Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce the introduction of the Government of the Northwest Territories new youth website, proud2bnwt.ca.

The website offers a single window for NWT youth seeking information about GNWT programs and services to help them identify supportive programming options. The site showcases positive youth role models and increases two-way communications with program and service providers.

Mr. Speaker, proud2bnwt is designed by youth for youth. Through a series of focus groups with students from Aurora College and youth from across the NWT, the...

Mr. Speaker, the review will be done with all the recommendations and would be a decision made by consulting with committee. We would have a decision made whether it is implemented during this government or the beginning of the next government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The purpose of the rent scale review is to have an overall look at how the rent scale is delivered and, in consultation with the standing committee and the public or the tenants, to see what improvements that we can make. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we haven’t had any concerns brought to our attention yet by the consumers, but we do have a consumer affairs person that monitors a lot of the goings-on out there. If this continues to be a practice or something that consumers need information on or just need reassurance that they are protected, then it’s something that, as a government, we have to do. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’ll continue to work with the communities in identifying their energy needs and where they can make improvements so when the community decides what infrastructure that they’re going to build, then they’ll be able to incorporate a lot of the ideas. That’s why the Arctic Energy Alliance is playing a part in working with some of the communities in coming up with their community energy plans. So this would go a long way, and I’ve spoken to one community in particular that had some concerns about some of the energy costs and how they were doing some new work and they were going to...

MACA held five regional workshops to help community governments with their plans. They brought in SAOs, two elected officials from each community to take part in the workshops. As well, some of the communities have gone to the private sector to help with their sustainability plans. We will continue to track those communities that may be a little behind, but we still anticipate that all communities are going to be completed by the March 31st deadline.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document titled Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission 2009-2011 Corporate Plan. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We try very hard to make sure that all the people are adequately housed. There are 19 tenants across the Northwest Territories out of 2,400 public housing units that are paying maximum rent. That’s a good number. These are the folks we tried to design the Homeownership Program for so that they could graduate from public housing into home ownership. We’re making every attempt to make sure that we work with these people, because we hear the argument that sometimes the rent is too high and it’s a detriment to getting a job. We don’t want to be able to hear those arguments anymore.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are planning on undertaking a review of the rent scale. I’ve pointed that out before. We are looking to come to committee with the results. We are planning on having it ready for review by the end of this fiscal year.

Yes, we’ll look into it. Thank you.