Norman Yakeleya

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue my questions with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment on this issue of the housing rental assessments. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister wanting to sit down with me within this short time frame of our term as a Member. I would like to ask the Minister, this is one example in my questioning the housing assessments. There is a high core need in my community and other communities in the North. There are a lot of people that are crammed into these little houses. The assessments are done on household income, not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I want to commend the Minister in terms of some of the hard work that his department, plus Members from this side, worked on the review of the Income Support Program review. The question I have for the Minister is in terms of supporting the goal of this government to provide meaningful tools to have our people be self-reliant. Is there sufficient flexibility within his department to have eventual assessments to look at the rent assessments to phase-in approach to people who are using...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few things that will really catch my heart. This SCAN legislation is one of them. It is very close to me. I can really understand where the Minister is coming from. When he first introduced this bill in the House here and he brought it to committee and we took it to the road, we heard the people in the communities speak from their heart and from their personal experience. I can empathize, sympathize and can also relate with them. People that were talking, some of them are here today...

…and to look and say that we could pay our own way, we could do it. You know, it’s very disheartening, Mr. Speaker, when our needs are so high and our cash is so low. Earlier today I heard Mr. Braden talk about 66 days, you know, in terms of the funding that we could get for $50 million for some projects. That’s possible. That’s a strong mission that I’d like to continue working, you know, in my short term in the next couple days before we leave and we become Joe Citizen.

Mr. Speaker, the North has many treasures right down from the border right up to the Arctic Ocean. We’ve seen them in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the Minister’s willingness to go to bat for the Sahtu people and other people around this issue here to talk to the Minister of the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, it is a good program that the department has put out; however, it needs some tweaking. It needs to continue to be improved. This is one issue here. Would the Minister, through his discussions with the Housing Minister, look at this situation where the phase-in approach could be done immediately in terms of supporting people who are now in this situation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It should change, but it’s not. So I want to ask the Minister, if a constituent of mine working a secure job wants to contribute to society and to family, the rent is $1,100 from nothing from last month. The rent is maximum right now $1,100. How can this program here help this constituent of mine in terms of being self-reliant, because nothing has changed? So again, is there some flexibility in looking at a phase-in approach to assessing the rent to allow them to come to a point where they feel that they could, with confidence, paying with confidence their rent at...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I listened, with interest, to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment talk about helping northerners achieve self-reliance. That is the point I want to talk about this afternoon.

Mr. Speaker, there are families in my communities in the Sahtu that are starting out to be self-reliant. They have jobs. There is a lot of activity going on there. As soon as they either enter the social housing or have a job and enter into a social housing unit, their rates of rent increase from nothing to $1,100 for one month. It leaves them very little in terms of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in light of that, getting the process in place with the department and the Sahtu regional health board, would the Minister look at committing to put together a feasibility study in terms of looking at a regional wellness centre and putting that on the agenda with the next government?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, would the department look at an initiative brought by the Sahtu leadership in terms of looking at a P3 model in terms of helping out with this government? We want to be part of the government. Would something like that be feasible by this government to look at a P3 model in terms of building a regional wellness centre?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, several months or weeks ago, I heard the federal government make an announcement on the patient wait guarantee time in Canada. I was quite delighted to hear about this, Mr. Speaker. I wasn’t too sure how the interpretation was going to be interpreted or how it was to be translated into our region. The way I looked at it is this region here I am talking about is the Sahtu region. Patients are guaranteed to wait for health services, Mr. Speaker. Patient wait guarantee time for us. We are asking again in terms of like the highway, in terms of other...