Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for housing. Can the Minister tell us when the Fort Good Hope Seniors Centre is going to open? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.
Mr. Speaker, thank you, to the Member for this question. I know he's been advocating, and he's been asking the question over and over. And I just want a drum roll. I'm excited, I am happy to say the nineplex in Fort Good Hope, the seniors complex, will be open and people are moving in tomorrow. So we did stick to our date of June 1st. And we won't be having an official opening. We've already had that already, as the Member had said.
And I want to thank the Member for constantly advocating because seniors in the Northwest Territories is very important. We need to get units in the smaller communities as well. Also the staff as well for looking at this project, the Sahtu district office, the local housing authority. The community is very excited and very happy for this to come forward. And also, I'm very happy to fulfill one of the Member's questions and what he was bringing forward. So we've met the date of June 1st. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very happy to hear that, and I'm sure all of the people moving in tomorrow are even happier. Great news.
I guess my question, in a bit more serious tone though, is that this has taken a couple of years. We still haven't, on the public record, figured out exactly what happened. I know there were some contractor disputes. There were some inspection issues. But do we have a figure now about what all of this cost us in extra dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for asking the question. But I just don't want to shed any - I don't want to take away the excitement. But the project originally cost us $3.5 million. But we learned a lot of issues that we could have dealt with prior to a project like this rolling out. We do support local contractors. We do support building capacity. And unfortunately, in this case, we did see some issues that we could have addressed earlier. We own it as Housing NWT. We owe it to be supporting local businesses. This does not discourage us in going forward. But presently, this project is tied up in litigation right now. And it's going back and forth. I just don't want to take that away but just reassure the public and reassure the Member, housing has learned from this, and we will be improving our relationship with our local contractors. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recognize that when there's contractor litigation that, you know, we don't quite know that. I guess I'm looking for a commitment that at some point the housing could release some public information on this. What we often do is we sign NDAs and we add a few more million dollars on to the project and then no one will say anything about that. And it's happened many times in this Assembly, and I would not want this to be a case. I think it is a project that is - the Minister said there are lessons learned. I would like to see what those lessons learned. And I think that at the end of the day, we owe it to public to know what the final dollar figure was on this building. So can the Minister take that back and try to find a way that we will actually say, at some point, what this cost us in millions of dollars? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. And like several of our programs - I mean, our infrastructure builds throughout the Northwest Territories, I also want to acknowledge that we are still able to commence construction even during COVID and the restrictions, and I'm proud to say that housing was able to fulfill this contract and being able to get this build completed and done. And also recognizing that this number is not going to be $3.5 million. It's going to increase obviously. And those numbers and this situation is brought before the courts. Once a decision is made, I will be able to provide that information to the Member but it's not going to be by the time we're done this government. But it will be provided. And like I had said that we have learned a lot of lessons during this process as well too. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to let you know that I'll be tabling my Member's statement and questions tomorrow as written statements - written questions so I could get my questions answered because I didn't get a full answer here today. But, again, I just want to add one question to the Premier that I'd like to have that commitment.
Member for Tu NedheWiilideh, that line of questioning was taken on notice so you can't ask any further questions on that. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
