Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize a couple of Pages from Inuvik Twin Lakes. We have Mr. Cameron Wolki-Jacobson and Mr. Andrew Clark. We appreciate the work that all the Pages have done this past session. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled Northwest Territories Housing Corporation Annual Report, 2012-2013.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was glad to hear our colleague from Hay River South talk about Remembrance Day and remembering those who have gone off to battle to give us the freedom that we enjoy today. We have a lot of holidays during the year. Christmas and Easter I always thought as two of the most important ones, but I always thought Remembrance Day was another day that we should always make sure that we pay respect to those that have given their lives so we can enjoy the lifestyle that we have today.

I spoke to students in Inuvik a number of years ago and I talked about the fact that we look...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that consideration of Committee Motion 3-17(5) be deferred.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The debate that we’ve had this afternoon has been great and it’s one of the benefits of consensus government to have debates such as this and then we move on from there.

I have a motion that I would like to move.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome this opportunity to provide a few comments on the report. I would like, as many of you have done, to thank the commission for the work that they’ve done, and commissions in the past. I think the commissions in the past have tried very hard to have representation from all across the Northwest Territories in recognizing the different regions, cultures and languages. I think they’ve attempted to try and address that in the past.

I’ve heard a few Members talk about fair representation, good representation, more and better representation, effective representation...

Just very quickly, Madam Chair. I’ve been a part of two of these now and both of them have sparked a lot of good debate. We asked this commission, which is supposed to be an independent commission, to go out and listen to what the people have to say and then come back with some of their recommendations. I mean, we’ve seen a motion today to completely dismiss those recommendations and we’ve had a few other motions.

I believe that if we, eight years from now, the Legislative Assembly of the day will ask the commission to go out and do some consultations across the Northwest Territories. They’ll...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We talk about the diversity of the Northwest Territories and we all realize each and every one of our ridings is very diverse. I represent a riding that has Inuvialuit, Gwich’in; we have people from all over the Mackenzie Delta, so we know about the diversity of our riding.

I’m going to vote in favour of the motion, in favour of the 19 but, like Mr. Blake, that is in no way showing any disrespect to our Tlicho brothers, our brothers from Tu Nedhe. It’s no disrespect. We talk about the fact that there are three of us in here that are of Gwich’in descent. All three of us...

We would like to think all the homeless shelters, emergency shelters, transition homes would be of the highest standards. As far as standards go, I will follow up and see where we are with that, but I would expect that all of our units, and I know the ones that I’ve been to, have very high standards. I’ll follow up on the Member’s request and I’ll communicate that to the Member and Members.

As far as the infrastructure goes, I think we’ve made it well known that we’ve made some contributions to some organizations to help with the infrastructure, and we do that throughout the Northwest Territories. I think one of the things we do quite well is make some contributions to some of the infrastructure that they’d be running.

As far as the programs go, that’s under a different department. But 2014-15, we will be having discussions on the business planning process, I think, come December, and there will be an opportunity there for Members to have some input into that. I believe for the...