Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll answer briefly. These questions are more appropriate for the Minister of Transportation. The toll is not likely going to be $10. My estimate, I believe, is it would roughly be $6.50 if we apply the inflation factor to the numbers we had when they were first worked out at $6. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The bridge, Deh Cho Bridge, is being built as a P3 project, private-public partnership. So in that arrangement, the Bridge Corporation made up of the combined community alliance will be the owner of the bridge initially. They are the ones who will borrow the money to build the bridge and it’ll be financed over 35 or so years. So the GNWT will not be using capital money for this project. The $25 million the Member refers to is money that is identified in the federal budget. It’s $25 million a year for seven years for trades-related infrastructure. We don’t have exact...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are going to go ahead with the short-term repairs to deal with the interim problems. Those are things ranging from water under the crawlspace, there was a sewage spill, there’s mould in some units, the roof leaking, the deterioration on some of the plumbing lines. Those are things that we’re going to repair in the short term. But right now, the consultant’s recommendation is to replace the facility, and our people in the Housing Corporation agree with that recommendation. So I fully expect that when the final report comes out, that will be the direction. Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Housing Corporation has been working on this issue for some time. We have a consultant who did a report. The Housing Corporation received a copy of that report on April 27th and are now taking a look at it. As I had said to the Member before, we plan to have the final report available by June. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of the recommendations come from the coalition itself. The government is one member on that coalition. There are the groups I mentioned before. What they are trying to do is get a balance between the support for salaries and so on for our front-line workers and training of workers. Just to put more money into workers and not giving the training that is necessary may not be the best arrangement either. So it has to be a balance. The idea of collecting the baseline data came largely from the coalition. They want to know whether or not what they are doing is...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again I want to remind Members that we have, we’re doing this in partnership with the Coalition Against Family Violence. Those are the people who are the front-line workers. Those are the people who are facing the issues every day. Those are the people, you know, the family support centre in Hay River, the Tuk women’s and children’s shelter, the Inuvik Transition House, the Alison McAteer House, Sutherland House in Fort Smith, the Centre for Northern Families, the Status of Women Council, these are front-line workers. I think it’s probably frustrating for them, they...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to mention first that we work along with a lot of other partnerships like with NGOs and so on. So it’s not always our decision or direction in terms of what will happen.

The people on the Coalition Against Family Violence feel quite strongly about the conference. They feel a need to build that awareness and at the same time do some training. The conference will accommodate 120 participants from across the North. It’s broken down into four sessions. Each session focuses on one action that has impacts in communities. They will use some expertise, as well as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, this is a recommendation to Cabinet so we will not be voting on it, but certainly there are many implications to the motion that deserves serious consideration. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll refer this question to the Minister of Transportation. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, we don’t have guidelines for that infrastructure money. We don’t know exactly what the federal government means by trades-related initiatives. At this point, as I say, we don’t intend to use capital money for the Deh Cho Bridge. The plan right now is one that the Department of Transportation and the Combined Community Alliance and the proposed contractor can do it as a P3 project without using capital money. So, Mr. Speaker, at this point I’d have to say that, without knowing the guidelines for the $25 million a year for seven years, that we don’t plan on using any of...