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...

Mr. Speaker, I think nowhere in my answer did I say we’d rather wait until something happens before we act on it. This is a private corporation within a municipal boundary. We will work with the city if we have to try and find some solutions to ask MACA to fund it. I think with our $168,000 in extraordinary funding, I don’t think that will get us very far. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can commit to having that discussion with my Cabinet colleagues; however, I will encourage the community to take the responsibility, take the first step in forming an interim corporation, then the money would be able to be flowed to this interim corporation and they would look after the projects on behalf of the community until land claims are settled. But this would give the community the authority, so I would encourage them to do that. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, one of the options is the community can seek hamlet status or they can incorporate an interim corporation that would be able to hold real property on behalf of the community until the land claims are resolved. We have seven of the eight band communities that are already in that process, some have formed their interim corporations and some are just in the process. If you go to hamlet status, that process could take several months to get completed. If you were to form an interim corporation, that whole process could take as little as a month. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to the decline of funding from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the challenges this decline will cause in the delivery of the Public Housing Program, as well as the potential negative impact on the condition of our housing stock.

There are clear signs that core need continues to be on the rise in Canada and in our own Territory. Earlier in this session I tabled the results of our housing needs portion of the 2009 NWT Community Survey showing that we continue to experience a growth in core housing need. This is in spite of investments made by the...

Mr. Speaker, I’ll take that question as notice.

Mr. Speaker, again, I say this is a private corporation within municipal boundaries and if it ever came to an emergency such as that the Member’s describing, then I think we’d be working with the city to see how we can take care of the problem in conjunction with the city. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my time as Minister of MACA, which has been about a year and a half now, I have not had this discussion with Cabinet. I’ve had some conversations, are we able to do this, but MACA is not mandated to fund corporations or private landlords for the provision of water and sewer infrastructure. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, since the introduction of the New Deal we really don’t have the capacity to deliver capital projects on behalf of the communities. The department has been restructured to support the communities that want to deliver their own capital plan and if we were to do that in this particular case, I would see that as a step backwards in not being able to develop community capacity. But, like I said before, we continue to want to work with the community so they can set up an interim corporation so that they would have all the authority to make the decisions that affect their communities and...