Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Madame la Presidente. I think that was a yes; that was great. I'll keep it rolling. Our continuing care standards have been in place since 2015 and reviewing that document, I did not see any discussion of the special precautions and practices necessary during a pandemic or a public health emergency.

So can the Minister tell us whether these revised standards that she mentioned, or the review of our 2015 standard, whether there's going to be anything in there in light of any lessons learned from the COVID pandemic? Mahsi, Madam Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So is there any money earmarked in this budget for further work on our remediation economy? And I guess I'm not talking about the $20 million contract that went to a southern firm to do remediation at Cameron Hills where nobody's getting any jobs out of it from the Northwest Territories, but is there any actual dollars in here for further work on remediation economy? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Merci, Madame la Presidente. I've had two pages in the House this week from Frame Lake, Aiden Tate and David Munford, and I would like to thank them for their service. Mahsi, Madam Speaker.

Mahsi, Madam Speaker. Yeah, I actually sent three Ministers an email about this while I was sitting here, before I had even read the Cabin Radio story, saying you guys are doing a media briefing tomorrow, you haven't told us anything? So why are you doing a media briefing instead of talking to us and telling us this news? Thanks, Madam Speaker.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the estimates for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation at this time. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I have some questions for the Premier, if I could. I'm reading today, right now, on Cabin Radio, a news story about how they broke the story about how the Northwest Territories is going to get $8 million a year under a new tenyear federal funding arrangement for all the provinces and territories, and there's supposed to be a special fund set up for the Northwest Territories for $5 million for the next five years.

I'd like to ask the Premier why am I reading about this on Cabin Radio instead of getting this kind of communications directly from the Cabinet? That's not the way...

Okay, thanks, Mr. Chair. So I'm sure if I go to the public accounts, I'm going to find audited financial statements for the housing corporation, but is there sort of like a performance report or, you know, to tell people what you folks do, because if you don't, maybe that's a good thing to start. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thanks, Mr. Chair. Yeah, if I guess the corporation is going to continue to promote homeownership, I think you probably need to measure it a little bit better. You know, is it I don't know, do you look at sales of vacant units? Or, you know, do any of the clients in public housing get opportunities or options to purchase the homes that they live in, and if so, how is that tracked over time? I guess I'm just trying to figure out how do you actually measure success of your homeownership programs. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, that's a useful number to know and something I think folks on my side might want to think a little bit more about. I appreciate the responses. That's all I have, Mr. Chair.

Thanks. Wow. If you didn't hear me the first time. I just find that really hard to believe that we don't have any policy about access public spaces into public housing, that people are just allowed to smoke cannabis, tobacco there. That's just not in anybody's interest, especially kids. I'll leave it at that. So I really want you folks to sort that out now.

The other issue I guess I'd like to raise here is free WiFi. I think this has been raised before in the House as a way of trying to improve people's quality of life, access to programs and services, and so on. Does the housing corporation...