Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that the security amounts are set by the board and that it would normally consist of whatever it may cost to remediate the site. I’d have to confirm that, but I know the amounts are set by the boards. Thank you.

The coordinator is working with a number of different groups and hearing a lot of concerns out there, then they will package that information and come forward to the Housing Corporation.

We have two or three different pots of money. We have the Homelessness Assistance Fund. I think that pot is about $125,000. We have Small Community Homelessness Fund. We have $190,000 allocated for 14 projects in 10 communities to date, and the homeless coordinator plays a huge role in helping us with that. We have the Shelter Enhancement Fund that I spoke about.

So, the homeless coordinator is very important...

As for the exact number of homeless shelters, I’m not quite sure. I will gather that information. I do know that through one of our programs, the NWT Housing Corporation, we were looking at four pilot projects in the communities where we would provide the infrastructure, do some necessary repairs to it, and work with a local agency, be it the band office or one of the local government offices, to operate this on our behalf.

I think we have three communities that have taken us up on that. We have one that’s in the works now. We’re looking forward to see how this rolls out, and this is to get...

Thank you. That’s something that we would rely on the Aboriginal Sport Circle to help us with. I do know that they have the Middle School Traditional Games Championships here in the capital and I’ve had the opportunity to attend a couple of them. They were well attended and the enthusiasm there was fantastic and the Aboriginal Sport Circle did a fantastic job putting those on. There are opportunities for some of the regional sporting organizations to have maybe a regional one, then they would work with the Aboriginal Sport Circle and our supporting partners to try to help bring that about...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We were pleased with the results that we had in Regina and I think that’s a good indication of investment that this Legislative Assembly has made to giving our youth in all the communities an opportunity to be active. I think we’re seeing a direct result of that now. I have not received a final report yet. I’m looking forward to that to see if there’s any recommendations on how we can improve our gold medal haul for the next one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, with our move toward more multi-unit type configurations, they have a lot of single units that we are not too interested in; however, we would support eligible clients if they were to want to purchase one of those units using one of our homeownership programs, the PATH program for example. If they qualified and the unit was up to standards, then we would support them in their pursuit of trying to buy some of these former federal units. But we will continue to have those discussions and see if there are ways for opportunities for us to inherit those or get those into our inventory...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The initial discussions on devolution, the transfer of the federal houses over to the GNWT was not included in those initial discussions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “2014 NWT Community Survey – Summary of Housing Results.” Thank you.

I can’t speak for what the federal government does. That’s their decision to make. However, we are now responsible for decision-making in the Northwest Territories and, of course, we want to protect the environment. That goes without saying. I mean, anybody in here can realize that. But what we want to do is, we want to have some sustainable economic development so our people can actually go work, get a job. But I can assure the Member, and again, it goes without saying, that of course we want to protect the environment and we do what we have to, to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A security bond is an instrument that is typically issued by an insurance company to pay one party a specified amount if another party fails to meet their obligations. So under the Waters Act, that is a sufficient instrument to use.