Robert C. McLeod

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...

Yes, Mr. Chair, I will, I would.

These are government assets and we work with the communities to advise them of best practices.

I think as you go travelling to more of the smaller communities, you’ll see the standards of building that they have put in. I think they’re being standard. If the Member’s looking for blueprints or plans, it’s maybe something that I would have to work with the communities to see what we can provide to the Member.

On the higher end of core need income threshold we have too many people that are over that that are deemed to be able to secure a mortgage or are not in need of any subsidy from the Housing Corp. But it is something that we continue to monitor and look at, because the Member is correct that in some of the smaller communities there might not be a level playing field as some of the market communities. So this is all information that we plan to do a program review of the whole housing choices portfolio. Thank you.

The line that I’ve repeated often is that I give the communities a lot of credit for putting in good quality infrastructure. We don’t regulate the standards, so we’d be unable to provide that information to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am assuming the Member is talking about homeownership units or public housing units. If it is a homeownership unit, as I stated on a couple of occasions, I have asked the corporation to be a little more flexible on how we allocate the units. The application process is done now, so the regions are just analyzing all the information and then we will be able to do the allocations. Thank you.

We could evaluate the infrastructure agreement, but it’s not our intent... I mean, we’re looking at three or four months to try and get this in. So it’s not our intent at this particular time to try and make an increase to the infrastructure budget until we do the overall evaluation. Thank you.