Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I love asking questions and I certainly enjoy the answers that I sometimes get. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Housing Minister.
We all know mould is a serious issue in the Northwest Territories, certainly in public housing. Quite often we hear a lot about it. I want to know how often public housing units are tested for mould, who does the testing, what skills do they have, how do we ensure authorities are testing them properly and what expertise do we use. Those are the bulk of the questions and, well, let’s find a way to get through them.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can answer them all at once or take them all as supps. Units are condition rated every year. We have qualified folks from our local housing authorities who go in and do the inspections, if mould is found and identified or if mould is found and suspected. Most of our regional staff are getting trained in mould identification and remediation, so they have an opportunity to go in and confirm it and take the necessary steps to deal with the situation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I think I got most of them. Just to drill down slightly deeper, how many people are actually qualified at his point? I think the Minister had said they are training some folks, so let’s get that on the record. How many people are specifically qualified to identify mould and send it out for testing? Nobody can just stand there and say it’s this type of mould. It has to be sent out.
That said, what regions do they typically work? The Minister said just a moment ago, every public housing unit is condition rated every year, so I just want to make sure we’re doing this regularly and in which regions. It’s very important. Thank you.
I appreciate the Member’s interest in the state of housing across the Northwest Territories. I can assure him that our folks on the front lines are fully trained, that they are all qualified. As far as who is qualified or how many there are, that’s more of an operational question. I can get the information for the Member and share it with the Member and committee. The condition ratings, again, those are inspections we do every year with the local housing authorities. I can get the information as to how many individuals are actually qualified and which region they work in. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I want to give deep and sincere thanks to the Minister for recognizing my concern about public housing. It’s an important issue for me. I will accept every offer he just made about providing that information.
In the spring I was asking some details about certain public housing units and they were in the Nunakput region, interestingly enough, the one that you represent, Mr. Speaker. I had some concerns about the particular condition rating. I drilled down a little further later on, asking about if they were as qualified to do it as such and was the information fully contained.
I’d like to know, maybe, an update on this particular scenario. When has the condition rating been reviewed in those communities and what skills are the people using? In other words, what expertise are going into these units and assessing these units so we make sure we do them properly? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker. our maintenance people in the communities are fully qualified to carry out the inspection. This is unit condition rating, so they go into the unit; they inspect all the components of the unit. If they suspect mould might be present, if they’re not qualified to identify and remediate it, they then will pass that information on. We will get people into the community to identify and remediate the mould.
As far as this particular unit goes, I’m not quite sure if it’s a public housing unit. I’m suspecting it might be a private homeowner unit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Maybe for the benefit of the public – I’ve heard this answer before, and I’ll explain it when I say it – maybe the Minister can help us understand what “fully qualified” means.
As we all know, things like housing maintainers are not Red Seal tradespersons, so I want to make sure we have the right people on the ground making the assessment. The only thing I would say, Mr. Speaker, is a housing maintainer – this is my last question, Mr. Speaker – cannot go in and identify an electrical problem. They can suspect there’s an issue there, but they’re not qualified to say it truly is a problem. So a housing maintainer probably doesn’t have the skills, in most circumstances, to identify mould, electrical problems or things like outside of what is obviously a typical problem.
I just want to make sure we have the right people with the right skills assessing these properly because, frankly, they’re territorial assets. We have every duty to ensure that they’re safe and we certainly have a social responsibility to make sure they’re healthy for the tenants who live there. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we know exactly what our responsibilities are, that’s why we have these people go and take care of these units. On behalf of all housing maintainers across the Northwest Territories, I take offence to the Member’s comments, because it is a full apprenticeship, they do three years of training and a lot of it is basic home repair. But I would challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified.
I say, Mr. Speaker, I challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified. For him to stand over there and question the ability and the qualifications of these people who have been working in the fields for 20, 25, 30 years I think is unfair and they take a lot of pride in their work. I say again, they do have the qualifications. They have the experience that’s needed to identify a lot of these issues. If they can’t repair it, then they will get someone in who’s qualified to repair it.
They have electrical inspections every year. They contract it out. They get an electrician to come in and inspect a lot of the units as far as the electrical issues go. So there are a number of inspections they do on the units. I can assure the public out there that our units are condition rated and they’re well maintained and they have regular inspections by qualified people. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time for oral questions has expired. Item 9, written questions. Item 10, returns to written questions. Item 11, replies to opening address. Item 12, petitions. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Mr. Nadli.
