Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I cannot speak for the federal government. I can say that when I attended the FPT, Federal-Provincial-Territorial, meetings with the federal Housing Minister, that I did state that by making individual agreements the federal government -- with Aboriginal bands/governments, that it does put all of the other Aboriginal governments in a place of conflict and it puts the Government of the Northwest Territories in a place of conflict as well. It leaves the perception that all you have to do is ask, and if you ask you'll get more money, and not all Aboriginal governments have...

I will let Mr. Martin answer.

The Government of the Northwest Territories does meet bi-annually, I believe, regularly -- actually, two times a year, with all of the First Nations Aboriginal governments. We will commit to continuing to do that, and, as stated, if the band wishes to meet with me individually, I am more than open to meeting with them.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we will get that information to the Regular Members tomorrow. I do want to clarify, I do recognize that you do need a Journeyman to teach apprenticeships. When I was talking about that, I meant only apprentices, not journeymen, who need to train. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that actually is the annual pay-down of the CMHC, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, debt. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Currently, the only method that we really use besides the one-on-one outreach to people is when people do sign up to the Housing Corporation, we actually sit down with them, have the paperwork signed for the landlord/tenant agreement form, and in that we talk about their obligations to make payments with them. We are recognizing, however, that we are not the best in communicating. So we are trying to beef up our communication plan and have a better way not only to address people with their arrears, but to also let people know what their rights and their responsibilities are in a variety of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are open to any of the recommendations that the local housing organizations do provide. However, recognizing that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation will have ownership of those, it does need to fit within our own capital plans. If they have something that works with our capital plans, we are more than willing to work with them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Inuvialuit Regional Corporation Agreement, the Memorandum of Understanding, MOU I will call it so I do not stumble on my words anymore, was kind of a unique situation. They lobbied the federal government directly to get the access to the funding. We cannot tell Aboriginal governments to lobby or not to lobby, so I cannot say what the federal government plans are in the future regarding that. I know that the federal government is really supportive of First Nations and of building partnerships, but I cannot say any more than that. I can say within the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In all honesty, since the time I have been a Minister I can't speak for the time before me I have had no one come to me and complain and say that they couldn't access the CARE major or any of our programs because your EnerGuide 80 is too high for them. I have never heard that complaint.

What I have heard, complaints for the CARE programs, is the copayment, so I am not a hundred per cent sure. If people do come to me and say it is because they can't meet the energy efficiency, I would look at that, but that hasn't been my experience. It has been around the copayments, the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do want to say that I take a little bit of offence to the Member's statement. As the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation, I feel that we have done a lot of work with the Hay River Reserve. Especially, before, we didn't have land tenure; it was a huge issue. We have negotiated with the federal government. We have gotten the land tenure for the 10 units. We are still negotiating with the federal government to get land tenure for six more units. We are working with the community. The community can access services through the Housing Corporation. Thank you, Mr...