Thank you, Mr. Blake. A different line of questioning, but I’ll allow the Minister to respond if he chooses.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. For that reply, I’d have to defer to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources on that. Of course, ENR signs off applications for consideration under the HTC program and they also validate the claim and the claimants as well. So we’d have to work with ENR on that response for the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason I asked that question was, as I mentioned, in the criteria it’s 25 percent of what you harvest is what is required and that’s what the Minister was referring to.
So I’d like to ask the Minister, is the Minister open to reviewing and making changes to the 25 percent that is needed to qualify for the compensation application? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I believe I have made a commitment in the past to have a look at this, and again today I let the Member know that we are willing to take a look at this. It would have to be done in conjunction with ENR, and we’ll make that commitment to have a look at the program and funding criteria. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week we had a fire in Colville Lake. A man’s house burnt down and he lost everything. There isn’t a fire truck in Colville Lake, per se, and they used the water truck to try to put the fire out there. Just recently I heard that there’s an elderly man in Fort Good Hope who just lost his house to a fire with the inadequacy of a stable, reliable fire department there.
I want to ask the Minister of MACA in his capacity as the Minister, is this something that he could look at with the issue of the whole fire reliability in the fire department that are working in the Sahtu region, to ensure that the hamlets, the communities, do have a stable, reliable fire department so that people could feel somewhat safe in their small communities?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have our assistant fire marshals that are stationed in every region, and part of their duties is to go out to the communities to ensure that they have adequate training. If the community requires training or requests training, then our folks can go in there and assist them with that. They can help them identify the types of equipment that they may need. All the communities are funded so that they are able to purchase equipment if they have a need for it.
Mr. Speaker, I know some of the communities in the Sahtu certainly have their fire equipment and their volunteers in place, and they’re on stand-by, of course; they’re doing other jobs in the community.
I want to ask specifically about two communities, Colville Lake, which I talked to the chief last week as to their need to get some assistance from the department to look at a fire truck in that community because they no longer feel that there’s adequate equipment in Colville Lake.
Now, in Fort Good Hope, according to the CBC reports – I haven’t checked it out myself personally – there seems to be a lack of volunteers, or a stable, reliable volunteer fire service there. This is why the old elder’s house burnt down.
So I want to ask the Minister if he could ask his fire marshals, fire division, to ensure on a quarterly basis or a monthly basis that there are fire department volunteer members set up and ready to go in these communities.
We would like to see a good, strong volunteer fire department in every community, and the key word is “volunteer.” In every community they have to rely on the volunteers. Most communities have a fairly healthy volunteer fire department.
Once they have the volunteers or the volunteers identified, then we can work with the community as far as training goes and help them identify some of the equipment that they may need. So, we would like the communities to take the initiative to get their volunteers out, and then will work with them to ensure that there is some training that’s available to them and they’re also made aware of what types of equipment they may need.
The communities certainly volunteer their time in some of the Sahtu communities. I guess I’m looking at Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake, if the government or the fire division can take the initiative to ask the communities to come in, look at the volunteers, see if the equipment is up to date. You have the volunteers, the training there, would like to come in. Sometimes the government has to take the initiative on these specific essential services for our communities.
I am asking if the Minister can have a discussion with his fire division and say we need to get into these communities and see what is available and how can we assist them so that houses need not be burnt down in the Sahtu anymore.
We would like nothing more than to have all our fire departments trained and adequately equipped to deal with fires so we don’t have situations like we just recently had in Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope. However, if we were to come in and say we are running a course here and we want you, you and you to volunteer, then we’re basically dictating to them how their community is run. If they come forward and say we have some volunteers, we are interested in this training, we would love to come into the community to ensure that the community is trained and are aware of what types of equipment they would need. So I think this is an issue that is going to take partnership between communities in the Sahtu and our assistant fire marshal. We will do what we can to ensure that they have all the training that they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are some provisions and some programs within government that come into the communities and offer training programs. Minister, I think that’s what I’m asking if you could offer, take the initiative from the fire department, say we would like to come into Fort Good Hope, come into Colville Lake on one of the perfect opportunity dates. Because in Colville Lake, right now they’re all excited because trapping season is here.
When is the most beneficial time to come into the communities of Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake? We’d like to offer these training initiatives. You let us know and then we can work in partnership. I think that is the route that I am looking for from the leadership from this Minister, to ensure people in the Sahtu that there will be reliable firefighters in Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake so that no more houses can be burnt down in those communities.
