Kevin A. Menicoche

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad that there’s a meeting coming up to discuss the life of the building and what the department plans to do. It has come up several times in constituency meetings that I’ve had in Fort Simpson, Mr. Speaker. People are concerned about maintaining the building. It’s about 10,000 square feet and it’s a future training facility; that’s what people would like to see. Can the Minister and can this government look at ways of maintaining this building? Even though government has to move out, do they have to demolish this building? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to ask a question to the Minister of Public Works and Services. Just recently the Village of Fort Simpson met and they forwarded me a concern that the department is looking at shutting down the Deh Cho Hall, formerly known as the La Pointe Hall. The village is concerned that it’s scheduled for 2006, based on an evaluation report. What is this report, Mr. Speaker, and when can we see this report? Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I have to beg the chair’s indulgence and make some general comments as we go along here, because I haven’t had an opportunity to address the line item that’s important to me in the last couple of weeks. Aside from that, I think what was the key to one of my issues that came out of the election was inclusionary schooling, Madam Chair. So I gave it a lot of thought, and it's one of the big issues, of course, with moving our children along, bumping them along without giving them the skills they need. I don’t know how the system came to that place. I was...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I, too, rise in support of this motion and just wanted to point out that a lot of the issues that I face as an MLA, about 80 percent of it is housing. I travel to the communities and that’s one of the first things that people point out to me, is that we have to keep addressing our needs. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I’ve been urging, I’ve been working with the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to try to find solutions in the Nahendeh.

In my Member’s statement today I spoke about single housing. That’s one of the biggest needs that’s...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I was just wondering if the Minister had enough time to review the federal budget, in terms of its allocation towards housing. Does it have implications for us and can we expect, in the foreseeable future, to address more of our housing needs in the regions? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. I spoke today about the need for single-housing units in the Nahendeh region. If the Minister could explain to me how he intends to address the needs in the smaller communities in my riding -- like Jean Marie, Nahanni Butte, Trout Lake -- in terms of their single housing needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That was my immediate concern; that we would have had a young couple, because of their salary level, I think the Mortgage Assistance Program, the way it operates they would pay $100 or $200 a month less. The way it was rolled out is while this family would have to go to ECE to get…Housing was going to charge them full market rates to get that reduction but, because of their salary level, they would have to go to ECE. So the Minister is saying this is not the case. Is that right, Mr. Chairman?

With regard to income security, have we ironed out how we are going to address subsidies of public housing initiatives? My immediate concern is we are going to have somebody who never asked for income support going to ECE. I am not sure what kind of guidelines are in place. These are people with income, jobs, and typically ECE helps people who are in dire need. I don’t know if they have set up a different structure. People are telling me when they are going to ECE, what’s actually going on is you have to expose your whole life to ECE in order to get approved for a program and it’s pretty...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to career development, adult employment training programs, there was an issue that just recently developed in Fort Simpson, actually it’s been ongoing for awhile, which is we have an old facility that they call La Pointe Hall. They call it Deh Cho Hall now. Public Works is looking at decommissioning it and tearing it down. It’s huge. There must be 10,000 square feet in that place. Traditionally it’s been used as a training facility over the last 10 years for adult education courses. They are looking at tearing it down. I was thinking how are we going to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I believe it was Mr. Ramsay who had a debate item that kind of interested me. It was with the graduation rates and course completion rates and that’s something that I’ve been dealing with the Minister on over the last couple of weeks, especially in the smaller regional centres. I’m sure I agree with the Minister and the department, that whatever we can do to improve graduation rates and course completion rates would be a boon to our young people, to our schools and to our communities.

I came upon a gap, perhaps in the system and maybe the Minister can address...