Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know there are seven of us over here, right? Mr. Speaker, the definition of a small community, as defined by the federal government under the Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component and Small Communities Fund, is communities with a population of under $100,000… or 100,000 people. Thank you.

We started the process during this exchange, where we're promoting trying to get those interested in surveying to take up the trade. I think one of the first things we do is have to identify where some of our needs are for training. If we can identify those, and if there are opportunities for us to put some training programs together, work with Education, work with the School of Community Government and try to get some opportunities available. But I think, with the exchange we just had today, that's a good start in promoting the desire to get our people interested in the trade, and that way...

I'll refrain from going on another tangent that the Member speaks of. I will be very diplomatic in my answers. Mr. Speaker, could I ask the Member to repeat that question please?

---Laughter

We provide support to the communities in a number of different ways. We help them with completing applications for the small community funding from co-ordinated work between our regional staff and headquarters staff. For larger projects, on a case-by-case basis, MACA can provide advice through helping communities hire project managers, reviewing designs with them, and RFPs, and then the regional managers of capital planning will also help communities complete their quarterly reports and claim forms. We provide a lot of assistance to the communities, and they are very appreciative of that. I...

I will just clarify it's 100,000 people, not dollars, and the federal portion cannot exceed 75 per cent. Thank you.

I could have just said yes in answer to his question. Yes, I will work with the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. We all know that he can be difficult to work with sometimes, but I will commit to working with him and seeing what kind of opportunities we can put together for people. I have been looking through a number of courses offered through other institutions and looking at what the requirements are, and there is no reason why we can't maybe look at making some of those opportunities available here. Again, the first part of it is to try to get our people across the Northwest...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have any ones off the top of my head. I mean, I will follow up on that and see if there is work that is ongoing right now, but I take the Member's point and I appreciate his comments about trying to get our young people interested in the trades, surveying and community property assessment and that. It's a thought that we've shared, and if we can encourage our young people to take those types of training, then there could be some opportunities available for them.

As we move forward to finalizing some of the applications for some of the work that goes there, and again, I will check with the department, we'll see what analysis has been done. As the Member said there was some mention, I believe, of housing. I have to say we make it sound like we're not spending any money on housing and then if you look at the budget document that we're about to debate in the coming weeks, we have $146 million invested in housing across the Northwest Territories. I think that's fairly significant and I would put the investment that we make in our housing per capita compare...

I will have discussion with my counterpart at DOT. They normally do project description reports for these particular types of projects before we even get to an application stage for the funding, and if that is part of the work then it would be in that project description report. But I'm sure if you ask the residents of Whati they would be quite pleased to see a road into Whati which will have twofold benefits. People will be able to work on that road which will require some of our social spending to come down, and there may also be another spinoff effect where there might be some work done to...

The Member is absolutely correct. We are very proud of the new deal. It's actually been since 2007 now, so it's not so new anymore, but we're very proud of the deal and the responsibility that it's given the communities to prioritize a lot of their initiatives and with the ability they have and the financing they have they can put these to use. The major difference in responsibility is probably the capital planning, and we work closely with the communities to assist them in the application process and the planning process for their capital infrastructure projects. Ultimately at the end of the...