Mr. Speaker, that’s something we can work on. We can work with the communities and say that we would like to come in at a certain time, offer some education on fighting fires and potentially a course. So, we will work with the communities and see if we can make that happen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We could talk about problems with housing and who it affects until the cows come home, as they say, but we clearly know it affects seniors, new families. It affects large and small communities in different ways, but equally in the sense of it’s a problem.
Mr. Speaker, we could talk about suitability of houses and certainly core needs. We can also talk about the vitality of the community being destroyed as the population leaves without housing options. I’ve cited lots of examples out there, so let’s start with one of the most important questions on this particular issue.
How many new houses are going to be built in this next fiscal year in the Northwest Territories? Let’s start with that.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all recognize that housing is a big concern across the Northwest Territories, and in working with the Legislative Assembly, I think the Housing Corporation has done a fairly good job in trying to address all the concerns that are out there.
To the Member’s question, we have… Well, this past year alone we have 46 public housing units, replacement units; we have six new housing units; we have a couple of seniors units – three, actually, seniors units that are being built – then we have 29 new market housing initiatives where we are putting 29 units into communities across the Northwest Territories. We also have our modernization and improvement project of our public housing stock, about 198 units that we are doing this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I appreciate the answer from the Minister. So, we are talking approximately, if I got his numbers correctly as I wrote them down, we are talking about 38 new houses in the Northwest Territories that will change the market in a positive way for Northerners. It doesn’t matter if you live in Yellowknife, you have affordability issues, you have suitability issues here; it doesn’t matter if you live in Paulatuk, the issues are the same. People are struggling for good options.
How does the Minister justify, on average, slightly more than one new house per community in the Northwest Territories as addressing the problem? I get it that they build them one at a time, but we are losing options of three or four. We are not keeping pace with the need.
So the fact is: How is the Minister justifying building only one house per community as a solution? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I feel we’re providing more than one house per community. We looked at the community needs survey that was done. We tried to identify some of the highest needs in regions and communities, and we target our investment into those communities. Also, with the market housing initiatives, we’ve had meetings with the NWT Teachers’ Association that identified some of their more challenged communities, so we have tried to target some of our units into those communities.
We have 100 units over the next three years that are going to the communities. That’s just market housing communities. That’s not including the housing investment. I think we are doing a really good job in addressing a lot of the concern from the small communities.
Of course, we are challenged, as this Assembly knows, with the declining CMHC funding and it is hindering our ability to build new public housing units, so we’re having to replace a lot of units. More and more people are getting into homeownership through some of our homeownership programs, so we make targeted investments. One community may not get anything for a while, but their turn will come up and they’ll get their fair share of infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister is actually getting ahead of me on the next question, which talks about a community may not get any infrastructure whatsoever for many years to come. When he says their fair share of infrastructure, that only might mean one or two houses new to that community. It is a positive effect. Also, to be fair to the Minister, very quickly, he said that we are doing a little better than one per community. He’s right; we’re doing 1.15 house per community across the Northwest Territories. That is 38 houses in 33 communities. Let’s give him the credit he deserves by all means, by saying he is building 1.15 house.
We haven’t solved the non-market community initiative problem. We have several communities that have no housing market. Tell me how many houses he plans to build in the Housing Corp this coming year, and by golly, please be more than one per community.
If you look at the units we provide, or if you look at the housing we provide, and if you look over the number of years, we have 3,100 units; we have 23 public housing units that we have on the ground, plus our Market Housing Initiative and our other units that we provide.
I attended a conference that spoke to Aboriginal housing down south – a couple of Members actually came with me – and I think the Northwest Territories is doing a fantastic job providing houses. We heard the story of one house every 15 years for a particular community down south, so I think we’ve done a good job in recognizing and addressing the housing needs across the Northwest Territories.
Could there be improvements? Of course there can, and that’s what we are working on with this Legislative Assembly. We are planning and we are going to be debating that in the upcoming capital budget. I think our budget for this particular year is $36 million, again, invested strategically. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Frankly, I just can’t figure out how the Minister is proud of the job he’s doing and how he keeps saying we are doing a good job when he only builds one house per community per year on average. Those statistics speak for themselves. We’ll let Northerners judge the Minister, Mr. Speaker.
In summary, 19 percent of the houses in the Northwest Territories are in core need; 31.6 percent are houses with problems of some sort. Declining funding is a terrible thing, but it is a terrible crutch to lean on that as, oh my goodness, the funding has been drying up. We have seen inaction year after year on this particular problem.
I challenge the Minister to answer this question: How is the Minister going to increase housing construction in communities for new housing as a solution going forward? Frankly, one house at a time is not solving the need. Do something today. Be bold. We need bold action.
