Caroline Cochrane

Mr. Speaker, part of my role as the Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs is to ensure that we have a modern, responsive, and made-in-the-North legislative framework. This is no small task as Municipal and Community Affairs administers 19 statutes in areas that range from property assessment to emergency management to local elections. The department is currently working on several major legislative initiatives that were identified in the 18th Legislative Assembly’s mandate, or that have been directed by the Financial Management Board.

Mr. Speaker, the department is in the...

This program, as stated earlier, is about helping stabilize non-government organizations that provide a critical service that the Government of the Northwest Territories would have to provide if it wasn’t in effect. It does support volunteerism in that the majority of non-government organizations are managed by volunteer boards, which is actually part of their society’s act. So it is something that does support volunteerism to the heart and to the core.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a Minister, I work with all of Cabinet, actually, to put forward our needs for finances. As stated earlier by me many times, actually, is that every department and Minister sitting here would like to have more money. The reality is that we do have to live within a fiscally-responsible environment considering the economy and, therefore, I do put my concerns forward. Unfortunately, the money tree is not as deep as I wish it would be. I can only cut off so many branches before the tree dies. So I do put forward my needs as every other Minister does, but we are all...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, this fund is not meant to provide core funding. This fund is meant to provide stabilization to non-government organizations so that they can provide critical services for the Government of the Northwest Territories. There are requirements that are application-based. I would like to say that we wish that we could give to everyone. There are requirements though, etc. such as societies that apply for this fund have to be current. Those are some of the guidelines that we have. I will adhere to those guidelines because it is important.

As stated earlier, I wish I had...

Yes, as stated earlier, any time that there is a major disaster, in this case, an evacuation, we do review all the techniques that were used, the tactics, and see if we can make them better. Some communities, I hate to say that are in better situation than others. I know market communities, they will put them on public service announcements. They have webpages. They have radio announcements

Smaller communities unfortunately do not often have that service, so sometimes it is a matter of communities actually having to go door-to-door to get people evacuated. Nahanni Butte did have cell service so...

Absolutely. On the second day of evacuation, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs decided that it would be better to keep the residents out of the community for an extra day. Those costs would be covered, and we have just got the municipality collecting those at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to provide you with a report on the Government of the Northwest Territories’ progress on meeting its mandate commitments related to housing. Under the priority of cost of living of the 18th Legislative Assembly, this government is committed to continuing to implement northern solutions for northern housing. Addressing homelessness is part of this commitment.

One of the related actions is our support for the Housing First project in Yellowknife. An agreement was signed with the Yellowknife Women’s Society to fund this project in the amount of $450,000 over three years...

As stated earlier in my answers, we are actually just in the process of doing a full review of all services available to seniors, identifying how many seniors, what their needs are, and what the most effective way is to keep them not only in their homes, but comfortable, so that they can be in their homes and age in place. That process is just starting.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is actually just beginning to do a full study on seniors' needs, not only where they are most populated and where we should be building, but also what exactly they want within those buildings. We will be working with the Department of Health and Social Services because I know they have quite a bit of information. We will be working with the NWT Seniors' Society. We are looking at how better we can serve seniors, not only what their necessities are, but also what their wants are as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, after any kind of an emergency or an evacuation within a community, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs does do a review of the situation to see if there are issues that we could make better. I do want to put a call out to the community of Nahanni Butte. They did an awesome job of the evacuation. It was without incident. They did a really great job. There were some things, like I say, transferring to Fort Liard when they should have gone to Fort Simpson. Those are issues that we are looking at to see if we can make their plan better for the next time - hopefully not next...