Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Speaker, those documents are very concrete. We’ve taken to heart the issue raised by the Auditor General about how these processes work. We need to better connect with district offices, with the LHO and with headquarters. We’ll work at that. We’re looking at the processes in terms of making sure they’re clear and applied fairly wherever you are.

I’d just add at this point as well that as we look at the amalgamation of health, social services, education and housing boards into a community service model, multi-purpose board, that is also going to bring together the ability to better...

I’d be happy to sit down with the Member and have the Member go to the Housing Corporation. She can pick which ones she’d like. We’d be happy to make sure she gets copies of those.

Mr. Speaker, I’d be very interested to sit down with the Member if he wants to talk about his particular communities in Nunakput. As well, the Housing Corporation would be interested to sit down, along with the other departments that have a role to play here through the business-planning process, to take a look at what’s currently there. There is a small community homelessness fund. There’s other funding in the larger centres.

Clearly, it is an issue, and yes, it involves families; it involves communities. The government can be of assistance. It also involves individuals who, at the end of the...

Mr. Speaker, clearly we are interested in working with the committees and communities. In Yellowknife we’ve just opened Bailey House. We have the Salvation Army. We have the Side Door over here for youth. In some communities there are places for those who are hard to house to stay. But clearly, it is an issue, and we are willing to work with our Members.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While I have some familiarity with the file, this is an issue that’s clearly within the mandate of the Minister of Health and Social Services. I will ask her to respond.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise the House that the Hon. Floyd Roland will be absent from the House for the remainder of the week to attend the Western Premiers’ Conference in Prince Albert.

Mr. Speaker, this work is underway as we speak. One of the things that has happened since we started this new Assembly is.... There has been a working group that brings in the LHOs of districts and headquarters to start looking at these policies. Some of them date back almost 35, 40 years.

While I accept with a degree of good grace the rejection of the Member to my offer, the offer is there to have her go over to the Housing Corporation, and she can look at the walls and shelves of binders. She can let us know what copies she’d like, and they’ll definitely be provided.

Mr. Speaker, there are policies — some in great number, some of considerable age, which is why we’re doing the policy review — and I make the commitment to the Member that she can have access to any Housing Corp policies she would like.

Mr. Speaker, there was some funding from the federal government that helped, in fact, build structures like Bailey House. It helped us put some money into homeless initiatives in small communities to help cover off those that are needed when it is cold and freezing outside. So we have put what money we have been able to get to use.

Unfortunately, what tends to happen when there is a federal announcement…. It is done on a per capita basis, and the amount of money that actually comes to the Northwest Territories is very small.

I as well have the honour to be able to recognize two constituents from Fort Smith, members of the Seniors’ Society, Mrs. Bea Campbell and Mr. Leon Peterson. Welcome.