Norman Yakeleya

One comment I heard at the Northern House was they hope they can come to Yellowknife, jump on a plane, and visit a diamond mine. It really intrigues them, these diamond mines. That was one comment. We’re getting that type of interest at Northern House. I want to ask the Minister with respect to promoting the Sahtu that it would be nice to have these German people hike the CANOL Trail, jump in a boat, go up the Bear River to visit the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada here, as we promoted it. It took a lot and had a lot of interest from the southern papers there in terms of this claim to fame...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of the LHOs’ ongoing operations, I made comments in the opening of this committee here with the transfer of the new program, the old new, whatever you call it from...(inaudible)… Is there somewhere in here that that’s going to be the transfer? So is housing now going to be assuming the control or the responsibility of the…(inaudible)…program?

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of ITI in terms of our recent meetings down in Vancouver and more particularly to the media people that were interested in the Northwest Territories such as the German newspaper and the Chinese television people there. They talked about the Northwest Territories and particularly important to the media person from Germany in terms of the tourism. I want to ask the Minister, in terms of the feedback that we received that was very positive from the media outlet in terms of promoting a place to visit, the Northwest Territories, is the Minister taking...

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, colleagues. Mr. Chair, I have a motion, a committee motion here.

The Minister is correct in that it does have an effect on the contractors in terms of their reputation as builders and suppliers. Paying off the suppliers for the materials or whatever. It has an effect on their business and has an effect on the regional operations in terms of getting the materials in there. I’m glad the Minister said they’re looking at it and hopefully next year we won’t see this as a major issue for us in the communities.

I know there’s a real ambitious plan here to put all units into the communities. It’s a lot of stress on everybody, especially when you have materials...

Thank you. I think the Minister and I are somewhat agreeing and on the same page in terms of the issue of land tenure and that whole accountability issue with the Housing Corporation. But we also have accountability to our own people, so I think we’re on the same page. I talk about the experience because of my own grandfather’s house and my mother that lived in the house, that Housing told her when they moved into a public housing unit and that house now that my grandfather has, there’s a public housing unit sitting on there right now. So why is that public housing on my grandfather’s lot? How...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The land requirements. Some of the issues that we have with land requirements in some of our communities and because it’s quite complex and sometimes we don’t get the houses we want built for that year because of the issue with the municipal or, as in our case, with the Sahtu municipal lands there are certain agreements that need to be put in place before the Housing Corporation puts houses in the communities. Sometimes when these agreements don’t come in time because of the schedule, sometimes we’re told that if you don’t get your land, it’s too bad, you can’t have a...

Thank you, and now the mortgage collection specialists. Is this going to be part of their long-term O and M or is this going to be a program where they’ll train or work with the local housing authorities to take more of a role into it and the mortgage collection specialists would ease their way out? So is this going to be a part of the ongoing O and M?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the increase of nine positions, could I get a little more detail on that?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly I’m prepared to lace up with the Minister of ITI and defend this claim to fame in terms of the birthplace of ice hockey in Canada. I want to ask the Minister in terms of all the good publicity we have and now with the Olympics that are going to start, I think it’s going to somewhat scale back and the focus is going to be on the athletes in that once we finish this whole event that’s happening in Vancouver we’ll be sitting down and looking at a bigger picture strategy in terms of how to go forward and continuing on the good work that this department has done on...