Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is an issue that continues to plague the small communities as having adequate housing for some of the professionals that go in there. I could inform the Member that in his community, through the good work of the North Slave Housing district housing office, they have come up with a solution to take care of the needs of two of the teachers. They have agreed to rent them an NWT Housing Corporation house, so that would take care of the issue. That will go on until the end of this school year and then we will look for a longer-term solution. Thank you.

The Housing Corporation will be willing and the Housing Corporation has been taking the lead on a lot of the training. They’ve provided packages to some of the schools where they can use that for training. So we are quite interested in making sure that we’re able to have our Northerners trained in building these units. I would commit to the Member that I’ll have discussions with my Cabinet colleagues as to some of the training monies that we’re able to access to help see this come about. Thank you.

As I stated before, the basic shelter concept is one we’re looking at right now. We need to make sure that we do our due diligence on this one and just not roll it out until we’ve been able to see that it’s something that the communities really do want and something that will work in the communities, and that we won’t have to be asked to go back later and install running water and other things, which has happened in the past. So we will be doing our due diligence on this one and making sure that when we do roll it out, it’s something that’s a worthwhile product. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will have discussions with my colleagues as to if there is anything we can do to support the seniors. We have supported them in the past. I think it is being noted by a lot of the participants from the other jurisdictions across the country that we do look after our seniors pretty good. They were the envy of the games, because a lot of it was financial backing that they got from this government it was noted. A lot of people appreciated that. So I will work with my Cabinet colleagues, and, also, we would like to support regional seniors’ games if that opportunity arises, because...

Mr. Speaker, I said we will have a discussion as to the process of funding adult sports and I will put the adults in with the seniors, because there will be a lot of requests coming from other sporting organizations, other adult sports groups.

If we were to start this, we do have a mandate to focus the multisport games on the youth. I could have a conversation with my Cabinet colleagues and see if there are pots of money available, but I really can’t make a commitment -- I don’t think I did -- that we are going to fund this from the multisport budget. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I will commit to meet with the DEA. It is always in our best interest to hear what the communities are saying, because they know best what is needed in their communities. If we can work in cooperation with them, that would make the whole process a lot smoother and we will be able to provide housing for staff and a lot of the professionals in the small communities. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the longer-term solution is we are working with the Refocusing Government committee. We are in the process of speaking to a lot of the development corporations in the community. We have had some excellent buy-in. There has been a lot of interest expressed by the development corporations in accessing some of the programs. We do have some incentives that we are proposing to them. Also, one of the incentives is using some of our existing houses and see if we could turn those into housing for staff, if there is a surplus in some of the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re currently working on our strategic plan and we’re looking to have that released very early, and this will identify some of the progress that we’ve made to date on some of the recommendations from the Auditor General. Once we have that done, we will be sharing it with Members of this Assembly. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, again, the housing needs survey will go a long way in determining the needs of some of the communities in the Member’s riding, and we use this as an opportunity to adjust our programs and services and concentrate on some of the priority communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will be undertaking an evaluation of the programs in 2010-2011. We had originally intended on doing it this year, but we spent those resources making some adjustments to programs because of affordability issues. I have also directed the department that the evaluation used to identify gaps between programs and some recommended solutions for those gaps. Thank you.