Robert C. McLeod

We’ve tried every which way to get as many people into these home ownership units as possible. We’ve tried having a 10 percent gap where if they were over the ceiling, then we would consider them. We’ve had some limited success with that. Some people have been turned down for other reasons.

I will commit to the Member that I will follow up on these units and see where they’re at, because I would like to see, as much as the next guy, a lot of people moved out of the public housing spectrum and into home ownership, but we have to ensure that we work very closely with them and make sure that we’re...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have vacant units across the Northwest Territories where the public housing stock units are vacant, but those units are being worked on. We have approximately 130, I think, where there’s some major M and I work done. We’ve tried to encourage our LHOs to have this work completed as quickly as possible so we can turn them over and get tenants into them. Unfortunately, sometimes due to lack of capacity, that does become very challenging. A lot of the units are under repair, and once the repairs are completed we will move tenants back in, which should shorten up the...

I can commit to the Member that we’ll look at all infrastructure and ones that may have been damaged by the flood. If they’re municipal-owned infrastructure, obviously insurance would cover those, but as part of the post-mortem I’ll commit to the Member that we’ll look at all aspects of the equipment in the community, and we’ll go from there and see what could be improved to try and alleviate some of the damage for the next time. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. That’s one of the things that we’ve been most pleased with, is the communities’ ability to do good quality projects and put a good product on the ground.

As far as water treatment plants, I mean, the community, again, has that ability to decide where they want to draw water from if it fits within their fiscal framework and the monies that they’re allocated. They’re the best at knowing where their water sources are from. I do know for a fact that while Inuvik has been using Hidden Lake pretty well since the beginning of Inuvik and they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t started the report yet. Work is still ongoing right now, but once a lot of the work is completed, there will obviously be a report and we’ll be sure that we share that with the Member for Nahendeh. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to written question asked by Mr. Alfred Moses on May 24, 2012, regarding the shelter policy review – proposed seniors rent scale.

Would the Minister please provide a list of the communities that were consulted in the shelter policy review?

The engagement process during the shelter policy review was quite extensive and included a number of approaches. One component of the engagement was workshops with community and Aboriginal government representatives.

In Inuvik on June 2-3, 2011, we met with representatives from Aklavik, Fort McPherson, Deline, Ulukhaktok...

This is one that I can commit the Member will have a look at. I think there have been some programs like this tried in the past, with different degrees of success. I know there were a couple of them that were actually not turned back into public housing but were renovated and turned back into the group that built these units. There have been some attempts out there to try this; however, it’s something that we have to look at because we do have a wide need across the Northwest Territories as far as affordable housing goes. I will commit to the Member that as part of the overall picture and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have looked at the report. We have looked at many of the recommendations that have been made, as we listen to all the recommendations that are made from people in and from the Northwest Territories. We’ve had an opportunity to look at it.

Thank you. We’d be pleased to meet, permitting we’re able to meet with the residents that are still in Nahanni Butte, and then once back in Simpson, I think they’ve committed to meeting with the residents from Nahanni Butte that are in Simpson. So we look forward to that opportunity to have some discussion with them as to some of the plans and how we’re going to move this forward and how we’re going to help them with some of the losses that they’ve suffered. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do plan on assessing the damage that’s in Nahanni Butte. We would like to do an initial assessment and then do a more detailed assessment once the water recedes, and we’ll work with the Member and the community to see how we go on a go-forward basis. There’s obviously going to be a lot of damage there and we need to assess that and work with the community, find out where we can possibly access some money for the community to help them deal with the damages they face. Thank you.