Robert C. McLeod

We’re all reviewing the needs of tenants and residents across the Northwest Territories. I will commit to the Member, and I’m actually going into the community of Lutselk’e with the Member and have an opportunity to meet with the leadership there. I’m sure they’ll share a lot of the same concerns. With that in mind, we’re always reviewing how we put units on the ground and this is going to be another opportunity to do that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Part of it is related to the needs survey. We would try to allocate funding according to the most need. I can assure the Member that the Housing Corporation is doing, and will continue to do, whatever it can to ensure that seniors across the Northwest Territories are well cared for.

I’d like to remind the Member that this is still a draft. We’re still consulting. As far as costs, we won’t have an idea of what the costs may be until after the whole consultation process is done and the report is then brought to the Minister for his review, my review, then to see if any further consultation is required. We’ll take the necessary steps to ensure that all the voices are heard, as far as this goes. I can assure the Member that we’re in a draft process right now and we don’t have an idea of what the potential costs might be.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a commitment to review the overall New Deal after five years. Budget year 2011-12 will be the fifth year, and in the fiscal year 2011-12 all aspects of the New Deal will be reviewed. Thank you.

We’ll have all the work completed by the end of 2011-2012 as far as all the evaluations go. We will continue to work with and monitor the communities. Some of the communities in the Member’s riding were band communities, so they’re fairly new at this. Some of these just became incorporated. The regional office has offered to work with the communities that have just come on, do another information session with them, and basically just give them more training as to what to expect and what their roles are. As far as the overall evaluation, that will be completed by the end of 2011-2012.

I’m not expecting those folks’ questions. We don’t have the information, but I would be willing to provide the information to the Member as to the number of fire departments we have and what kind of capacity they have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll commit to the Member that we’ll see about finding some of the old reports and dusting them off and seeing if there’s information in there that we could possibly use to assist communities in identifying dust control. I see I’ve got a copy coming already.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I couldn’t agree with the Member more on the need for improving our training to fire departments and assisting them with training. There’s a whole new program that’s coming forward. We’ve identified the need to improve the training that we provide to small communities. The assistant fire marshals in each region are coming up with training plans and we’ve identified some dollars that would be put towards this, obviously pending Legislative Assembly approval. It is one that we’re quite aware of and we know that communities are challenged, so I think we’ll see after the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously, this is one we continue to hear about, is dust control. As we’ve heard from the Minister of Transportation earlier today, there is opportunity for communities to piggyback on work that’s being done on highways close to their communities. That means that they can get a better deal trying to access dust control. Chipsealing, more specifically, is one of the cheaper routes to go. There is an opportunity there for them. As far as MACA instituting the program, I’ve said on a number of occasions that communities now have it within their authority to have that as a...

Tulita was a good example. There are a couple other communities that I’ve been in where the communities took it upon themselves to deal with the dust control. They’ve actually done a very good job. Jean Marie River I think this past year has put a dust suppressant down that I understand has worked quite well. Fort Providence as a community did some groundwork and they’re going to do some chipsealing next year.

Communities are starting to realize that it is a health issue, as the Member and a few other Members have mentioned. They’re starting to include it in their capital plan. We’re starting...