Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I wonder if the Minister will commit to emphasizing the importance of literacy for the federal government and lobby for continuing federal dollars to support the advancement of literacy in the N.W.T., to enhance the dollars that the N.W.T. puts forward.

Mr. Speaker, it is important to stress the continued negotiation with the federal government. They have been part of the process as well, and we will continue to negotiate with our federal counterparts. This will certainly be brought up at future FPT meetings nationally, and certainly it will be addressed. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, in follow-up to my Member’s statement, I have some questions for the Premier, just so the public, and maybe even the public service, understands exactly what is afoot here in our government with respect to the infamous $135 million reduction. The reduction, I think, is intended to take place over two years. But in terms of the communication that went out to the departments.... And, as I said in my Member’s statement, I am not really in favour of across-the-board proportional reductions. I don’t think that it is very strategic. We want to talk about strategic investments; I want to talk about strategic reductions.

I’d like to ask the Premier if he could characterize the nature of the communication that went to the departments. Was it that this was intended for a very preliminary review, that these were tentative numbers? Or has the work already commenced, decisions put into actions?

Mr. Speaker, the area of the reduction targets that we’ve made public, as the Members have highlighted…. The message has gone out to the public about the overall target amounts. As we sent the message back to departments, there was consideration that had to be given. They were looking at reallocations and

some net reductions as well. That was to be worked on in conjunction with the 16th Assembly’s vision

and goals and our key priorities.

The message that went down as a starting point from departments was…. We looked at overall expenditures, department by department, and the larger their budget, they got a portion of a target. And we would review that — the information got back — and make decisions as we proceeded. But there were also conditions on that, and that was, again, that they should not be conflicting with the strategic initiatives that we have set as the 16th Legislative Assembly. That review is being done, and decisions have not been adopted at this point.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Premier and the cabinet would not want initiatives to come back to them that clearly conflict with the priorities set out by the 16th Assembly in

our strategic planning exercise. However, let’s be honest: the strategic planning document is pretty general; it’s just not that specific. You could drive a truck through some of those initiatives. They are intended to be general. They are intended to convey an intent and a spirit.

I’d like to ask the Premier, then, for everybody’s benefit and comfort: could you please confirm that no reductions or reinvestments will occur without the Members on this side of the House being fully consulted in advance?

Mr. Speaker, as I’ve laid out to committee members the process that I intend to use during the life of this government, it is to be more inclusive with Members. As we look at the information that is being presented, the first filter would be at a cabinet level to see if something had any support or should be told to get off the list and go back to departments. Once we feel that there is something that we could proceed with, we would go back to Members, sit down, get the input of Members, take that back and look at further adjustments and refinements, if there are other things that were not acceptable or there were other ideas that were not considered.

I think the big piece we need to recognize is that because this is over two years and we want to make a fundamental shift in how we do business, the refocus in government initiatives is going to look at the program aspect of the delivery of departments and get into that section of how we deliver programs. The first phase would be some of the caption areas where we could implement without much change, at least at the initial phase of our exercise.

Mr. Speaker, our strategic document was called Northerners Working Together, and I want to make sure that we’ve got MLAs working together.

There is fear out there in the public about what is already underway, what already is afoot. I want to stress that point today. I’ll be very clear. I gave that example of the education council starting to already look for reductions, reducing costs of school operating costs and so on. I don’t want there to be irretrievable, irreparable damage done because people are out there getting ahead of the game.

Let’s make it clear: nothing is going to happen in terms of reductions without that information being shared with this House.

The work that we're doing is planning and targeting. We have to get that information back; we have to go to Members to see where that information is at and get input. No decisions will be made until we have some comfort, if we can even call it that, as to the direction we're heading in — what areas would be acceptable in the area of reduction and, more importantly, where we will find the dollars for reinvestment into strategic initiatives.

I should also add, as I highlighted in the sessional statement, there are a number of strategic initiatives that align with the vision and goals of the 16th Assembly that have more detail. I will be

sharing that with Members within the next day or so.

I'm glad we're having this discussion here on the floor of the House today, because I want to assure members of the public that the Regular Members are willing to work long and hard hours to make sure this is done in a careful and thoughtful manner, and that the interests of the people we represent are first and foremost in our minds.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. I didn't hear a question there. I'd like to remind Members again that question periods are for questions, not for statements.

My question is to the Minister Responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger, in regard to the new housing program initiatives that have been put out by way of CARE, HELP, PATH and also STEP.

It’s important, as a government, that when we put programs out, we also keep track of their progress and, more importantly, have a reporting mechanism back to the Legislative Assembly and the people of the Northwest Territories — and more importantly, work with the clients that we are trying to assist.

One thing that I find is that there are a lot of problems in regard to communication with this

program, especially feedback to our constituents who are trying to access these programs.

I'd like to ask the Minister: is there a reporting mechanism to himself, through the MLA or back to the particular constituents, so that we can track these programs, so that people aren't waiting a year later to hear back from your department? What are you doing to improve the dialogue and cut down on timelines in responding to our constituents?

In the 2005-2008 business plans, there was a decision made to consolidate housing programs into the programs that my colleague Mr. Krutko just mentioned.

