Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Gender-based analysis, gender-based plus analysis, is critical to looking at all policies and procedures that impact. One policy does not apply equally to every situation and every person, so it is important to look within that lens to actually see how different programs, different policies affect individuals, women, people of disabilities, etc.

Yes, we are currently in the process of working with the Northwest Territories Status of Women to look at how we can start to implement gender plus based analysis within the government policies.

Child care is a huge issue for women throughout the Northwest Territories, throughout Canada, and internationally, actually as a barrier to accessing employment and other opportunities as well, but employment is what we speak about today here. To address some of that, the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment did do an increase to the child care subsidies that daycares are getting. He did a reformatting of their formula funding to address that. I am and always will continue to be a strong lobby for child care.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the first campaign school, we gave $15,000 to the Status of Women, which was what they asked for, to do their campaign school in Hay River. We have just given $25,000 to the Status of Women to do the campaign school in Inuvik. We haven't gotten a financial figure out of the communications campaign yet. Once we finish that, then we will know what we are looking at, and we are planning, as stated in my Minister's statement, that we will be doing more campaign schools throughout, right until the next election. At that time, we will be allocating more monies to that.

The communication campaign, we're just in the middle of developing it now. The reason that we're putting a little bit of still working on it is because we recognize that, when we are doing the campaign schools, that we are only addressing actually to get women into the Legislative Assembly. We are now looking at, once we do a workshop in Inuvik, we will be revising our whole campaign school so that we can address more women so that they can actually run not only for the Legislative Assembly but for Aboriginal governments, for municipal governments, hamlets, etc. Once we've decided our format...

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize women in the House from Native Women's Annual General Meeting. These women are role models within their communities and they're here representing Indigenous women of the Northwest Territories. We have Liza Pieper, the president, she's from Detah/Yellowknife area; Annie Goose from Ulukhaktok is the vice-president; Mabel Brown from Inuvik is the Mackenzie Regional Director; Shirley Kisoun the Mackenzie delegate from Inuvik; Jane Weyallon from Behchoko is the Tlicho Regional Director; Jaylene Delorme is the territorial youth representative from Hay River...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to begin by recognizing the students who are in the House today and stating that you are our future, and one day we hope to see you sitting here. Then I want to move to talk about some of the NHL alumni who are visiting our gallery today. We have Shaun Van Allen, who has played with the Edmonton Oilers, Anaheim Ducks, Ottawa Senators, Dallas Stars, and the Montreal Canadiens.

We have John Chabot, who played with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Montreal Canadiens, the Detroit Red Wings. We have Dan Frawley, who played with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Chicago...

The Member is correct in that, the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, we do get funded for 2,400 public housing units. The CMHC funding is going to dissolve in 2038. We are trying to develop a plan to deal with the lack of funding that we will have for operating and maintenance for 2,400 units. So, at this point, we are not looking at increasing our public housing stock, but we are looking at and we're hoping that, with the program renewal, we will be able transfer some of the current units into more home ownership. That way we can actually increase our public housing availability at...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Tom and Pam Williams, who are constituents of Range Lake now. Happy anniversary to both of you. On behalf of MACA, Municipal and Community Affairs, our sports and recreation division, I also want to recognize Bryan Trottier and Tyler Kennedy, who are true role models to the youth who are coming up in society. It is really important that we have people like that, and it is an honour to have them here. I want to put a shout out to Tom Williams, who is our deputy minister of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, who will be going...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a bit early to define what exactly the program renewal will look like, because the survey just closed over a week ago. I do know, however, that we have done mortgage programs in the past and there were some issues with them, so I would have to review what the problems were with the mortgage programs that we provided, to do an analysis. I know that we also will be working towards more of a lease-to-own kind of a model, as well. So, in regard to whether we start to do a guaranteed loan, that would be something I would have to explore to find out why it didn't work...

The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation abides by all the standards, building codes, et cetera within Canada. In fact, our standards are actually higher than some provinces and territories. The reality is, though, that each individual is different and so what determines what one person who is aging in their own home needs will not be the same right across the board. So we look at each case on an individual basis to determine what supports they need in there.