I understand the senior staff are going to be meeting with the senior staff of the school boards after which we’ll talk about a meeting of that nature. I’ve met with the school boards collectively here. I’ve met with some of them in the regions. I would be, of course, prepared to do that with the school boards here as well, and the health boards and the two housing boards.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since January 29th , when the consultation, if that’s what

they call it, went out -- the package went out to the school boards -- I don’t believe the Minister or any political or Cabinet Ministers have met with the school boards here in Yellowknife. Now that that consultation material has gone out and there are so many, as I refer to them, holes in that information, you could drive a truck through some of the information and the questions are poorly worded, it’s one sided. I think the Minister and the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment have an obligation to meet with the school boards here in Yellowknife. I’d like to see them do that. Not send their senior staff, but send these two guys directly to meet with the school boards here in Yellowknife

and I’d like to see a commitment from them to do that.

I’ll just restate the commitment that I’ve just made. Currently the senior staff will be meeting them. Subsequent to that there will be a discussion, after I look at the scheduling, to have that meeting with the board chairs. I want to indicate as well, given the plethora of boards here, there’s also two housing boards and the health board as well. We’ll look at scheduling that particular slate of meetings.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the budget address it says, “Canada has committed to invest a further $50 million in the construction of new social housing over the next two years.” My questions are for the Minister of housing. We do have some housing issues in the Northwest Territories. But whether you go to places like Fort Liard and see housing packages sitting on people’s front lawns, which lead one to believe that we have trouble finding a contractor to build the houses, or whether you go to the small communities where we have no housing for teachers and nurses, or whether you go to communities where there’s new homeownership units built but nobody subscribes to that, there’s nobody moving into them. There are places where we say we have housing issues, but there’s nobody on the waiting list for public housing.

I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing where this government’s focus and attention is going to be on with any new housing dollar; or is the federal money going to be highly prescribed exactly what we can do with that money; or can we tailor the program to the needs of the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. About three questions there. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

I can say yes to all of the above. The Member has raised a number of issues that have certainly come to my attention since taking on the position of Housing Minister. We’re trying to look at the issue of packages to the communities that have not been completed due to shortage of contractors, programs that are certainly not meeting some of the clients that should be accessing the housing packages. We’re looking at the issue of deferred maintenance on public housing. All these issues we would like to bring

forward to have a discussion with committee. We will be drafting a letter to request time to sit in front of committee and look at some of the proposed changes we would like to suggest.

The new federal money, question number two, is an area that we’re really working hard to get a handle on. We certainly have some challenges in front of us. Good challenges, I should add, because we have some resources that we were very nervous we would not have for the upcoming year.

The area that we plan to look at, and of course this is going to be floated by the committee, is to upgrade our public housing units, look at the energy side of it, look at extending the life of these units, replacing some of them, look at providing programs for homeowners across the Territories so they can upgrade their units also and look at energy and all the different issues that are challenging other people across the Territories. We’d also look at enhancing our Homeownership Program that we can provide houses to people who qualify for those units.

My second question is, in the Minister’s discussions with the federal government regarding this additional money, which is indeed very welcome, has it been his sense that it will be fairly narrowly described how we can use that money or do we have some considerable latitude in how we apply those resources to our specific issues and needs in the Northwest Territories? I raise the issue of the statement by the Minister of Health and Social Services on homelessness today. That’s a problem. I want to know how much latitude we have. How much discretionary latitude do we have in the expenditure of these funds?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We still have yet to work out the details of how much money is actually going to be transferred to us. We expect it’s $25 million a year for two years. We haven’t seen the actual detail. We only know it’s going to be in the area of social housing. How we define that I think and hope will be up to us. That is yet to be seen.

I do hope that the Minister communicates that to his federal counterparts when he meets with them, that we do have issues in the North with housing, but we would like made-in-the-north solutions. To the issue of homelessness, I would like to ask the Minister, the list of the money that was handed out so far in homelessness is fairly minimal. That is a big issue in our communities. Does the Minister have any plans, ideas, innovative ideas on how we can address homelessness with some of that money? Could that be directed in that way?

The issue of homelessness and public housing in general is still a challenge. There are two parts of the challenges we face in tackling the housing situation in the Northwest Territories. First of all, it’s dealing with actual infrastructure of our units, whether it’s new or upgrades. The second part was to find some money to operate the units. Right now we’ve had one portion of what we needed identified for a two-year period, but that doesn’t allow us to invest in infrastructure. That’s going to require ongoing O and M. That means we can’t increase our housing stock. Our public housing stock, I should clarify. That only allows us to replace units, upgrade units, and it doesn’t allow us to increase and invest into new public housing facilities. That’s the challenge we still have.

We’re not alone in this battle. We’re not alone in this need. It’s an issue that’s right across Canada. We have agreement from all the jurisdictions in Canada to try and pressure the federal government to convince them they have to continue to invest through CMHC or by other means in social housing operation and maintenance. This is an issue here, but it is a significant issue in Nunavut, for example, and we need to have that discussion with the federal government so we can tackle issues like homelessness and more public housing stock.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I cannot think of a community in the Northwest Territories at this moment that could not use capital money to address the issue of homelessness. I think we need to stop thinking on the grand scale of monstrous institutional buildings with huge O and M. I think we need to think on a smaller scale. Perhaps multi-client units built in the North without the huge O and M built with the needs of the homeless in mind. Would the Minister entertain such a kind of innovation outside of our normal programs thoughts?

There is a stream of funding that does come to the NWT for homelessness. That responsibility is managed by the Minister of Health. There is only one designated community in the Northwest Territories that can access that money from the federal government. We are certainly interested to see any innovative ideas come forward. Our concern, of course, is how to be operating. Who operates it? How do we pay for it? That’s an area that has to be defined. We have a committee that works with and addresses and looks at issues with homelessness. We’d be glad to review that.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Speaker, in my Member’s statement today I spoke of the need to coordinate youth budgets and activities. I have questions for the Minister of Youth, Mr. Robert McLeod. Could the Minister advise me if there have been any discussions between the various departments on the various youth budgets that are up and coming for 2009-2010?

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Member for his consistency in addressing youth issues. It is very welcome. At this point there hasn’t been many discussions in my time here between the departments as far as coordinating the youth funding. The sport, recreation and youth department have a youth secretariat who would normally act as the first point of contact for youth issues within the GNWT.

Could the Minister advise me if there have been...I’m trying to get a feel for whether or not the various departments...As I look through the main estimates I see a lot of pockets of money here and there. I’m trying to figure out how we’re going to coordinate the expenditure of that. Could the Minister advise me if he plans to, as Minister of Youth, not as Minister of MACA, try to pull together some of the other Ministers and have some discussions on youth budgets.

I’ve had some preliminary discussions with some of the Ministers inquiring about the pockets of youth funding within each department. The Member makes a good point. It would be beneficial to those out there to know that there is one point of contact where they can access to find out exactly what amounts of money are in what departments. I will assure the Member that I will continue to speak to my Cabinet colleagues about it and we will see if we can come up with a coordinated approach and one place where everyone can find out about the different pockets of money.

There’s a budget item, I believe, to have two youth workers hired for the Northwest Territories to coordinate youth expenditures and a youth activities survey and whatnot; one for the North and one for the South. Can the Minister advise me how far along has the department gone in as far as hiring those youth workers?

I can confirm to the Member that one has been hired and they’re just looking at trying to hire the second one.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.