Caroline Cochrane

If the MLA sends me an e-mail, I will actually address that to him and more to define exactly what he is looking for. Again, I must state that there are 12 of the 23 local housing organizations that are actually unionized, which in my impression is that it is really hard to tell unionized workers what to do because they are unionized. That does not itself state that they have autonomy over what they do with their funding, and like I say, each one is funded fairly. They are paid based on what we would pay government workers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I respect the intent of this and I just wish it would have gone a bit further. I found that the voter's list was really inappropriate during the campaign period and I kind of wish that this motion was made stronger and actually had a timeline that said that, when the voter's list had to be updated, how many years, et cetera, because that is an issue. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The municipal inspection report was actually done on my direction as the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. That report in its entirety will be held in confidentiality, although we do have a summary of the report that is available on the Municipal and Community Affairs website if Members are interested in accessing that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to start by saying that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs really does honour our municipal and our Aboriginal governments, and we do the best we can to provide support to them. Sometimes it does come to a place, though, that we have to look at providing either additional support or actually taking over council. It was with regret that we actually stepped in and went into administration with the council. How we are moving forward, over the next couple of weeks I am going to be appointing a long-term administrator for the town. This person, there...

Yes, it is absolutely critical that we keep the MLA for the riding as informed as possible. He is the person who is on the ground. He is the person who will be getting the complaints and the questions from the public, so I will commit to keeping him as informed as possible throughout this process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do want to engage the public, the community members of Norman Wells, as much as possible within this process, so, yes, as soon as the decision was made and we relayed it to the municipal council that we were going into administration, we did hold a public meeting. We will continue to hold public meetings ongoing to keep the public aware, also to get their feedback into how we should be proceeding. So, yes, we will do as much public consultation as possible throughout this term.

Mr. Speaker, this week is Family Violence Awareness Week in the Northwest Territories. The theme this year is "Healthy Relationships, Healthy Communication." There are events occurring across the Northwest Territories between October 16th and October 22nd to bring attention to family violence and promote healthier ways for people to deal with conflict.

Family violence is a complex issue, and it must be addressed. The truth is that family violence occurs at epidemic rates in the Northwest Territories. According to a Statistics Canada profile released in January 2015, the rate of family violence...

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak on the progress of the Strategic Renewal that is being undertaken by the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. The Housing Engagement Survey was used to identify what is working, what needs improvement, and what is missing for housing programs. Each policy and program is currently being revised in consideration of these needs, as well as ensuring that programs meet the mandate commitments, are effective in meeting their objectives and are appropriate and efficient through considering alternative design and delivery approaches.

Action on Strategic Renewal...

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Thursday, October 19, 2017, I will move that Bill 1, Western Canada Lottery Act be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It is important to note that this, the NGO Stabilization Fund, is not the only funding available to non-profit organizations within the communities. As a non-profit administrator for many years, this was actually supplementary funding. This was not the core funding that we received, so it is supplementary funding. it is about a state of pride and stabilization funding to non-government organizations that provide a critical service for the Government of the Northwest Territories that if we didn’t have them, we would have to provide those services ourselves.