Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Chair, it’s only $6 to us, but to a lot of tenants out there that $6 is a lot of money because we have a lot of social housing clients. So it’s beneficial to them to keep their power consumption as low as possible. So we’re starting to see that. We do see some folks coming in with bills in the $30 to $40 range. Some may be a little higher, but after a while I think they realize that its beneficial to them to use as little power as possible, and a lot of them being social assistance clients, they don’t have the means to pay. So $6 is a lot of money to some of those folks. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member said that he was going to have discussions with the Fort Simpson mayor. As far as the vehicle the Member’s raising, I’m not sure if it’s still in Tulita. I’m not sure where it’s at right now. We’d have to find that out. Once the Member meets with the mayor, I’d appreciate if he could give me an update on what their wishes are in the community.

I’ve only been reassuring the Member for about a year and a half, and in that year and half we’ve seen a significant improvement. I have a lot of confidence in our LHOs and our corporation’s ability to deal with the deficit. I know the Member thinks I’m just trying to paint everything with rose coloured glasses, but I do have a lot of confidence in our LHOs. We are doing what we can to work with the LHOs. There are some costs that are borne by the LHOs that are uncontrollables that are usually reimbursed by the Housing Corporation, and there are some that are uncontrollable. It’s a work in...

Each community would have their own emergency preparedness plan, but I’ll commit to the Member to try to gather the information for him. I’ll commit to the Member to gather the number of communities that have their plans put together. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We contribute to the Take a Kid Trapping Program and we can have a discussion with the RWED Minister on Mr. Jacobson’s concerns. ENR Minister. RWED. Sorry.

---Interjection

Mr. Speaker, we are still in the process of determining how we are going to procure those particular contracts. There has been no decision made yet. We look at all the information we get. Again I say, if we get two or more letters for a negotiated contract, one of them may have the Member’s support, one may not. How do we determine? The thing is, the contractors now all have the ability. Again, it goes back to policy. The purpose of the policy is to allow those contractors that are just starting up, trying to get their foot in the door, an opportunity to do so. If they prove that they are able...

Mr. Chairman, we expect to have our LHOs to collect 90 percent of assessments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct; there is a $40,000 cap. We’ve had three applications, I think, that we’re looking at right now for this year. We had the one from last year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The 135 to 137 units that the Member spoke of, we’re looking at August 31st by having all those off our hands. A lot of them will be approved HELP clients, which wouldn’t be really a burden on the NWT Housing Corporation.

The Member is right; a lot of these units have been empty for the last few years. We’ve had to maintain the units and look after the operational costs of the units, because we’ve been putting them down so quick and we’re having trouble finding approved clients for it. We’re quite confident this year that we have 82 clients, we think, are just in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Members for the comments. We do appreciate the comments we got on the money that we’re putting into the youth. We all agree it’s an investment in our future, and the Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly should be proud of the fact that as an Assembly we put more money into youth than I think has ever gone into investing in them before. I think we should all take responsibility for that.

I feel the Members’ talk about the capacity in the communities is challenged and capacity issues in the community. Obviously we recognize that and in working with LGANT...