Mr. Chair. I’ve spoken consistently over the years about housing and how people get in arrears. A lot of them are because they’ve been disputing how their house was built, some of the guidelines around how their income is reported, and I’ve always been in favour of an appeal system. First, an appeal system to get rid of some of the longstanding arrears that are out there. I did work on a few files that were resolved, but at the same time people with arrears and with outstanding loans to the Housing Corporation can only appeal to the person that is requesting the money from them. I believe that we need an independent board like the one that exists in Education, Culture and Employment, an appeals committee to look at that.

Also, I think that our government has got to be more supportive of actually reviewing those arrears so that it doesn’t lead to a situation that people are evicted. Also, I’d really want to revisit this whole evicting people during the wintertime. I know that as an MLA that’s important and yet it still happens. There’s a myth out there that you cannot do it, but it actually happens to our people, large families, single parents, and I don’t believe that should exist and I would look for a policy to address winter evictions. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Miltenberger.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of arrears both on the mortgage side and the rent side is a significant one, pretty well near I believe to about $20 million. There’s a Shelter Policy review that was initiated late in the 16th Assembly that is going to be dealing with a lot of these pressing issues. Rent scales and the market rent are the programs we’ve designed, properly tailored for the communities so that we can put all the houses that are currently unoccupied to proper and good use.

People also have to realize there’s a personal responsibility issue, as well, and when I was Housing Minister my approach would be housing is not cheap and it’s not free, and when you look at the hierarchy of need that Maslow has, food and shelter are right at the bottom. So we’ve got to impress upon people that you have to pay your rent. It’s very important that you do that.

One of the things we’ve done over the years, not by being lax, is allowing to build up and to create an

impression and expectation among folks that they could pay their truck payments and skidoo payments and defer their rent and they’d get caught up later, which doesn’t tend to happen. I agree we have to look as a government to be very careful when one part of government, a Crown corporation, evicts a person in a community where there’s no other housing, what are the costs going to be and are we going to pay more as a government to put people in emergency housing or hotels as we sort out the issue with their rent. That is an issue that needs work that’s more functional in intergovernmental cooperation so that we’re not creating work for ourselves by one arm of government doing something that has an impact at a greater cost on another part of government, one pocket to another.

So a key piece, of course, is if we could encourage everybody to in fact pay their rent, make sure their rents are fair, and recognize that that is a fundamental need, and it’s not cheap and it’s not free. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. McLeod.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding that as a government there are about, I don’t know, probably 11 or 12 million dollars in unpaid rent and unpaid mortgages. So it’s a significant problem for the government and I think that usually evictions are the last course of action that the Housing Corporation takes, it’s after a long period of time to try to find solutions. Generally the Housing Corporation, if anybody makes some sort of repayment offer, generally the Housing Corporation accepts it.

I think we have to go back to fundamentals that perhaps there’s an expectation out there that housing is free, and if that’s the case, then it becomes a question of who is going to pay for it. Is it Income Support? If people aren’t paying their rent if they’re not on income support, then how can they move ahead?

I think a number of principles should be that anybody that works, they should be better off when they work rather than when they’re not working because their rent is going to increase. I think that we need to wait for the Shelter Policy review report to come out. We need to look at the process, like who is the person of last resort when it comes to deciding on eviction? I assume it’s the local housing authority, whatever the appeal process is there. I think then we have to look at the alternative.

Personally, I don’t think I would support evicting people in the middle of winter. I understand there are people that have been evicted and are living in tents in 15 below weather. So as a government we need to take all of this into consideration and find a

reasonable approach to dealing with evictions. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Before we move on this morning, I’d like to welcome a former Member of the Legislative Assembly, MLA for Mackenzie Delta in the 13th ,

14th , 15th and 16th Assemblies, former Speaker and

Minister, Mr. David Krutko. Welcome, David.

---Applause

Mr. Bouchard.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

October 25th, 2011

Robert Bouchard Hay River North

Thank you. Today I’d like to ask the candidates a question on small communities. During my campaign and during the short term here at the Legislative Assembly we’ve been talking about getting government jobs out in the community. I’d like to know what the candidates believe in that and how they think they’re going to implement that.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Miltenberger.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There was a program I referenced that was set up in the last Assembly based on a recommendation from the Rural and Remote committee that put money in for employment. We’ve put in community service officers to help people navigate through the government system. A lot of things I see in terms of moving to getting jobs into the small communities I touched on in a previous answer. For example, in bringing our maintenance money together, O and M money together to see if, in fact, in communities we can have a tradesman and an apprentice or two instead of flying people in.

There is a tremendous opportunity as we look at devolution, 175 jobs, that has to have a trickle- down effect. These positions are going to come empty from Ottawa. We are looking at communities, the larger centres, and then what we’d do in the smaller centres to in fact make sure that that benefit trickles down so that this rising tide of good fortune from devolution will raise all boats including the small communities. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Menicoche.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Miltenberger touched on devolution as one of our sources of decentralization of positions as the lands and resources get transferred to the Northwest Territories. A huge opportunity. I know that it has not been addressed in this Assembly, but I think, working with the committee systems, that we have to start looking at it instead of just leaving it up to our negotiators. I believe it’s the committee and all the MLAs have to know exactly what positions they’re talking about, and I would certainly

commit to a full, extensive briefing on the agreement-in-principle that way.

