Robert C. McLeod

We look for every opportunity that we can work with the communities. I know of a few communities where the local LHO will do a lot of their own maintenance and improvement work over the summer. In some cases they’ll bring as many as 17 people on board to do the summer work. They also hire a lot of students to work at the LHOs for the summer.

As far as the employment goes, we have to be very careful that these folks, that if they do enter into some kind of agreement with them, we have to be sure that they qualify or are able to do a fairly good job, because we don’t want anyone just going into a...

Again, communities that do their budget, they will budget if they want to bring on a full-time fire chief or whatever other staff they want to hire in the community. As I assured the Member, we are always working with communities, LGANT, and NWTAC just to see how we can improve services that we provide to the community. Again, the whole O and M funding process will be reviewed to see, working with all these different groups, if any changes need to be made. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have a few communities that have full-time fire chiefs and they’re paid for by the municipality. Again, as far as them taking up some of the duties or doing some of the work that would normally be done by the assistant fire marshal, once we do the review of the O and M if we find that there’s some merit to that, then I’m sure it’s a situation that the department will have a look at. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I would like to speak about the importance of community training and preparedness.

In June the town of Fort Smith was threatened by extreme fire conditions which resulted in heavy smoke and considerable risk to the community. Several residents were evacuated until the risk passed. In July forest fires located close to the charter community of Deline resulted in the evacuation of 108 residents. Both events required emergency management officials to implement measures designed to protect the safety of residents and prepare for the worst.

Thankfully these events did...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, that Bill 19, Cost of Credit Disclosure Act, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

It’s not a question of how many jobs are in the community, but in some of the communities where people are working, they’re paying their fair share of rent and that’s understandable. But if you look at how the Housing Corporation operates, adjustments are made. If you’re not employed, you pay $32 a month. If it costs $2,000 a month to maintain the unit, the other $1,968 is subsidized by taxpayers in the NWT. We have 67 percent of 2,400 public housing clients in the Northwest Territories paying $32 or less; we have 798 clients across the Northwest Territories paying zero. So we work with the...

We have done a lot of reassessments all across the Northwest Territories. I think there’s still one community that we have to work on. But I can assure the Member that a lot of the arrears that were accumulated during the transfer have now been adjusted and there’s been quite an adjustment.

Again, this is causing the LHO, it’s affecting their ability to do their job, too, or pay their bills without collecting any kind of revenue. A perfect example is a recent $660,000 bill that they had with the Hamlet of Paulatuk that they had difficulty paying because they just weren’t generating any type of...

I’m very well aware of the talents that we have in the small communities, having seen it first hand and knowing that they’re quite capable if you give them an opportunity of performing the work. The training that a lot of these folks have gotten over the past number of years working casual for the local housing authority during the summer is something that’s allowed them to continue to work.

I take the Member’s point, and I can assure the Member that as a corporation we’ll continue to try to work any way we can with the tenants to find ways that they can possibly work off their arrears and that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Housing is always looking everywhere to see how we can help those folks pay down their arrears. Part of it was allowing people to get into a repayment plan where they pay X amount of dollars. In some cases, one case in particular, a lady paid for five or six years until she managed to pay it all. It was very small amounts she paid each month. But the Member has a point, though, and it was an innovative solution that was reached in Tsiigehtchic. That’s one thing we try to encourage our department and all our folks out in the front line to try to come up with innovative...

The department has no more community planners within the regional offices. Most of the community planning is done within the communities themselves, and if they do have someone that they bring from outside the community, I’m sure the community will school them quite quickly on the land claims. Because it’s our intent, and I think it’s been proven in the past, that all departments take the land claims quite seriously and there’s a consultation process that needs to take place in any decisions that may have an effect on the land claims. But again I point out the fact that the land claims are...