Caroline Cochrane

The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation acts very closely with the Department of Health and Social Services in regards to aging in place for our seniors and our elders within the territories. Not only do we consult on them with how to support seniors within their own homes, but we are also working closely together in the design of elders' complexes. From a housing standpoint, I realize that elders and seniors need to have socialization to do well. From the Health and Social Services standpoint, they recognize that providing services, onsite talks about accessibility is the best service...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have many programs, so it is going to be difficult to make it brief, but I am going to try to speak fast and get through this. First of all, tenants need to know that there is an income threshold, so, if they fall under the income threshold, which is close to $100,000 depending on how many bedrooms you have, then you would qualify for support.

We also need to ascertain the condition of the home. I do hate to say it, but some of the trailers in Northlands Trailer Park are very, very old. We need to make sure that they are economically viable. Once they do qualify...

The first thing that tenants should do if they identify mould within their units is let the local housing organization know that. The initial thing is to identify whether it's mould or not. Mould has become a pretty scary topic and so people are afraid to even touch it, so things like condensation from windows and stuff which is not at the stage of mould have sometimes been misinterpreted for mould.

The first thing is to let the local housing organization know that you have an issue. We will go in and do a thorough inspection of it. We have specialists within the housing organization that...

Yes, we are meeting with the six municipalities during the summer, when session is over, to discuss the proposed changes that we are looking at. We have also realized that it is not only the municipalities that will be affected by this; it is also hotel operators and lodging operators that might be affected by it, as well. In trying to be as transparent and inclusive as possible, Municipal and Community Affairs is also reaching out to those operators to get their feedback on the proposed amendments.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I am more than proud to report that the relationship between the City of Yellowknife and Municipal and Community Affairs is positive. Yes, it is true that we have a new deputy minister, but her experience has been many, many years working with community governments. She is not new to Municipal and Community Affairs nor new to city governments, so she has a solid relationship with the City of Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Municipal and Community Affairs recently met with the five sports and recreation associations, and I may be incorrect, but I believe it was around about a month ago. We are in the process just currently of identifying all of the gaps, overlaps, and areas of need, so I will commit to bringing forward the need to look at providing events, not only in the capital cities or the market communities, but in smaller communities. I will bring that to the table as an identified gap. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, our government made a commitment in its mandate to work in partnership with Aboriginal governments on a training program for First Nations governments with municipal-like responsibilities. I am very proud of the work that the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has done to design and launch a training program to help improve the governance and management capacity of these governments. Mr. Speaker, in order to move this initiative forward, Municipal and Community Affairs, through the School of Community Government, has partnered with Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada...

Due to our working relationship, our partnerships with the five sports and recreational associations throughout the Northwest Territories, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs does not currently track the information on the location of the selected camps. As so, we do not have that information, what specifically is provided in Yellowknife as to other communities.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Respectfully, a lot of the bands and designated authorities actually do provide municipal services. Not all of them do. We do have 33 communities within the Northwest Territories. However, municipal governments are different, as stated before. Although job descriptions will have similarities, municipal governments are not responsible for promoting the language or the culture within their communities, and so job descriptions will have to be changed. They also are not responsible for some of the health and social services and the justice supports that designated...

At this point, we are just negotiating with the federal government to see if they will provide funding for the delivery of this support, so it is a little bit premature to report on what exactly this delivery would look like. Once we have the information and a partnership, then we can look at how we deliver it.