Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For my Member’s statement today, we had the power outages in Ranger Point subdivision of Tuk. Will the NWT Power Corporation compensate private homeowners for the damages it has done, not only the private homeowners but the NWT Housing Corporation for the 20 units that are frozen up and that need repair because of the power outage? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Power Corporation does have a policy that looks at claims filed for reasons of failure on the Power Corporation’s part, but I would say, as the Member has highlighted, the issue that was facing many communities in the Beaufort-Delta in the last week were high winds and storms and the failures were due to the weather. We had a number of outages around the North that we had to send staff. We are very thankful for the staff in our communities. The Member has highlighted the dedication of our staff in the community of Tuktoyaktuk.
What we do have available to us is through the Housing Corporation, the Emergency Repair Program that is administered through the Housing Corporation and CMHC. Homeowners may be eligible through that. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am pretty sure I counted nine houses in Tuk, private homeowners. Would the CMHC funding still affect the amount of income that they make per year even though, under the CMHC funding, or could it be just because the Power Corporation Premier set precedents in Inuvik when the power surges of paying for the property damage? Now is it going to happen with the housing units? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the issue of the outages in Inuvik and the surge that occurred that caused the equipment to fail in Inuvik was a result of the Power Corporation’s power plant operations. The issue in many of the other communities across the North is the fact that when weather comes into it, we can’t control what Mother Nature does in the Territory. As I was saying, there is funding available through the Housing Corporation Emergency Repair Program which provides up to $11,000 for assistance for low-income earners in our communities. We would be more than happy to try to align the people to the right resources. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, under the CMHC funding for the $11,000, is that the capping? Is that the people’s income again? Does it come into effect for the funding? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, it is income tested and it is a program through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation administered here in the Territory by our Housing Corporation. The other factors there, if those homeowners have insurance, that insurance would help them in these repairs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do myself, too, want to thank all the Housing people in Tuk that are working so hard to get these units back up and running for the people. There are a few lessons following that incident with the wind that we could learn from across the Territory. We should be, through the Minister’s office, through community preparedness, going through tabletop exercises and stuff like that. Is the Minister willing to speak with the Minister of MACA if we could do that this summer so we could be more prepared for the next go around of the weather? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I know in the past that the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs has spoken about working with communities on emergency preparedness plans in those communities. We would have to work with the Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk to see what plans they have in place. As well, we do have other responses around the region that we do involve when there are large problems, so the weather, for example, the communications issue that affected the whole Beaufort-Delta, we had incorporated our teams to become involved in that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
