Norman Yakeleya

Mr. Speaker, in one of my communities there are lots of vacant homes. Some people want to see if they can get into these vacant homes. However, because they were built in the ‘70s or late ‘70s, it makes it quite hard for them to get them to upgrade the units in there. Is there something that we can do in terms of having people come into these old units through the government programs they have now to see if they could make it suitable, make it adequate for them and affordable for them to be a proud homeowner?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation in regard to the recent report on the housing survey. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of his research that’s starting with the report with discussions with the staff, I want to ask the Minister, has the Corporation found out any reasons why the increase in terms of the survey in terms of the adequacy, the suitability or the affordability in terms of these numbers. It’s very disturbing in terms of the numbers that are increasing. They should actually be decreasing. Has the Minister had any...

Mr. Speaker, in regard to the next program cycle, in between now and the next program cycle, I mean, this is only one of many concerns I have from the region. And certainly I will probably ask the Minister again, is there an interim appeal process or do we just go to the process that we’re doing now, MLAs coming and seeing the Ministers?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of the Housing Corporation. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of the Housing Corporation, in terms of the policies and the programs that the Minister is responsible for, I want to ask him in terms of how do we help a lady like this that is in a bad situation in terms of her house in regard to the conditions she lives in in Fort Good Hope.

I certainly agree with the Minister in terms of his explanation to the ground ambulance services. I bring this up because one of the Rangers in one of my ridings said, you know, why don’t we utilize the Rangers, get them the training, get some equipment, if there’s an accident on the winter road they can call one or two or three or four Rangers together, a quick call, small communities, with the proper supplies and equipment. It wouldn’t take very much and they could go and help our communities.

So I’m not too sure if this could be answered tonight, but have some consideration because the...

Now, is this Arctic Energy Alliance, are they looking to maybe move out of Inuvik and come into the Sahtu region even though sometimes the Inuvik region does include some of the communities in the Sahtu in terms of their authority? Is that something that the Minister is going to look at in terms of asking the Arctic Energy Alliance to start to probably regionalize their offices? Get out of Yellowknife and go into the communities.

I’m just going to make the presumption that the increase of positions is this three officer youth positions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have comments for the Minister and his opening comments. Most of the communities, when we go out to communities, always have some issues. I think we are involving community governments where community governments want to have more control. I think this government and this department is doing that in terms of involving more authority to the community governments. One of the unique things about the community governments is that they have band governments also. You get into that issue of authority and jurisdiction. Some communities have band governments. Some of them...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could I ask the Minister if he could also look at the communities in the Sahtu? Because the Sahtu has the highest adequacy percentage in the Northwest Territories with 41 percent. Could he look at it in terms of bringing down this number in terms of the adequacy means no bathroom, running water, no hot water, plumbing and electrical issues? Could he look at that in terms of bringing those numbers down in terms of a commitment that he made earlier to the MLA for Nahendeh?

Mr. Speaker, with the existing stock on the ground and because of the existing stock on the ground, it means that we have some real major problems in terms of major repairs. In the report it says out of 33 communities, 25 communities need major repairs. The Housing Minister has indicated that now with the investment now coming into the Housing Corporation, hopefully in five years, that we’ll see a decrease in these numbers here. However, Mr. Speaker, in the last three or four years we did receive some major dollars in terms of federal government and now we’re going to be running out of the...