Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as indicated in the Minister of Education’s Minister’s statement, aboriginal language…March is Aboriginal Language Month. I am going to…I can’t read the language, Chipewyan language. I am trying to learn. Hopefully that will be a goal of mine, to try to be able to read the aboriginal language next March.

---Applause

So right now what I am doing is a difficult task that we ask the translators to do. I have a Member’s statement written in English and I am going to try to translate it into Chipewyan. [English translation not provided]

Mr. Speaker, I seek...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 17-16(3), Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-2009, be now concluded and that the Tabled Document 17-16(3) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The reason I am asking is I am trying to do some sort of comparison what it’s costing the department to do the highway maintenance directly and what it’s costing to do highway maintenance to a contract, specifically around Fort Resolution with Nuni (Ye) Construction. My understanding is that the contract is a fairly good contract and it’s set up in a way that you have to have machinery working in order to maximize the contract. An example that I’ve been advised of is that if it’s not snowing and in the wintertime and the machinery isn’t moving or it’s not snowing heavily, then the contract...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the Housing Corporation take immediate and comprehensive action to assess all housing association programs with a view to increasing the income thresholds that are used to determine client access to the various housing programs; and further, that the Housing Corporation establish reasonable income thresholds that better reflect the current state of the northern economy particularly the high cost of living in small communities and that the programs be designed to address affordability, suitability and adequacy of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 20.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is something I was going to ask later on but I can’t really find a better place. I suppose this might be on the debt repayment; that might be the spot to do it. As we all know, we are dealing with a declining fund from CMHC. I’m wondering if the Housing Corporation has developed a strategy on how they’re going to address the issue of the loss of O and M dollars as the loan gets paid off. Are you going to reduce the amount of public housing? Are you going to take money from capital and put it into O and M or ask this Assembly for more money to continue to...

The Minister touched on something here that I would like to explore a little further. On the collective bargaining issue, it has always been my understanding that it wasn’t a union issue in negotiating because if you are providing subsidized housing to someone in a non-market community where, like I said, it is difficult to provide staff housing for staff because of high carrying capital costs and so on and so forth, it is difficult to get contractors on. I am curious to know what type of actual collective bargaining issue this creates, because I can’t see how the people in market communities...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to ask questions on housing for staff as well. I have most of the Hansard as the people ask the questions. I guess I will ask about the Market Housing Program. I am curious about how the Market Housing Program...I am trying to figure out the difference between housing for staff and the Housing Program. Maybe just a little explanation on those to start with, please, Mr. Chairman.

I recognize that even in the recent federal budget announcement that there is money put in for environmental assessments all pertaining to the Mackenzie Gas Project. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could commit to increasing the GNWT’s share of the Interim Resource Management Agreement so that more money can be put into environmental monitoring in the non-settled areas.

There is a limited amount of monitoring going on around both Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution. What I’m interested in doing is seeing if the Department of Environment and Natural Resources could expand that environmental monitoring. I’d like to ask the Minister if he would be prepared to have his staff meet with the environmental workers in both Lutselk’e and Fort Resolution so that they could start to develop some sort of plan for the future environmental monitoring in those areas.