Frederick Blake Jr.

The other thing, as I mentioned earlier, with the assistance that MACA provides to the communities. I’d like to ask the Minister, as we move forward, you know, a lot of planning needs to go in place and architects. Does the department provide that assistance or does the community have to go out and spend some of this money for architecture work and design or is it just design build? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I drove by the location, I noticed there hasn’t really been very much work done there. There are no supplies on the site that are ready to start building.

I’d like to ask the Minister, will the Minister direct his department to work with the elders in the community to select a location for the new elders facility? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Minister. My next questions are on the new facility in Fort McPherson. I’d like to ask the Minister, how was the location of the elders home in Fort McPherson selected? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My statement today is focusing on elders’ care and the need for elders’ housing. I’d like to mention that on September 14, 2015, I was in Aklavik for the Gwich’in Annual Assembly. At this time we welcomed and celebrated the opening of the new Joe Greenland Centre. This building will indeed house many elders and will have positive feedback from residents of Aklavik.

This past summer the construction of a new elders home in Fort McPherson was halted due to problems that were occurring during building of the pilings.

This is very important to the elders of Fort McPherson...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m really glad to see, as I mentioned, the Building Canada Plan underway once again. I am a little disappointed it wasn’t in place for last season, but here we are today, the first year that this funding is starting up again. Lots has been done, about three-quarters completed, and hopefully we have time, if the weather cooperates, that this gets finished and we have a parking garage upgrades in Aklavik. Hopefully, we can have this done as soon as possible. Within the month would be great.

---Laughter

But also under Willow River, as I mentioned before, it’s really...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have just a few questions and comments. I guess with the project, it is really good to see this project going through my riding of Mackenzie Delta, a good portion of it. I know we had a number of people working on the project from both Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic and Aklavik, also a number from Inuvik as well. It is really what the region needed with infrastructure like this. This sort of work is new to us, to our region anyway. The area had to go through a lot of this wire that was put in place. We saw the process that was going to be taken at the opening but there...

It’s more of a comment. You know, over the years I’ve seen a lot of benefits that this program provides and I hope that it does continue to go on through the years. For example, in Aklavik the drainage that the community has done has actually helped during the spring. We’ve noticed less floods because of drainage, the drainage plan that they did. We still need a little assistance with the riprap and building up the roads there, but that’s something the community is still working on.

The other thing was in Fort McPherson, the hamlet that they built and they’re also building a new garage. It’s...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just speaking to the funding allocated to the communities, I am somewhat disappointed we’re going back to a needs base just because I’ve seen firsthand the process that we first started with this for the communities, which was great. I know the Minister did mention that some communities weren’t spending that money, but I’ll use a small community like Tsiigehtchic, for example. To build whether it’s a garage, with the funding that’s given, you have to save up for a number of years to actually have enough to build that piece of infrastructure. That’s what many of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on the Willow River Bridge, I don’t see the point where the department provided this bridge. Installing it was $2 million and all we get on a yearly basis is $200,000. I know the department did provide a bit more than that this past year, which was great, but it’s time for the department to step up here and provide the $2 million to actually put this in place. You know, we’re throwing around $200 million or $300 million here on one highway. A little infrastructure that means a lot to the community would really go a long way here. This is better than 1 percent of what...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier today, I have a petition here signed by the people of Aklavik.

We the undersigned citizens, homeowners, hunters and trappers, community governments and recreational vehicle users are concerned about the high cost of heating fuel and gasoline, hereby support a call for proposals for a new distributor of fuel and gas and oil products in Aklavik. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.