My expectation is that after the Arctic Winter Games have concluded, we would review the policy to see how appropriate that policy still is.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today, I spoke about seniors and disabled homeowners and their need to be able to access assistance from this government to conduct regular preventive maintenance work on their homes.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation provide this House with the number of seniors and disabled homeowners that were assisted through the Seniors and/or Disabled Preventive Maintenance Initiative program prior to the introduction of the CARE program?

Mr. Speaker, in the information I have, in 2004-2005, there were 168 clients; in 2005-2006, 156; and in 2006-2007, 162.

I’d like to thank the Minister for the answer. I would like to, once again, emphasize the need for providing assistance to seniors and disabled homeowners who are doing preventive maintenance work on their homes. Can the Minister tell me if these homeowners can access preventive-maintenance-only programs today to have work done on their homes in the fall?

Mr. Speaker, under the CARE program…. The Member indicated in his Member’s statement that there was a consolidation of programs, and the one that now captures the seniors and disabled funding is the CARE Program. Seniors are now eligible to apply every year for up to $2,000. There is, as well, a larger home repair program for seniors in their own homes for a forgivable loan for $90,000 that’s repayable — or forgivable — up to anywhere from one to ten years. The previous amount was, I believe, $20,000 over ten years, and you couldn’t reapply for ten years. In this new one, as soon as it’s paid off, you’re eligible to reapply.

Mr. Speaker, with the current CARE program in place, there’s such things as a requirement for full insurance on the program. Some of my constituents, Mr. Speaker, live in log homes. There are no fire hydrants and no full-time firefighters. This all adds to the cost of insurance. For example, insurance on one unit that’s approximately 1,000 square feet with these dynamics to it will cost $3,500 — not affordable for seniors.

Under the old Seniors and/or Disabled Preventive Maintenance program, they were able to access that program without a requirement to carry insurance, which is now a requirement in the new programs.

Would the Minister be prepared to meet with me to discuss other options for bringing preventive

maintenance programs to the seniors and disabled persons in my riding, in order to provide options to the seniors where they are not required to have all the various requirements under the current CARE program?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concerns of the Member, and I recognize that in some cases our policy design and program design tend to have a very modern, urban focus and sometimes maybe undervalues the reality that in small communities where people burn wood — as the Member indicated, they may be living in log homes or older homes where they don’t have fire hydrants and those type of things…. So those are very legitimate concerns.

I would extend the invitation that the Member made. In fact, I would like to broaden it to say that I would be very pleased to sit down with the housing officials and the appropriate committee to talk about issues like the Member has raised and improvements that could be made if there are policy issues or process issues and/or re-profiling of funding.

This current program amalgamation was done trying to improve services. If, after this particular length of time, as we look back and we recognize that there are areas of improvement required, we’re definitely interested in identifying those, as well as identifying what improvements we can get done.

Mr. Speaker, this 16th Assembly has

identified healthy, sustainable communities as a high-priority goal. Yesterday I spoke about youth. They make up an important part of these healthy communities. I’d like, in the absence of the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs if his department is planning to continue its support for the Northern Youth Abroad program.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve been a supporter of the Northern Youth Abroad program since 2005. We partnered up with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. We’ve been providing financial support and meeting on a regular basis to see some of the outcomes and have been very satisfied with what we are seeing. We’ve had a number of meetings and recently had some further discussions. We have decided that we will continue to support this program.

Thank you for that response — very good news. This organization is doing incredible work, and I think we’re already seeing the returns.

Another aspect of the sustainable communities is, of course, the economic, the social and the environmental components of sustainability. I’m

wondering if, in that aspect of sustainable communities in the new deal, all three components of sustainability are being profiled in the requirement for community energy plans in the integrated sustainable community plans — for the capital plans. I see this as an opportunity to highlight those three aspects of real sustainability. So if we’re going to carry out a sustainability plan, let’s make sure those aspects are in there. Can the Minister assure me that those aspects are in the exercise?

I see we’ve moved away from the youth abroad program and we’ve entered another line of questioning.

Mr.

Speaker, the integrated communities

sustainable plans are something we’ve worked on together with the federal government. We felt in order for the communities to be able to become sustainable and to become self-sufficient, they need to develop a number of plans. They are working on energy plans, capital plans and innovative initiatives within the communities. I’d certainly be glad to share the information, and possibly share some of the models we’ve come out with, with the Member, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it’s well known that I’m a big supporter of tourism. I can tell you honestly that I’ve got the scars to prove it.

