Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, these are the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation programs so we stay away from using the LHOs. They have their own process that they have to deal with as far as rentals go. So as of right now there are, basically, a couple of options: they could speak to the district manager and then, as we’ve seen in many cases, a lot of them are speaking to the MLAs and that’s being relayed to the Minister. We do try and follow up with all the inquiries we get and see in each particular case what the situation was, what was the reason it was turned down. Until we get the new official...

Mr. Chair, we still continue to work closely with the communities. The people at the regional office are usually their first point of contact and they should be able to provide them with all the information they get. I know in some cases copies of particular reports were provided to the regional office, to the communities, but there’s still the first point of contact and they’re working closely with the communities. If they need more information as to what went on in the past, then they’d normally contact community operations in headquarters and they’d be able to provide them with that...

Well, I was going to add the two or three words: thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct; all that money goes towards supporting sport in the Northwest Territories.

The Sport and Recreation Council is set up. They receive the funding. Some of the other groups within their organizations, the Aboriginal Sport Circle, for example, would manage the North American Indigenous Games, and they might reach an agreement with Sport North to manage the Arctic Winter Games and Canada Games. So these groups are all working together quite well under the umbrella of the Sport and Recreation Council.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I stated before, this was one-time funding but we have not closed the door on this. This is money of which there’s been an uptake of right now. We’re more than willing in the future if the program continues to be a success and we find that we do need more funding, then we’ll come back to this forum to request the funding.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Member said it very well when he first started, when he said the Housing Corporation can’t do everything. That’s a very important comment, especially with the challenges we face right now. We do continue to work with the communities. We’re trying to have community-based decisions. We work with communities with lease commitments. We have communities where we’re leasing space from them. In some communities, a small community might be one building that we’re leasing from them and being rented out. The housing for staff was another one where there was a good...

Mr. Chairman, that is something that we would be willing to look at if the LHOs were willing and able to take on the preventative maintenance part of it. I think that is something that does make sense right now. We do preventative maintenance on the seniors units plus seniors can still qualify for CARE, and many of them have had repairs done through the CARE program. Preventative Maintenance Program is a big one that we have heard some concerns where people coming from out of town have been doing some of the work. This is something that we can discuss with the LHOs and see if they are able to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To the Member’s point, he talks about the local economic development and the Housing Corporation in partnership with the LHOs are some of the biggest employers in the community whether it’s guys doing maintenance or during the summer you can have up to 16 or 17 people if you’re doing a lot of the M and I work yourself. So we contribute quite a bit in that regard. The local materials, I think I made reference to yesterday, were possible. We’d love to use local materials for construction, however they do have to meet a standard and if those materials were to meet the...

What’s that? I’m sorry, Mr. Chairman. I’m not paying attention. First of all, our intent is to have the assessments transferred in June. Then this is already here, so in the next budget there will be no line item to that effect.