Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we are adequately staffed to complete the legislation as provided by the deputy minister within the time frames. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, I do not have that information on hand. What I can state, though, is that we are meeting with the five sports and recreation organizations, and at that point, we will be looking at every single sport and recreation program that we have. We will be putting them on the table with the funding levels to determine if they are still relevant, if we are providing overlap, if there are areas that we need to increase or decrease on, so we are going to be doing a full review with the five organizations on our sports and recreation programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Like I said, the Hamlet of Aklavik is responsible for their maintenance and their repair of their roads. The hamlet has spent the last three to five years focusing on the road upgrades and drainage work. They have also hired a contractor within their community to look at the effects of climate change.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This position was cut because we were looking at efficiencies and using our services and supports the best way possible. So not every region has a works advisor position; it was only a couple of them that did. What we're going to do is we're taking away the one position, which will leave two other regions with positions, Fort Smith and Inuvik. Fort Smith will cover the southern side of the lake and Inuvik will cover the northern side of the lake. As well, we have five managers who can actually provide support as well.

With the new technology, the fibre link and the video...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Specifically for the Youth Ambassador Program, recently we just had the 2016 NWT Association of Communities 50th Anniversary Conference in Yellowknife. We have also just done the 2016 Arctic Winter Games in Greenland. Upcoming events include the 2017 Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg in July and the 2018 Arctic Winter Games in the South Slave in March. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It probably won't be a big leap to actually develop this program. It would be a program on its own. Public housing is still a need, and we will still be looking at that. However, we do currently provide a transitional rent supplement program that is ineffective because it ends after two years and, in my opinion, people don't often have the skills that they need or the income to be able to be left without that support. So instead of having a transitional rent support program, it's merely transferring it over and actually having more of a long term. Like I said, it is more cost effective to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In an effort to try to keep as many of the Regular MLAs saying that I am their favourite Minister, what I will do is I will add these changes to the list of acts and regulations that we will be bringing to the five communities to review it on their priority list so that the communities actually can delegate which are the priorities, which ones we should be dealing with first. Then I can bring that back to the MLAs.

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs regularly works with ITI on consumer-related tourism issues. However, most of them are related to public safety, such as fire protection, etc. Again, we haven't had a lot of complaints. We tend to work when we have complaints in the area. Any time there is an issue, we work cross-departmentally to define those. We also work federally as well, because the federal government also has a role in consumer complaints. When the issues are federal, we will work with them as well to address the issues.

It is well known within the Legislative Assembly that I am in the process of reviewing every single policy and program with the Housing Corporation. There are many that I think inhibit people from obtaining, maintaining, retaining their homes. I will be restructuring all policies with that goal in mind to house people.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, the policy is not to simply house as many people as possible. The reality is that we need to house people adequately and appropriately and consider their safety. I am not going to cram people into buildings without considering all of the safety needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.