Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Member for the question. This is a great example of the GNWT needs to get out of the way and to empower small communities for success. And when their designated authorities, or First Nations, and they can have access to different funding streams, there's already a built in pathway to bring more resources into the community for that. Where I worked, YKDFN, they're building -- they have an ambitious housing project as well. It's taken a while to get off the ground but the funding is their own funding. The project is their own project. And how they've established it, how they're going to run it is really innovative, unique, and it's going to I think replace their social housing in Dettah and N'dilo. So that's one example I'm very familiar with. I'm sure -- and I know there's other examples across the territories where that's a proven model of success. So we need to support that as a government, and that's part of that relationship building that's so important. And, you know, the Member was talking about policies that aren't working in small communities. Well, that's why we need to regionalize our policies. And when I say regionalize, I also mean Indigenize because when it's a small community in the Northwest Territories it's an Indigenous community as well. And that's what we need to ask ourselves, does this policy work and if there isn't -- and if we're hearing all these complaints, why are we maintaining it? And we need that chain -- that kind of food chain where we ask ourselves that question. Like, is there any point in maintaining it if it's not serving the people -- if it's not serving the people of the Northwest Territories. So we can continue those partnerships that have been so fruitful. We can continue to support bilateral funding agreements. And I think we -- again, we just need to get out of the way. I think we even need to look at the housing -- the NWT housing, former housing corporation, and see if that's the structure we really need to deliver housing in the Northwest Territories. If there's a better way to flow that funding directly to municipalities and First Nations and make sure we can get housing built quickly, effectively, and locally. Thank you.
Kieron Testart on Questions by Members
On December 7th, 2023. See this statement in context.
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