Norman Yakeleya

Thank you. Mr. Speaker. I’d like to table document Your Health Benefits: A First Nations Guide to Accessing Non-Insured Health Benefits.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have 11 days until families -- 12 families, I believe -- are going to receive eviction notices having them move out of their homes in Deline. Mr. Speaker, some of these families have children that are going to school. Right now there is no homeless shelter in Deline and the inadequacy in the Sahtu is a high percentage, according to the 2009 NWT Housing Survey report.

I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, the Minister responsible for Homelessness, what type of plans are in place once these people receive their eviction notices and they...

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 5 on the Order Paper.

---Unanimous consent granted

I certainly look forward to the Minister getting back to me in short order. Would the Minister look at possible time frames as to when we can expect a social worker to be in Tulita, having all the excuses being exhausted? When can the people in Tulita get a social worker in the community? How soon can the Minister get back to me?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Health and Social Services. I want to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services as to when she thinks that the people in Tulita can receive a resident social worker in the community.

Thank you. I’ve been reading the latest NWT survey, the housing component. The result and the adequacy are unacceptable in terms of housing in the Northwest Territories. I think if you were to do that in Deline right now in terms of the survey, the adequacy percentage would go right up. I guess in terms of working out an arrangement with the Housing Corporation around eviction, you know, in our small communities unemployment is very, very high. There’s not very much economic activity happening there. Can the Minister look within his department to look at arrangements where tenants can work off...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation. I want to ask the Minister what type of solutions the corporation will be looking at in decreasing the number of evictions in Deline and probably other communities in the Northwest Territories, but I wanted to ask about Deline in regard to the evictions.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in Deline about 5 percent of the population are living in warehouses, shacks and tents. Why? Because this government tries hard to make housing available but falls short of the mark. The Deline Housing Association has issued 30 eviction notices in the past few months; mostly, if not entirely, for unpaid rent. We are left with people living in cold and dangerous conditions; conditions that lead to disease from lack of proper sanitation and other problems.

Years ago the government decided it must do something to get people off their land, so they built housing units...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Would the Minister work with the LHOs and the corporation in terms of direct, maybe -- I’m not sure if that’s the proper word -- the LHOs to work out some final arrangements as to tenants working off the arrears rather than have the eviction notice follow through? People right now are living in shacks, warehouses and tents in Deline. We need to get them back into units, for safety reasons and many other reasons I do not want to elaborate on. Would the Minister do that as soon as possible?

Thank you. I want to ask the Minister about solutions. I know there’s probably going to be other eviction notices to residents in the Sahtu, in the Northwest Territories. Can the Housing Corporation work with the people in the communities to see if they could work out some arrangements so that these eviction notices are not hanging out in huge, large numbers?