Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments on the work that the Housing Corporation has done. As I said on a number of cases, we have come up with a lot of initiatives and then we task our officials with doing all the work and they do a very good job.

The public housing stock, we are placing I think 39. You notice, when we do talk about our public housing stock, we always talk about replacement. We are not adding any new public housing on. If we put 39 in, we will more than likely be taking 39 out, some of our older units because we do have a lot of old units out there. Part of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the Member for the concerns that she’s raised. When she talks about the capacity, I believe the Housing Corporation has demonstrated that they do have the capacity, and I use the example of all the money we got for the Affordable Housing Initiative a few years ago, and we had to get all those projects on the ground. I think it was quite a task for a couple years and we managed to get all the units on the ground. I think we’re one of the only jurisdictions in the country that was able to use all the money and match all the money. We had to deal with the problem of...

I would be pleased to do that. We should have additional details after we meet in Fairbanks during the Arctic Winter Games that are taking place next month. There will be an opportunity there to meet with my colleagues from other jurisdictions. We should have the details ironed out a bit more and once we do have that, I do intend on informing the territorial sport organizations as well as Members of this House. I will be providing regular updates. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

We have heard from all sport organizations in the NWT that were excluded from 2016 and their preference was to have all the sports in one location to give them that opportunity to compete together. We had another location that was probably willing to step forward, but one of the excluded sports would not have been included in that particular venue. This location, we are anticipating that all six sports that were eliminated will be able to compete in one area. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I’m glad the Member took it for the way it was intended, and we were all laughing with him. I’ll have some information for the Member by the end of next week. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, our consumer affairs office is not nestled away. If there’s a slippage in promoting it – and I did make the commitment and I will follow up with the department as soon as we’re done here – but it’s not nestled away. We don’t receive many complaints at the moment, but again, that’s still no excuse for not communicating as well as we should that the office exists and what the numbers are. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I would like to use this opportunity to recognize my wife of almost 35 years. It will be 35 years in July. I would like to recognize my wife, Judy. Welcome to the gallery.

That is our intent, to try to cover off the cost of these games through our multi-sport line item budget if there is money left. We intend not to pass on the cost to the athletes. They would be paying their normal cost such as their registration. We are working hard with our other jurisdiction partners to see how we can work this out. We don’t know the exact details yet if there’s an opportunity for us to come back to this House to seek additional funding for that. That’s something we will work on and we will inform Members of that as we proceed. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We are very disappointed that these sports were left out of the 2016 Games that are going to be taking place in Greenland. I have been working with my territorial colleagues and other partner jurisdictions and Ministers. We have come up with a plan to have an alternate event for the sports that were excluded. We are just working on the details now. One of our partner jurisdictions has volunteered themselves as a location, so we’re just working out the details now. We are hoping to have something to report back to our territorial sport organizations and Members of the...

As I stated before, I will follow up with the department and I will ask for an action plan and have to it to the Member by the end of March.