Robert C. McLeod

With the after school physical activity program, we do work very closely with Health and Social Services, ECE, and our program is fully subscribed to. We have a list of all the schools in the Territories that are accessing some of the funding and some of the programs that they’re offering. So we work very closely with our sister departments to ensure that we’re fairly well coordinated. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Member is asking me why I haven’t brought a negotiated contract forward to Cabinet. I have brought requests forward. It was last year. He didn’t say where it was. If he meant in his particular riding, then I haven’t brought anything forward. I would make recommendations to Cabinet on whether to proceed with the negotiated contract or not. We are following policy and the policy states quite clearly that a negotiated contract is to help the local contractor build capacity so they can compete in an open market. I follow these things quite closely and I have enough confidence in...

Mr. Chairman, we will work with the LHOs to come up with a deficit recovery plan and there are a number of things that some of the supports that we work with the LHO. We do an analysis of their LHO operations and where they can see some savings and that. We work quite closely with the LHO, because it is not our intent to have our LHOs in a deficit situation all of the time and not being able to provide service we expect of them. Thank you.

I see that is where this $300,000 could be used for all the proper training. We recognize the fact that we have a lot of people in our small communities that do this type of work, and they volunteered to do this type of work and we want to do our part to ensure that a lot of these folks are adequately trained to take on a lot of this work. I mean, I think the Member and I have both seen firsthand a number of cases where folks have gone through the ice, and even when they do call off the official search, it’s always the local people that have the knowledge and the ability to continue searching...

We geared our programs and the amount of dollars that were allocated to each program. A lot of that was based on the money we were getting from the federal government and because that money is not there, then obviously we’ll have to pull back a bit and go back to our historical figures. We use the CARE, the home repair, for example. Because of the investment the federal government has made, we’ve been able to add resource into that particular program. Now that the investment is done, it’s sunsetted, then we go back to our historical figures and we feel that we’ve been able to make some gains...

I would, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is a very strong outdoor component to the Get Active NWT: snowshoeing, Nordic walking, Dene games, cross-country skiing. So there’s a very strong outdoor component to this. Thank you.

We are in the process of reviewing the way we deliver public housing and the way we calculate rents and that. I can assure the Member that this is one that we will continue to have a look at.

When we talk about the maximum rent, there is a maximum rent. There is the economic rent and very few people in the Northwest Territories pay the full economic rent, as the Member points out, because of the lack of work. Even those that are working, very few pay maximum rent. I think we have maybe 12 across the Northwest Territories out of 2,400 units that we deliver. I think that’s a pretty good...

Mr. Chairman, we don’t have that information with us at the moment. I will get the information and pass it on to the Member and other Members if they wish to receive the same information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We respect the work that the volunteer firefighters have to do, it is why we have asked for $300,000, to make sure that they are properly trained and we also respect the fact that the communities realize the importance of providing the gear, which should be a well-trained volunteer fire department. Some communities have identified it. Our plan is to use all the $300,000 towards training and make sure all the volunteer firefighters are trained up properly. Thank you.