Robert C. McLeod

It’s actually 1.15, not one, as the Member pointed out before. But we’ve made significant investment in the last number of years, and I would like the Northwest Territories to be the judge of the work that the NWT Housing Corporation is doing, because they’re seeing it on the front lines. They’re seeing with the new rent scale how you go from a $4,600 full economic rent to no more than $1,600, and somebody’s rent goes from $1,200, because they’re working, to $564. I challenge anybody to say that the NWT Housing Corporation is not addressing the needs of housing across the Northwest Territories...

Part of MACA’s mandate now is to deal with the communities. We work with the communities. We leave all the decision-making up to the communities, which I believe is the way it should be, and it’s something that the communities have wanted for a long time and have grasped. They’ve taken that on and done an admirable job doing so.

If there’s a need in the community to bring some veterinarian in to work in the community, that again would be a decision. We’ll work with the community and help try and facilitate this.

At the end of the day, as I’ve said for the last five or six years, the ultimate...

We’ve given them legislative authority to deal with this. If they have bylaw officers, they can empower them to deal with the dog situation. If they don’t have bylaw officers, they have the authority to appoint someone as dog officers and deal with the situation, and they are funded through the O and M funding to do so.

One of the challenges that we face with the declining funding from CMHC is the ability to add new units. A lot of our public housing units now are replacement units and we’re replacing units that are already there. We’re struggling with that. We’re fortunate that the Legislative Assembly stepped up last year and filled in some of the gap, but it’s going to be awfully costly for them to be doing that every year.

Again, I’m not sure of the exact capital allotment for Aklavik. I will find the information and I will share it with the Member. We just, I think, replaced 10 units in Aklavik here just...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in Inuvik Canadian North flight 444 landed in Inuvik like it does seven days a week, weather permitting. The significance of this flight was it was being piloted by Cece Hansen, who is retiring. It was his last flight and he wanted to fly into Inuvik.

Cece has been flying since 1967 and I believe he’s the first of our people to be flying commercial jets, so I think it’s important that we recognize and acknowledge the achievements of a lot of those who came before as they helped pave the way for lot of us in the Assembly and across the Northwest Territories.

I...

Through our School of Community Government we do offer some training; however, we offer some bylaw training, I believe. I am not sure if dogs specifically are on there. If not, I will find out and relay that information on to the Member.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A few years ago we strengthened the Dog Act so the communities have the legislative authority to deal with the dog situation in their community, and we also fund them through the O and M allocation to deal with that if they choose to.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the construction of a new seniors centre counts as units, we’re doing that right now. See how quick the Member is? As soon as he asks, it happens. But we continue to try and identify a lot of needs across the Northwest Territories, and we’re working on that. We continue to try to identify all of our needs. We just had a new community survey done. We used a lot of the information from that to determine where some of our strategic investments are going to be. Again, we continue to replace a lot of public housing units. I have to add that since 2006 we’ve spent over $18...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “Government of the Northwest Response to Motion 15-17(5), Public Access to Automated External Defibrillators.” Further to my Return to Written Question 19-17(5), I wish to table the following document, entitled “Summary of Financial Security Held by the Government of the Northwest Territories.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We’ve had a number of meetings up in Fort McPherson. I was up there in July. I met with a lot of community residents. The big concern we heard up there was the rates the elders were paying. We took the necessary steps to reduce the rates for the elders and that was retroactive to April 1st of this year. So we heard what they’ve had to say.

A lot of the issue was the water and sewer, the delivery of water, the water rates were quite low to begin with and they weren’t reviewing them annually and increasing them as their cost of providing the service was increasing. So it went from that to the...