Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise the House that the Honourable Joe Handley will be absent from the House today to attend the Council of the Federation meeting in Edmonton, Alberta. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again because the switch has happened to be talking about the subsidy program, which right now seniors do not pay rent in public housing, if we’re going to change that, the whole subsidy situation would be Mr. Dent’s area. If we’re talking about the overall rent scale and how that’s affected, some of that responsibility still remains within the Housing Corporation. Rent scales do belong within the Housing Corporation, but for actual policy change, clarity I guess is going to have to be sought here from the Member if Mr. Krutko is going to have to deal with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the role of Public Works in this would be one from an asset base working with a client department, this being Health and Social Services. This is in the area of coming up with a plan of what is required. In discussions with staff between Public Works and Services and Health and Social Services, Health and Social Services has deemed this facility to have an important role within their social support system. Part of the exercise we are going through is in the area of the Homelessness Strategy. Once that unfolds a little more, we will have a better...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I haven’t had too many opportunities to stand up and do a Member’s statement, or to stand up, as someone is saying. Mr. Speaker, as the snow is gone and the winter gear has been stored, and the summer gear has been pulled out, families have gone through or will go through a graduation or two, and families are busy preparing for a summer trip or a family vacation.

Mr. Speaker, I can recall many springs when I eagerly awaited the last day of school. Talking about schools, we’ve heard in this House from the Education Minister, as well as many Members of this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member has raised a significant point. In operations, the Tlicho Government, as he stated, has difficulty from time to time dealing with the daily changing plans of individuals and our elders in trying to accommodate those.

On a larger scale, the Government of the Northwest Territories and our system has even greater difficulty making those small changes. That is why we need to try to arrange a plan that would work for both parties and is a little more difficult than initially stated. One of the other areas we could look at is possibly our contract...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, ultimately this House has the authority to direct us as it feels is the most appropriate action to take. Ultimately, as I said yesterday, there is no capital money in the budget to deal with Deh Cho Hall and that plan, even with this approval to do some renovations to keep it useable for the time being while we look at, as we’ve directed, the replacement of this facility, that plan would then have to go into the business plan process. The capital plan would then go before committee. If committee feels that renovation is the most appropriate means, then we...

Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide an update on the progress relating to the amalgamation of human resource services.

It has now been one year since we took the first steps towards a modern human resources management structure with the amalgamation of human resource services that resulted in, and continues to result in, identifying issues and areas where improvement is necessary.

One of the issues that was identified last summer was a significant backlog in both the pay and benefits areas. In both areas, plans were introduced in September 2005 to improve the situation. On the benefits side...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, ultimately we need to find space. Spaces where we’re occupied at this time we would lose the opportunity to use that space. Going out for a tender at this time we still wouldn’t have a building in place for more than a year to complete what’s required. I suggest we’d be lucky to get it completed and people moved in in two years if we were to pull something off the shelf and just say we need so much square footage office space. There is some office space, there’s a learning centre. So there’s different types of spaces here that are required, but...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have the detail as to who we actually were in discussions with. I know we monitored the situation and other CRTC hearings for those types of decisions that would have impact on the service providers in the Northwest Territories. I can get that information for the Member and provide it later. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as I stated yesterday, the department, the recommendation by Public Works and Services to the department was a couple of options and ultimately one, the best value for money long term would be replacement of this facility. Once that project is agreed to -- and that would have to be agreed to ultimately through the building or business planning process coming up in September -- if that is agreed to then the department, we would have to look at should we build our own or should we now go out for lease space. So that decision is yet to be made. Thank you.