Richard Edjericon

No, that's it, thank you

DEPUTY SPEAKER:

Thank you, Madam Chair. This year, when I went through the budget and went through the committees and we discussed it in the House here, at the end of the day I voted against the budget. And mainly because of there was really nothing there. We got rounded off to 2 percent of the overall budget that we got in my riding. And that's still concerning.

My question, again, to the Minister is that if this is not carved in stone and we could have further discussion on this, whether it would be highways being 30 percent and housing 11 percent, is there a way we could increase that so that we are really...

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple questions: the reduction that you have here, we have got a total capital budget of $328 million. In regards to my riding, this fiscal year with $3.4 million for public housing repairs with no homeownership repairs in the communities, I am just wondering like, and my colleague, Mr. O'Reilly talked about the you know, the percentage in terms of highways and versus housing etcetera, my question to the Minister: is this budget here carved in stone, or can that be adjusted? Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, you know, this issue is really not going to go away. I mean, we had 50 years to get our act together to provide housing for people here in the Northwest Territories. And in the Minister's statements earlier, she talks about the MOU and the great success she's made in the Sahtu region. But the chiefs are very clear on what I heard on Cabin Radio on August 26th on the SSI meeting. The chiefs made it very clear, bring your cheque book. So what we're saying now, Mr. Speaker, is that we want to see the Minister to come to our communities and look at building new...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am directing that question to the Minister of Finance but then the Premier spoke up and passed that on to Housing. So I'm not sure if the Minister of Finance was able to speak to this question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are running out of time in this Assembly to make good on our promises to improve the lives of our residents. I have not had the privilege of a membership in his House for as long as my colleagues, but that doesn't mean I have been idle in advocating for the needs of my riding of the Tu NedheWiilideh riding. But I have had to look at what has been done before my time here to get a clearer picture of the resources available, budgets, action plans, policies, legislations, and a mandate having for my work and why I so often speak to how existing resources...

Thank you, Madam Chair. When I was elected back on February 10th of this year, two years earlier the GNWT went through elected all the MLAs for this Assembly, for the 19th Assembly, and they had a meeting where they brought all their wants and needs for their constituency and the NWT. When I came in, I never had that opportunity and I looked at some of the capital plans. So for N'dilo, Dettah, Lutselk'e, and Fort Resolution, we do have our own wants and needs as well. But I just want to we brought this issue to the Minister a few years ago with chief Marlowe, and he raised the issue in...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Also during the budgeting process back in March of this year, there were some discussions that was happening in regards to monies made to a committee, about $5 million worth to housing. I'm not really sure exactly, I've never seen no breakdown of this $5 million as to where the money's going and who's getting this $5 million. Can the Minister maybe just elaborate a little bit on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I heard this I've been around for a while, and 50 years Housing Corporation was here. And we're still talking about that today, and our communities are still suffering from housing repairs and I produced documents here showing that we have problems in our community. We have problems with cockroaches in our communities. We got big problems but yet we can't seem to be fixing these problems. And what I'm hearing from Indigenous governments now is that they're really tired of Housing Corporation's policies and bureaucratic red tape. So we're going to have look at...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess what I'm trying to get is that, you know, I've been trying to really advocate for housing for our people in our communities in the Tu NedheWiilideh riding. And, you know, I've been trying to really work with the Minister of Housing Corporation of how we could address and build relationships with Indigenous governments. You know, I see these MOUs are good ideas but, you know, they're they only go so far, and I don't hear no commitments from this government at all in trying to fix these problems we're having in our community.

So will the Minister work with the...