Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services. As we are over one calendar year into the COVID19 pandemic, can the Minister provide a copy of the exemption policy document used to guide selfisolation exemption decisions, and the number of exemptions per week for the last three months, the category for grounds for exemptions, the percentage breakdown between exemptions granted to residents versus nonresidents, and the percentage of exemptions granted for personal versus essential versus commercial purposes. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad that the Minister mentioned "lessons learned" because my next question is about lessons learned and how does the Minister intend to ensure that lessons learned are captured from this outbreak so that we can better prepare how we will communicate future ones. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by reiterating my thanks to public servants who worked very hard during the outbreak here in Yellowknife.

During the outbreak, even constituents who were isolating and were confused were very you know, the very first thing that they always said was how thankful that they were because everybody had a friend who was working long hours, everybody knew somebody who was directly working with the outbreak. So our thanks for that.

My first question for the Minister of Health and Social Services today is who is responsible for COVID...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I guess I just disagree with the Minister on this one because we don't have enough public housing stock in order to put people in. So whether or not we're pretending we don't want to spend it because we want to put people into public housing, we don't have the public housing units. And so whether or not we want to spend it, we're still spending that money. We're just creating red tape in the process of spending it.

My next question for the Minister, though, is private sector and nonprofits and Indigenous housing providers want to work with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment.

Education, Culture, and Employment income assistance policies not only play a key role in caring for Northerners, but they also play a key role in housing Northerners.

So I'm wondering if the Minister of Education, Culture, and Employment will remove the requirement that NWT income assistance applicants must add their names to the NWT Housing Corporation housing wait list, public housing wait list. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a lot of the work that we're discussing as wanting to put forward from the standing committee on social development has to do with being able to change policies so that we can see real change in housing in the Northwest Territories.

Some of those policies are in the housing corporation, but some of them are in the Department of Education, Culture, and Employment. Some of them are in Finance.

And so I'm wondering based on the timeline that the Minister just gave us as the end of the assembly, if the Minister is willing to...

Mr. Speaker, I think I'd like to report something to the Red Tape Working Group. Right now and I understand what the Minister is saying, and I appreciate they're doing a review on the income assistance policies. It's very much needed. But hanging on to a piece of a policy throughout a review that really isn't serving the people of the Northwest Territories just doesn't make sense to me. We have over 900 people on our wait list right now, and not all of those 900 people need public housing.

For somebody to have to walk down the block and in Yellowknife, it's about a sixblock trek...

Mr. Speaker, the reality of housing in the North is dire. NWT housing problems are well above the national average while funding for housing has decreased both federally and territorally. We have heard multiple times as GNWT cannot solve the NWT's housing problem alone and that the key to northern housing success is partnership. To foster these partnerships, our government needs to first create space for them.

Mr. Speaker, the GNWT's policies and regulations need to harmonize to support the priorities of the people of the Northwest Territories. But instead we have multiple policies that work...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation and relate to vacant housing units.

Can the Minister provide, as of March 31, 2021, the number of vacant housing units by program, by community; and

For each vacant unit, as of March 31, 2021, can the Minister state how long each has been vacant?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate what the Minister is saying about addressing the home community first and about making sure that people from the community have access to housing in that community. Sometimes, what happens is people end up living in other communities for one reason or another, and I think there are other ways that we can address this policy and make it achieve both of our ends. I am wondering if the Minister would be willing to look at community membership or land claim beneficiary membership in lieu of a community residency policy to ensure that even people who have moved away, who are still land...