Another thing I would do is I would not support any transfers of jobs to Yellowknife. I’ve seen that in the past. The bureaucracy always comes up with many reasons why a job has got to remain in Yellowknife or get transferred to Yellowknife. As Premier I will not support that. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ve been involved in government for a long time and this getting government jobs to the community, or decentralization, I think, is the word that is used more often. Over various Assemblies there have been a number of different initiatives and I think there’s been quite a few times where jobs have been moved out and decentralized where it makes sense and the costs are not unreasonable. Also, there’s been a decentralization committee that looked at all of the programs and services that the government provides and looked at finding ways to move jobs and programs around, and the process that I can think of, it failed because it was going to provide for winners and losers between communities. I think that it’s something that we should look at.

I think of Nunavut who went through a very large decentralization process and they had problems with hiring people. I think that there also will be problems with office space, housing. But I believe that we should have a committee that looks at it. I don’t think we have to focus solely on devolution of 350 jobs. I think that we can look at programs and services that make sense. We’ve done it. As a government, we’ve it in the past. I can think of some of the health divisions, forestry, for example, the move to Hay River, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Office that was set up in Hay River. I think there are ways it can be done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Colleagues, we’ve been going for the last two hours. I call a 10-minute break. Thank you.

---SHORT RECESS

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, colleagues. Welcome back. We are done the first round of questioning. We will now start with the second round of questioning. We have Mrs. Groenewegen.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Jane Groenewegen Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have had much discussion over the years about the Affirmative Action Policy. The Affirmative Action Policy’s intent is to ensure that in the public service in the Northwest Territories we have a representative workforce. It hasn’t been revised,

reviewed or amended in many, many years. I would like to ask the candidates for Premier if they think this might be a time when we would like to re- examine the intent and the policy itself to ensure that it is meeting the objectives it was intended to. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. McLeod.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Bob McLeod Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Affirmative Action Policy has been in place for a very long time. More recently, over the past 10 years it has been about 31 percent. Despite many efforts to move that percentage up to have a public service that is representative of the Northwest Territories where 50 percent of the population in the Northwest Territories is Aboriginal, we seem to be unable to move past the 31. Although we had a slight increase this year; it is 32 percent.

With “20/20 – A Brilliant Future,” we have taken another strong run at improving our Affirmative Action Policy, making our affirmative action policies work. We have an Affirmative Action Advisory Committee to help us to work with the departments, to find new and innovative ways to get Aboriginal people into the public service. I think there are a number of things that we compete with industry. There are certain jobs that require different levels of skills. Not everybody wants to work for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Having said that, there is a court challenge on the Affirmative Action Policy. Our view is that this is a very important policy. We need to continue with it.

Last Assembly, I think it was the 15th Assembly, we

came forward with an Employment Equity Policy, to replace the Affirmative Action Policy, that would be more focused on strategic categories of jobs, and at that time was felt that would be a better approach to deal with affirmative action. The 15th Assembly

didn’t agree with that and decided not to change it, so right now I think the affirmative action is the way to go. I think we need to defend it in a court case. I think that as the 17th Assembly we should review it

and see if we still want to continue that route or are we prepared to look at something else. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Miltenberger.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Michael Miltenberger Thebacha

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree with Minister McLeod; the Affirmative Action Policy I believe has made a difference, but, like any good policy, once again, as I have already stated, if there is a need for review again, we should look at it.

I just want to harken back to another policy that we have reviewed many, many times unsuccessfully, which would be the Business Incentive Policy

where we spent a lot of time and working with Legislature looking at it. It hasn’t been a useless process. It has helped clarify our thinking. In this case there is a pending court case which would require us to speak very carefully to this program or policy. The intent is the right one. Once again, I think any government policy, if it is the wish of this Legislature, should be there for review and constructive change if that is what we collectively agree on. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Menicoche.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Kevin A. Menicoche Nahendeh

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The Affirmative Action Policy, we had to force our government to hire our people and Aboriginals. That is why it was implemented in the first place. Incredible as it sounds, we had to force our government to hire our own people. That is the spirit and intent of the Affirmative Action Program. I know that in the last Assembly there was some inkling of looking at it, reviewing it, making some changes. If that is the priority of this Assembly, then certainly the Executive would certainly consider it seriously and working with all Members once again. We could have a real good look at it. Once again, it was about hiring our people, the Aboriginal people of the Northwest Territories. There are other ways that we can achieve an increase of those numbers. One of them I spoke about is that we focus in on education and increase our graduation rates, and what that does is increase the employability of our people. I would like to see us move towards that. Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Before we go on I would like to welcome former Member, MLA for North Slave and Monfwi, former Member Mr. Henry Zoe. Welcome to the House, Mr. Zoe.

---Applause

Before moving on, colleagues, I would like to ask the candidates for Premier if they can shorten up on their responses to move along. Thank you. Ms. Bisaro.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Chair. One of the significant pieces of work and accomplishments of the 16th Assembly, the Standing Committee on

Social Programs did a very considerable, thorough and comprehensive review of the Child and Family Services Act. Out of that review came 70-some recommendations, some of which were agreed to by the government of the day, many of which were not, and many of those recommendations would go to assisting our people in being healthier and living better and having more productive lives. I would like to ask each of the candidates two things: How important are the recommendations of that review to you as Premier? What will you do about

implementing them sooner rather than later? Thank you.

Questions By Members
Election of the Premier

The Chair Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Menicoche.

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