Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am just wondering about the half million extra again that we are putting into contract services, and looking below I assume this is largely for property assessment, so surely to goodness Municipal and Community Affairs has that expertise within its department. I mean, why do we hire professionals? We want these people to be doing the work.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to bring this up. I know the Minister is aware of this. Some of the concerns that I have about the current budgeting of local housing organizations seem to fail to recognize the realities under which they provide social housing. This practice is leading to untenable financial situations and could ultimately mean the end of some LHOs and their bankruptcy. The reality and the dilemma that we face here is that you can’t get blood from a stone. What can the Minister do to prevent this service delivery failure, outright bankruptcy that seems inevitable if we stick to...

Thank you to the deputy minister for those comments. I look forward to seeing that information on how we are doing and the lessons learned along the way. I wanted to ask, also, in the School of Community Government, there should clearly now be a component to every bit of training and educational programs that we undertake, a component that relates to the adaptation and mitigation of climate change. Has that been incorporated into each and every one of our programs now, training programs? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that commitment from the Minister. I just wanted to ask briefly, I know under our energy priority investments of the Energy Minister’s committee, there is $1 million that has been assigned to the NWT Housing Corporation the previous year, the current year, and it is now extended to next year. I am wondering how are those $3 million... How is $1 million planned for 2011-12 being expended? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I had a question on community energy plans. I don’t see them mentioned specifically here. Are those the community operations or regional operations or…

Thank you, deputy minister, for that. I am aware of those programs. Those are good programs. I am thinking in a much more modest level here of simply the electrical appliances. I am sure the Minister knows that, in the last few years, efficiencies of appliances, washing machines and so on, you name it, have been so effective that the power demands for those appliances have decreased often in the order of one-quarter or one-third of the original what we might have seen five or eight years ago. But I don’t know if I have ever seen anything that indicates we know what appliances are in our houses...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m wondering if I can get an update on the extra-special capacity building efforts we had this fiscal year; where we’re at with that and if that’s going to be extended into 2011-12. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s comments again here. I think I will look forward to that work. Basically what we need to be doing is determining here what gains can be achieved with this move. That is the responsibility of this Minister at this moment in time so we can use this tool appropriately and responsibly. Does the Minister agree that the standards we have for the GNWT that allow us to benefit so much should be available and made available to all members of the Northwest Territories for all infrastructure? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Actually, Mr. Krutko asked most of the questions I was going to ask. I was particularly concerned about the 315 additional contract services, especially given that we do have staff that are supposedly specialized in this area. I think one of the things we are finding quite strongly on this side of the House is that we are continually contracting out more and more of our work when we hire top of the line professionals and put them to managing instead of delivering. I think that is a frustration certainly to many people in the Northwest Territories, possibly even to our...

I’m rather startled by that. Does the government get a very penalizing interest rate compared to any corporation or individual that I know of in Canada? I would say at a 6 percent interest rate we’d be looking at over $5 million per year on the principal. What could the interest rate possibly be to result in this situation, which means by 2038 we will have paid four times the value of the loan? Could I at least start with the interest rate? Thank you.