Wendy Bisaro

This is a fairly significant reduction in the capacity of public housing in Yellowknife. I think it’s at least 5 percent. I’d like to know whether or not the NWT Housing Corporation will be looking at replacing these lost units with other ones. Is this a permanent reduction or will we be able to keep the same complement of housing that we have now in public housing in Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to return to the subject of government customer service that I discussed last week. I have brought up the issue of poor customer service at least once a year during my time as a Member. It’s an area where no one government person or department is really in charge of the issue, so each department and office operates on its own which, in turn, leads to inconsistencies in service for NWT residents.

The GNWT as a whole has no culture of customer service, no standards, no policies, no monitoring. So here’s an idea, as my colleague Mrs. Groenewegen likes to say: Why...

Thanks to the Minister. I appreciate the information. I have no further questions. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister for that. It’s an area that is fraught with possible large dollars having to be spent, so I’m really glad to hear that there is an opportunity for us to go back and talk to the feds again if we discover some sites.

I apologize if I missed it, but I do have a concern with fracturing and it’s been talked about, not necessarily today but other times. I didn’t hear the Minister talk about it in his reply so I apologize if it’s been dealt with already. From the perspective of ENR and looking after the environment, what steps is this department taking to ensure that if we do...

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I was really pleased to hear that e-waste is next on the recycling list. I am glad that’s what the department is looking at next. I hope it’s sooner rather than later.

I wanted to ask a question with regard to waste sites in the NWT. I know it’s being dealt with through devolution negotiations, but I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not he feels comfortable, his department feels comfortable, that we are cataloguing all the waste sites we have in our territory in advance of devolution. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’m a little concerned to hear the Minister say that Yellowknife is over-allocated. He also referenced other communities. I guess I need to know from the Minister what that term means.

We have a great need for public housing here in Yellowknife. There’s a need for public housing in every community, I think, but I think Yellowknife, as the capital, although it’s a different situation here, we do need more public housing.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he could please explain to me what the term “over-allocated” means. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. The Minister is aware of a very difficult housing situation here in Yellowknife. A number of leased units that the Housing Corporation has leased from a landlord are being removed from the public housing inventory here in Yellowknife. Apart from the disruption to the lives of the tenants, which is a major disruption as anybody can imagine, the action also causes headaches in the ranks in the GNWT, in particular the Housing Corp.

I’d like to know from the Minister how many units...

Thank you, committee. We will move on to our first department, which is Human Resources. I will go to Minister Abernethy. Do you have opening comments?

Thank you. Committee, we’ll move on to page 3-21, Human Resources, activity summary, management and recruitment services, operations expenditure summary, $4.056 million. Mr. Bromley.

Does committee agree we have concluded the Department of Human Resources?