Alfred Moses

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize one of our translators who has been here all week, Ms. Lillian Elias, who has been a very strong advocate for Indigenous languages as well as culture in Inuvik and throughout the Northwest Territories. Once again, I would like to welcome and recognize two Pages of mine, Corbin and Aeva Grace Dempster. Thank you for all the hard work that you guys have done for we Members in the Legislative Assembly this week. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize a couple of Pages who have joined us here today, Corbin and Aeva Grace Dempster. Thank you for all the work that you have been doing for all of the Members of the Legislative Assembly. I hope you enjoyed your experience and promoting the program to your fellow colleagues back in Inuvik. Welcome and thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do understand that the buildings that were in Fort McPherson, as well as Aklavik, when we did those multi-family buildings, are designed to have individual meters on each of the units. In this case, the units that we did have only had one meter.

It was brought forward to us when we went on the tour with the Member to Aklavik and opened up, I'll put a plug in here, our Northern Pathways to Housing, and we did hear those concerns. We are looking at addressing them, and the Member said it in his statement, the sooner that we can do it, then the sooner that we can get...

We do have a Youth Centres Initiative where youth centres can actually apply for funding up to a maximum of $25,000. As Members know, we have youth centres throughout the Northwest Territories, as well as friendship centres, that can access this funding. It is on a first-come, first-served basis, and we do have a lot of youth centres, so sometimes they don't get that full $25,000. We try to distribute it the best way that we can. We also have a Youth Contributions Program, as well as the NWT Youth Corps Program, that they can look at accessing with the youth centre. The youth in general can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In a previous position I held within the public service, I did work as a regional youth and volunteer officer. These programs have always been very well-utilized throughout the Northwest Territories. They continue to be utilized, and we continue to support these programs in all of our regions and all of our communities. We have some very great employees who promote these programs, and I know that the Member did bring up the youth who wanted to do the Youth Centres Initiative. I really appreciate that leadership within the Member's community of Fort Providence when we...

Definitely. That is one of our priorities and one of the things that we do want to address. With public housing units, obviously, the NWT Housing Corporation also takes care of some of the utility costs, and anything that can help us reduce the costs in terms of energy efficiency, that money will go into more programs and services within the NWT Housing Corporation.

We want to work with our leadership. A good example is with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, and this is something that we will highlight. Any programs that we do have within the NWT Housing Corporation, we will be addressing...

Like I said, when we do the multi-family buildings, we want to make sure that meters are put on each of the units. We have to have better communication with our contractors and anyone who does work for the NWT Housing Corporation, we do have to make sure that they understand what our building codes are, national building codes. In terms of multi-family buildings, it needs to be just, and we will make sure that our contractors do understand that moving forward so that this doesn't happen again. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As I mentioned, once we did hear the concerns that were brought forward to us by members of the community and the MLA, we started working on them, getting them addressed. We are hoping to have them done by the end of the fiscal year, March 31st. Once they are completed, passed inspections, and everything is good to go, we will start working on getting people into those units as soon as we can.

As we come to a new fiscal year, coming up April 1st, that is when the applications start arriving to our regional offices. Our regional staff do a good job of getting that information out to all of our partners that work with youth.

In terms of making sure that our youth centres continue to get the funding and support that they need, as I mentioned, we do have a Youth Centres Initiative that we work with our youth centre coordinators, as well as our rec leaders and people in the communities, to make sure that these programs are available for our youth.

Once again, if the funding is already...

I guess, right off the bat, I can encourage the Member, encourage the coordinator, anyone who is working on developing programs and services for the youth centre in Fort Providence, to reach out to our regional staff in our Fort Smith office to discuss the options. Our staff will be more than pleased to work with the coordinator, as well as the youth, to develop what kind of programs they would like to see offered in the youth centre and work on developing an application process. I do encourage the Member, as well as the coordinator, to take that as the first step and move on from there.