We have been working for over a year now to implement these, and we have had, for example, the first meeting in almost living memory in the Housing Corporation of the managers and the chairs of the LHOs that came to town to sit down and talk about a number of things, one of them being the housing programs that were currently being delivered.

I will make in this House the commitment to Members and the Social Programs Committee that if there is an interest in talking about the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs and any suggestions for improvement, we're willing to look at that. As well, I will be travelling across the North to the communities to talk to people and the LHOs about the issues in their communities, specifically these programs.

We have just undertaken an important reorganization in the Housing Corporation that's going to provide better service to the regions, the districts, the LHOs and the communities, and that, hopefully, will allow for a better flow of information both ways and support to the communities.

With regard to the dialogue and consultation, I think it’s important, for the Minister, that we do use the agencies in our communities. You touched on LHOs. I know there have been community liaison positions put in place through band councils and whatnot. It’s important that we also look at devolving some of these program responsibilities to the communities, rather than simply keeping them at the regional office.

Have you looked at the possibility of devolving some of these program responsibilities to communities that have the capacity to deliver those programs in the communities, rather than having them delivered through regional centres?

Yes, we have. In fact, we just concluded, early in October, the arrangement in Fort Smith with the Salt River First Nation, where they put money into a pot, as did the Housing Corporation in matching dollars, to do an increased number of home repairs. That was a

negotiated arrangement. And any community or region that has a specific suggestion that we haven’t contemplated or doesn’t currently exist, I am very interested in sitting down to talk to the MLA or to the community or region about what that might be and if there’s a way for us do business.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to thank the Minister for that, because I think we do have to make those steps to ensure that communities and residents of those communities do take on the responsibility of housing but, more importantly, deliver locally to the residents.

Mr. Speaker, one of the areas that we seem to have a real gap with is the seniors’ maintenance repair program. That is there to assist seniors to maintain their homes, to be able to keep seniors in their homes longer in regard to maintaining their furnaces and problems that they had by way of maintenance. So I’d just like to ask the Minister: is there anyone looking at how seniors are responding to this program specifically? I know previously we worked with the seniors’ society to work on that particular matter. I know that it is a concern with a lot of seniors in my riding. So I’d just like to ask the Minister: have you been looking at the seniors’ response to this program?

Mr. Speaker, yes, we have. The money for seniors has increased per client. But I have also heard the concerns that the new program makes it more difficult to access. I’ve heard that in communities; I’ve heard it from the Members. So we’re in the process.

I reiterate the offer to sit down with committee, with MLAs. Give me your suggestions about how we can improve the programs we currently deliver. They’re there to benefit the client. If they’re not working — they’re made by us collectively — then we should, we can and we will change them to be more effective.

Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest concerns I heard from homeowners is that programs seem to be restricting them from accessing these programs because they previously applied for a program in the past or they had a half-house at some point in their life.

So I’d like to ask the Minister: have you looked at the restrictions that have been applied to these programs in small communities where people may have had a half-house 20 years ago? They no longer have it. They became a resident of the N.W.T. Housing Corporation in social housing. And now they’re trying to get back into home ownership, but that’s held against them.

So I’d like to ask the Minister: can you look at the possibility of taking down some of these

restrictions? Realistically these people don’t technically own a home. They might have owned it 20 years ago, but they no longer own it anymore. But yet they’re being restricted from accessing these programs because of the guidelines that are being used and the way it’s being interpreted. So would you consider looking at that?

Yes, we will consider looking at those. As we have our discussions with committee, if there’s a specific suggestion in terms of improvements, we’d be more than happy to consider those.

I’d just like to follow up on my Member’s statement on the housing issue in Fort Liard and then ask the Minister of Housing…. I raised, of course, this issue with him on a couple of occasions. I just want to know specifically what has been happening with this file in the last month.

Mr. Speaker, the Member raised the specifics of this particular case in the House. There’s been work done with the clients as we attempt to sort out their circumstance. They had applied for public housing. And we want to work with them to try to sort out their circumstance, keeping in mind that this particular issue has some history. But we’re committed to working with them to try to give them some assistance and move forward.

Just in general, I know that if somebody owes the housing association money, we stop helping them. But I think in this case, the government acted too quickly — or the Housing Corporation then really acted too quickly, Mr.

Speaker. The clients there were making

payments. They were bending over backwards to do what they could to make that payment on their account and had just about reached within striking distance of being paid off. We basically foreclosed on them and kicked them all out.

In fact, what has happened is they weren’t home for an hour, and the house had been boarded up. The poor mother actually had to beg to get back into the house to get clothing for her children for school for the next day. It was a really sad situation, and I was really disappointed to hear about that. I would like to know: do we have a policy about kicking out or evicting people in the wintertime? Mahsi.

I would just like to point out that the whole process of eviction is a fairly lengthy one. It can take up to a year or more. There are numerous steps that have to be undertaken to get to that point, and it’s not something that is entered into lightly. There tend to

be circumstances all along the way where things haven’t been agreed to or agreements that were agreed to haven’t been followed, eventually resulting in court proceedings being taken.

In regard to evictions, the one specific clause I am aware of as a restriction for evictions is as it pertains to mobile homes.