It’s actually 1.15, not one, as the Member pointed out before. But we’ve made significant investment in the last number of years, and I would like the Northwest Territories to be the judge of the work that the NWT Housing Corporation is doing, because they’re seeing it on the front lines. They’re seeing with the new rent scale how you go from a $4,600 full economic rent to no more than $1,600, and somebody’s rent goes from $1,200, because they’re working, to $564. I challenge anybody to say that the NWT Housing Corporation is not addressing the needs of housing across the Northwest Territories, and we’ll continue, in the fiscal environment we’re in, to try and improve the housing in the Northwest Territories.
I think, in the last number of years, again, with the working of the Legislative Assembly, the NWT Housing Corporation has done a very good job, and I would like people out there to be the judge of that. We hear a lot of comments and the housing concerns that we get from residents across the Northwest Territories. We still get a lot, but not as much as there used to be. For the most part, people are fairly pleased with services that are being provided.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of the Environment. Just a couple of questions on the cost of the Giant Mine Remediation Project now that the environmental assessment has finally been completed.
On August 11, 2014, the responsible Ministers, including our Minister, finally approved the measures coming out of the review report, and fundamental changes were made including, for example, research and development into a more permanent solution and a community-based oversight body. Those are great things, and I thank the Minister for any role he had in getting that done.
My couple of questions, first of all, given these fundamental changes, can the Minister tell the House what the new total costs are for this project?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this point there are no new costs attributed to the project. We’re looking at managing the project with the existing funds. As the work and the new direction of the recommendations are acted on, then we’ll be looking at it to see if there are any further costs that haven’t already been anticipated.
That would be a feat, and I’ll ask the Minister to keep us updated on that.
I guess my last question is: Will there be any new costs for GNWT as a result of the final assessment?
At this point, not that I’m aware of.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions today for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and it’s kind of following up on questions that I asked the Minister of Transportation in terms of subsidizing some of our small business.
Obviously, it is Small Business Week here in the Northwest Territories. I’d just like to ask the Minister, does the department subsidize any costs specifically due to the low water levels that we had on the Mackenzie River this summer? Is there any subsidy for the small businesses who might have been delayed in doing their contracts, getting work done, because they didn’t get the supplies that they needed, or is there any subsidy for any of these products that might have been spoiled or ruined because they couldn’t get up the river in time?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the best of my knowledge, I am not aware of any subsidy programs for businesses as it relates to low water levels on the Mackenzie River and the shipment of goods into the Mackenzie Delta.
It was very unfortunate that NTCL couldn’t make one of their last trips of the Mackenzie and provide all these goods and products to the small businesses and to the communities.
In terms of the small businesses in the community of Inuvik, are there any subsidies available for businesses where the products can’t get across the Mackenzie River and the business has to fly it in? Are there any subsidies to offset those flying costs for some of these small businesses in Inuvik?
I think businesses and transportation companies would carry the requisite insurance in the case that goods were spoiled or couldn’t make it there. I know in previous experience when we didn’t have a bridge across the Mackenzie River and we were in business here in Yellowknife, flying goods in was at the expense of the business. There weren’t subsidies in place to defer that cost. Businesses just had to endure those extra costs for the short period of time where there wasn’t the access that was there before.
Our small businesses provide an integral part into our communities and our economy, and the Minister did mention that in his statement.
With some of the things that are happening within the territory and with the weather and some of our infrastructure that we’re creating and causing some delays and challenges to get products to the communities, would the Minister look at some kind of subsidy for small business that has to endure some of these extra costs when such things happen such as low water levels, the road closures or ferries not operating on the basis that we’re telling them that they’re supposed to be operating? Would the Minister look at creating some type of subsidy for the small businesses?
This is the first time the question has been brought to me in this venue. It is something that I can take back. I think there are a couple of other departments that we should consult with, and certainly, we could have a look at it. That’s not to say it will happen, but it’s something that I think we can look at.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, who was appointed by Cabinet as regulator of the oil and gas operations in the Northwest Territories effective April 1, 2014.
At times the regulator is privy to information that would not be in the public’s best interest to disclose or debate, such as a company’s net profit projections. What mechanisms are in place to ensure that information disclosure will respect the public’s best interest and not place any corporation, agency or other organization at a significant disadvantage, and how will this information be dealt with in response to questions and debates within the House?
How will corporate involvement and development of government programs and strategies, such as the Mineral Development and Economic Opportunities Strategy, continue under this new regime?
How will decisions be reached in situations where the views of departmental advisors differ widely from the oil and gas committee or the Members of the Legislative Assembly?