The fact is the Territorial government, I think, is being outpaced by other territories such as the Yukon, and even Newfoundland, about promoting tourism and regional tourism. I’m not a guy who goes to bed too early at night, I should say, and sometimes at one o’clock in the morning I see these wonderful ads by Newfoundland. They really draw you in, and I can’t help but think: “Jeez, I’d love to go to Newfoundland.” And then a few minutes later there’s a Yukon ad, and it’s a wonderful commercial about “Come to the Yukon.” But you know, something I never see is “Come to the Northwest Territories.” It seems to kind of disappoint me. I think we’re really letting our residents down in the Northwest Territories.

My question is to the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. What is he doing to promote the Northwest Territories in a national profile, to raise our profile so we can help bring in some of those fresh tourism dollars to all regions of the Northwest Territories?

Mr. Speaker, I’m very pleased to see the honourable Member come to realize the value of tourism and that he will support making

more resources available to promote the Northwest Territories.

I think that as a territory we have been very successful in the last few years in increasing the level of resources available for tourism. We have been working in partnership with the N.W.T. Tourism Association. We have the Tourism 2010 Strategy. We have more than doubled the amount of money we are investing in tourism.

Working with the other two territories of Yukon and Nunavut, we established a marketing campaign that was held in conjunction with the Canada Winter Games and that was very successful. For the first time in nine years we had the federal government invest in tourism for the Northwest Territories. So we have really increased the exposure for the Northwest Territories.

To be able to reach the par of a province like Newfoundland, I think we would have to look at investing more resources. We would probably have to look at perhaps introducing a hotel tax, which every jurisdiction in Canada has except the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It costs money to advertise on a national basis, and advertising on TV costs a lot of money. That’s the direction we have to go.

Mr. Speaker, I think there are a lot of partners out there that would be more than willing to engage, such as the Canadian Tourism Commission — the CTC. The fact is that I think the potential does exist out there. The fact is we’re missing out on a huge market that comes to the Northwest Territories, such as the southern Canadian market as well as the American market.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to hear what else the Minister is doing. Is he advocating for a potential hotel tax to help find new revenues so we can reinvest in tourism advertising, or is he searching for other types of joint partnerships? If so, what partnerships is he considering at this time? If I may note, we just cut back on some of the tourism product diversification programming money that was out there for our tourism market, tourism companies. People are having a difficult time drawing in a new market. I want to hear how he’s promoting this.

Can the Minister tell this House today: would a typical tourist, whether they are rubber-tire or they come here just to fish — things like that — spend more money than a business traveller? As far as I see it, a business traveller would come anyway. So who spends more money?

I would suggest that the business traveller who comes up and stays on as a tourist would probably spend more money.

Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

No questions.

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs in regard to the new deal that has been put out there over the last couple of years. There are concerns raised by the communities as to what happens over a five-year term we put on it. Is there going to be a suspension to this program? Exactly what is going to happen after five years?

Mr. Speaker, the new deal is here to stay. We expect the communities to be more independent through this program. We expect the communities would become municipal taxation authorities. That is the goal we set when we worked with the communities. They have been asking for that for many years, and that is the goal we have worked towards.

Mr. Speaker, in regard to the new deal, it is a new initiative. I know that it does have some hiccups in the way it will be implemented, but I would like to ask the Minister: will there be a period of time, say within the next year or so, where we can do an evaluation or assessment to see what is working and what is not and adjust it so we can make this program successful?

Mr. Speaker, the program was designed with checks and balances so communities can continue to have input on areas of concern. We have already heard some early promise of that capacity. I think overall in the area of O&M and capital, we have stabilized the investment in the communities that communities are comfortable with. We have spent a lot of work in the area of building capacity and staffing problems.

We have developed an evaluation

framework, and we will be bringing that forward for discussion and having the communities adopt it so we can do the review in the next little while.

Mr. Speaker, in regard to the new deal, I know the government still has some ownership or some control over certain things such as infrastructure, water treatment plants, and also maintaining and managing water treatment plants. Does the government have a plan in place as to exactly how they would allow the community to build capacity, take on those program responsibilities and also ensure that they have the resources to maintain and run the infrastructure in the future?