Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I am going back one page here, I apologize. But under community housing services, when we look at that line item for maintenance and I think my colleague from Monfwi was drawing attention to this one too.

My question is is this budget this line item just for, like, minor maintenance or repairs, or would it be for more serious renovations that are needed to, you know, to allow public housing unit tos be able to, you know, be liveable and stay open? I notice that the description of it says that it's for funding for LHOs to undertake demand and preventative maintenance...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following three documents regarding public participation in a regional study under part 5.2 of Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act.

The first is a letter dated December 6, 2023, from Alternatives North to the Minister of Crown and Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs; second is a Letter from the Assistant Deputy Minister of CrownIndigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada to Alternatives North; and, the third is a Letter dated January 30th, 2024, from the Minister of Environment and Climate Change to Alternatives North...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister explain what she might be able to do now to help nonprofits who are operating emergency shelters be able to cope and address the growing crisis that we're facing here in Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Okay, that's good to know. So my last question is if for some reason we do have, you know, a lot more people coming forward this year wanting to do preventative maintenance, it seems like something we would really, really want to support, would there be ways to shuffle around money from other pots, such as the emergency repair program or something, to be able to accommodate people wanting to do preventative maintenance? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'll direct my questions to the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs, the Premier, but I know that homelessness is an issue that spans across departments so I'll leave him to redirect if necessary, and this kind of illustrates part of the conundrum we're in with the issues spanning across different mandates and departments here.

So the Salvation Army believes that we need a bigger and purposebuilt shelter facility operating 24/7 in Yellowknife in order to meet the growing needs to be more cost efficient and offer wraparound services. So will the proposed...

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. That's more clear, I think. If we go down to the preventative maintenance program, and so it looks like the budget is being decreased from where it was last year. It's still a little bit above the 20222023, but it also seems like it would be super valuable to you know, the description of the program is assisting households to complete preventative maintenance, making minor servicing repairs, which seems like exactly the type of thing that we need to be doing more of so we don't end up with more costs and renovations and new homes always having to be built. Can you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to draw attention to the growing population experiencing homelessness in Yellowknife and the nonprofit emergency shelters whose capacity is being completely overwhelmed. The last time the city of Yellowknife did a pointintime count in 2021, it was estimated that at least 312 people were experiencing homelessness in Yellowknife, the vast majority of whom are Indigenous, and 99 people at that time were staying regularly in emergency shelters. But the numbers have gone up a lot more since then.

The stress of COVID lockdowns resulted in more...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So there's been some sort of concerns circulating amongst constituents that programs for homeownership assistance are being cut or they won't have opportunities to get help in purchasing homes. Now, I do see that the home purchase program is being maintained. If we go back to page 383, we certainly see a bit of a decrease in the homeownership entry level program. Can the Minister explain, so that it's clear to everyone in the public too, are some of the homeownership assistance programs being cut, and is there a shift towards a different type of assistance towards...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do hope we have much more indepth conversations, you know, from here on in going forward as to how we can address some of these challenges and problems because I think this gets at the crux of we are all so desperate to try and improve our housing stock and increase stock, and if we're having these bottlenecks or problems, like, we really need some detailed plans and sort of getting everyone on board to figure out how we can work together to address them. So I look forward to those continued conversations.

One more question about apprentices. So are we able to use all of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So was this budget being fully used? Was it fully subscribed before the sunsetting? Like, is there a need for at least, you know, $6.6 or even $7.1 million worth of modernization and improvements? That was the number from 20222023. If we could find that money, could you use it? Thank you.