Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The formula funding for O and M funding takes into account population and the community’s ability to raise some of their own revenue. They are assessed land value and the Member is correct that the community has seen a slight decrease in the amount of O and M funding that they had because of a slight decrease in population. I’d like to point out to the Member, though, that both communities’ O and M funding actually increased. So there is not really a net loss to the communities.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to extend best wishes to the 350 athletes, coaches and managers of Team NWT as well as the officials that will participate in the 2010 Arctic Winter Games taking place in Grande Prairie, Alberta, this March.

Young people from across the Northwest Territories have been preparing themselves physically and mentally for this biannual multisport games event. They have been spending many extra hours on the ice, in the gym, and on the trails readying themselves to compete against young athletes from around the circumpolar world and to display their talents to the many...

Thank you. I will commit to the Member that I’ll follow up with the hamlet and see if they’ve received payment, and I’ve also committed to following up to see the status of this contract, because my understanding is there were a few issues that needed to be worked out and there were a few people that needed to be paid and that’s why we withheld the money until that got resolved. Thank you.

There have been a lot of challenges with the transfer over. However, we’re quite confident that once the assessments are transferred back to Housing, then I think we’re going to see an improvement in a lot of the services we deliver; especially the arrears. There are a lot of people who have been accumulating arrears because the assessments are not being done quickly enough. So we’re working with tenants and we will continue to work with the LHOs, because this has affected their overall financial position and we’re quite confident once we move the assessment back to the LHOs, that will...

We do have LHOs right now that are quite capable of taking over the assessments. However, we were hoping to wait until the June date to make sure we had everything set to go before we implemented. But if there is an opportunity for some of the LHOs to maybe take this on a little earlier, I can follow up on that and see if the LHOs are ready. I know most of them are, but we’ll see if the opportunity is there for us to do this. I will follow up on that.

I’d be willing to sit down with the Member as soon as we’re done today and that way he can have some comfort in knowing that the overall funding has increased. I can explain the rationale of the formula funding. I would be pleased to sit down with the Member and discuss that.

There is one other community that received a slight decrease in the O and M funding. Oh, not the O and M; the water and sewer funding. There was a slight population decrease in both communities and that affects their formula funding. The numbers that we’re considering are very minor, but with the increase in the O and M funding to the one community they’ve actually made quite a substantial net gain.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Fifty years seems like a very long time and yesterday, as some of you know, I had a birthday and I happened to turn 50.

---Applause

I’m now considered an Inuvialuit elder, so I have to start sounding wise from this point on.

I use this to illustrate the fact that we have folks who have been married for a long time. I think recently we acknowledged some folks up in the gallery that were married for 65 years.

I have two constituents at home that on April 19th will be celebrating their 50th anniversary. I want to use this as an opportunity to pass on my congratulations to...

Thank you. I know that the construction is ongoing and they’re very close to completing. I don’t have the exact date, but I’ll find the exact date and I’ll share it with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have withheld some funds from the general contractor because there was an issue with the subs. We had an opportunity to speak to the subs a little while ago. We haven’t heard from them for a while, so I can follow up and then find out if the issue was resolved. But as a department, we did withhold some funds from the general contractor until this issue was resolved. Thank you.