtered into the initiatives that these committees have developed on their own, these innovative and unique initiatives that they’ve developed on their own? How much of that money is actually going into those programs so that we know that the work those committees are doing is not going unnoticed or not going unfunded or not being supported?
Again, this money is flowed through the Beaufort-Delta Board of Education, and the funding that flows through would consist of various activities that the committee can access, as well, through the Beaufort-Delta Board of Education. Also, working closely with my staff that deal with ASA, we are currently discussing that. At the current stage we’re establishing an ASA steering committee to deal with these matters because we want to support the local ASA committees, such as Inuvik. They are part of the school system and others that take on the responsibility on a volunteer basis. So we need to make this an effort and we are working towards that. So we establish a committee to work with them. Mahsi.
A couple of weeks ago I got an e-mail from one of the committee members asking about when funding will start flowing to their committee so the initiatives that they’re looking at implementing can actually start running. Can the Minister confirm that his department, his staff, is working with the Department of Education, the councils and with the ASA committees, that all three are working together so that the funding is actually going to initiatives that these committees have been working on for over a year now?
The simplest answer would be yes. If they haven’t done so, as of today they need to start working with my department, with BDAC, and also with the committee that’s been established. Not only the Beaufort-Delta but other regions as well. We need to support those individual committees on a volunteer basis doing what they can. They are committed so we need to support them. I’m a firm believer in that.
I’m also meeting with the board chairs in December. I will raise that issue, as well, that we need to start implementing. It’s a shared responsibility. We need to move forward and make it a successful project.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister provide me with some details on how many of these ASA committees have actually started implementing some of their action plans throughout the regions of the Northwest Territories, and if this side of the House will get a report on these committees and how many of them have actually implemented their action plan?
I’ll definitely provide the detailed information of the committee that’s been established. To date we do have three communities that are working towards implementing the ASA. I’ll provide that detailed information to the Members.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation. In my statement I outlined the desperate housing situation people are facing going into winter. There are 137 names on the Yellowknife Housing Authority waiting list, 500 across the territory, and several service organizations say that the situation is so bad it’s scaring them. There have been some good changes in our approach to housing, but the facts, unfortunately, show that things are just getting worse. The statistics essentially reflect an emergency.
I’m wondering what the Minister is contemplating to deal with this situation and how are we going to get people housed as winter comes on.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have vacant units across the Northwest Territories where the public housing stock units are vacant, but those units are being worked on. We have approximately 130, I think, where there’s some major M and I work done. We’ve tried to encourage our LHOs to have this work completed as quickly as possible so we can turn them over and get tenants into them. Unfortunately, sometimes due to lack of capacity, that does become very challenging. A lot of the units are under repair, and once the repairs are completed we will move tenants back in, which should shorten up the waiting lists in each community.
We have heard that answer before, yet here we have this situation where we have a huge waiting list that is building rapidly.
At my constituency meeting a couple of nights ago in Ndilo/Detah, I was told there are up to 10 vacant home ownership units in the community. Most are all still empty while un-housed people sit on these waiting lists, often because household income thresholds do not match reality. There are about 30 empty units in Behchoko for want of money to do repairs. We’ve been hearing about that for over a year now. Again, this is an emergency.
What steps will the Minister take now to get families into the vacant home ownership units, for example, and what steps will he take now to get damaged units repaired and back into the housing pool on an expedited schedule?
Members have heard the answer before and they will continue to hear it: As long as we have vacant units that need to be repaired every year, we will have vacant units that are being worked on. That answer will never change.
As to what we’re doing right now, I understand the Member is concerned over the vacant home ownership units. That is one that we’ve aggressively been trying to address. Sometimes we can’t get folks in there because the income doesn’t match or there are other reasons. It’s not always just the income. The ones that we’ve had in the past, we have tried to convert to public housing so we can utilize more of them.
I’ll have to follow up on the 10 that are in the Member’s constituency, because I do know we had 135 a couple of years ago and we had very aggressive plans, and we had converted a lot of these into public housing units so we could utilize them, because we’ve heard from across the Northwest Territories that we have all these vacant units. We don’t want them vacant. Some have been vacant for five years. We’ve been trying to address that.
Again, I will follow up on the 10 that the Member speaks of and find out where they’re at and how we can go about filling these vacant units, because we don’t want to see vacant units in the Northwest Territories. That’s not our goal.
I was told at my constituency meeting – the Minister talked about the vacant home ownership units – that people are being turned down for home ownership units because the income ceilings are unrealistic. Obviously, with up to 10 vacant units in a community as small as Ndilo/Detah, there’s something wrong with the program practicality. The Minister knows that. He just told us. Knowing that, let’s do something about it.
Will the Minister commit to review those guidelines again and consider means to place home ownership units or transfer them into the public housing stock, which I know he said he would do the latter?
We’ve tried every which way to get as many people into these home ownership units as possible. We’ve tried having a 10 percent gap where if they were over the ceiling, then we would consider them. We’ve had some limited success with that. Some people have been turned down for other reasons.
I will commit to the Member that I will follow up on these units and see where they’re at, because I would like to see, as much as the next guy, a lot of people moved out of the public housing spectrum and into home ownership, but we have to ensure that we work very closely with them and make sure that we’re not setting a lot of them up for something that they are not capable of handling. A lot of the people are surprised, once they get into home ownership, the amount of money that they have to pay as far as bills go.
I will commit to the Member that I will work on these particular units and see how we can best do something with them very quickly.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s commitment there. I know the Minister realizes that housing is really the fundamental first step of getting people out of poverty. They need a basis to live and carry on their lives. This is so important.
I mentioned in my statement the new Transitional Rent Supplement Program and the current refusal to develop policy for people renting in boarding houses to access the program. With Yellowknife at less than a 1 percent vacancy rate in the residential market, will the Minister stop penalizing these people for the lack of housing choices and open a program to applicants who are renting rooms in houses?
This was one of the concerns we heard across the Northwest Territories. A lot of folks out there who are just trying to get into the workforce, however, rent was taking up a good portion of their money that they were making. We’ve tried to address that.
Obviously, being a new program there are still some things that need to be worked out, and then with most programs will be evaluated after a year, but for now our goal is to try to work with those who are in the market housing industry. There are many other cases that we can hear about and discuss, but those cases I think will have to have that discussion at a later date.
Right now when we’re rolling this out, we want to just concentrate on getting them into private market rentals, and then we’ll go from there and evaluate the program after a year.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Public Works. I want to talk about ?ehtseo Ayha School and I know Public Works does the maintenance of that school and does some work there. My questions are going to be directed to him.
I want to ask the Minister, the leadership this morning spoke to me from Deline and they said the school pilings underneath the school… They weren’t too sure what the status was on it. Is it sinking? Is it being fixed? They were very concerned because of the number of children that are going to school and the parents that are sending their kids to this institution to get an education. They want to know what the status is of these pilings that were being put under the ?ehtseo Ayha School.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Glen Abernethy.
