This process that I’m suggesting has nothing to do with land claims. Obviously once land claims are settled, there’s going to be a whole new governance structure and then they’d be able to own real property in their community. This has nothing to do with that. We would like to try and work with the community. It’s not only to their benefit, it’s to the residents’ benefit that they act as soon as possible so the money can start flowing for capital projects, including dust control. We have many cases of other communities, such as band communities, that have formed, corporations and their capital money has flown to them. Some of them have actually used it for dust control. There are a few communities I know of that have identified funds for chipsealing. These are small communities too. So it’s a benefit to the community and Tu Nedhe. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. With the assumption that Lutselk’e First Nation will incorporate or find another method to receive capital, would the Minister provide or have the staff provide technical administrative support to the communities to get this work done in Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e this coming spring? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Once the community forms a corporation, we’d be more than

happy to go into the community, at their request obviously, to work on coming up with a plan for their capital. If it’s dust control they want to do, then we’d be able to provide technical advice. Any other advice that they would need, our staff would be willing to go in there, work with the community and then the community can reap the benefit of the capital money. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member from Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Minister of the Housing Corporation in regard to my Member’s statement in regard to the transfer of administration housing assessment to ECE.

Mr. Speaker, what we’re finding is that a lot of the communities are behind, in some cases over a month, in receiving payment from ECE. The other issue is that the housing tenants also are having a challenge in communities where the income support worker does not reside in the community in which the individual is. They have to come from Inuvik or Fort McPherson to Tsiigehtchic and they schedule a day a month where the persons or the tenants have to make an appointment, get their assessment done and then they basically receive their subsidy. Yet, Mr. Speaker, there’s a cost burden where now what used to be done by the local housing authority is now done through ECE and now there’s the travel costs, the transportation costs and, again, we do not have these people in the communities, but we have LHOs, which still do what they used to do before.

So I’d just like to ask the Minister, has he seen any increase in regard to the amount of tenant evictions, tenant late payments and, more importantly, the payments to the authorities so that they can operate, and how many of them are now running a deficit because of the late payments?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko, a couple of questions there. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is absolutely correct; there have been challenges trying to implement this program and one of the challenges is having no income support workers in the communities, and we’ve heard of situations where assessments had to be faxed back and forth.

There are more termination notices than ever, because the LHOs are running on policy and that

policy states that if you don’t pay your rent, you get a termination notice and it would take a year before you actually get evicted, but that’s the start of the process. They’ve been trying to work with the tenants to come up with some solutions. They understand that there are challenges with the rollout of this new program.

We are finding that we are having more LHOs running deficits because the money is not flowing quickly enough. Thank you.

On that particular point, I believe just that alone, that we are having additional costs associated and also we’re finding that the individual tenants are finding themselves with the potential of being evicted and also finding themselves in the position of getting deeper and deeper in arrears simply because they missed a meeting or simply because they were not in town when the income support worker came to town where they were either out on the land or basically attending other functions.

So I’d like to ask the Minister, what is the department doing to work with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to devolve those authorities back to the LHOs where you do not have income support workers, so that it makes more sense to have a one-stop-shop in the communities that do not have those service providers so they can provide the service through the LHOs like we used to?

I am working with the Minister of ECE. There is a report, that he pointed out before, that is being done. We should be getting the results of the review quite soon and if there is any indication of what we’ve been hearing across the Territories, then we’ll decide what direction we’ll go from there. Thank you.

In light of the Minister’s response from Housing, I’d like to ask, is he working with his colleague to implement the motion that was passed in this House to devolve the community assessment dollars back to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation and get away from this problem that we’re seeing? Simply, the delivery system that we have now is not working. Thank you.

I am working with the Minister of ECE and I’ll continue to work with him. Obviously the Member is correct; there have been three motions, I think, that have been passed recently and we have to start listening to the voices of the people out there and the voices of the Regular Members, including my own. We have to do what’s best for people in the Northwest Territories and if it’s starting the process of maybe bringing the responsibility back to the Housing Corporation, then we’ll have to have that discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Do we have any idea of how soon this issue can be resolved, which would bring it back to the House? Is it going to happen during the term of this session or are we looking at somewhere in the new year? How soon? Thank you.

Obviously there will be a few discussions that need to be had. I mean, I can honestly say right now that we won’t see it in the life of this session, but we are hoping to bring something forward for committee to consider in the beginning of the new year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier in light of the constitutional discussions that I know the Dene Nation leadership is having this afternoon. I wanted to ask the Premier for an update in terms of the GNWT’s position of the constitutional development that possibly could be happening in the next few months with other aboriginal governments on where the Northwest Territories will go. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve had discussions with Dene National Chief Mr. Bill Erasmus around this area and talked about the work we are doing at the regional leaders’ table and putting the political development forum together. His interest is on a constitutional process that would look at self-governments as well as the public government, and come together in some fashion. I’ve sat down with him a number of times to say let’s do this political development forum piece. That could potentially lead to that other work.

I feel we need to get all -- as we have one self-government on the table now and that’s the Tlicho -- we have the public government and we have other negotiations happening. We at least have a model basis we can work with now and the political development forum piece is the work we’re going to put on the table. In fact, we have meetings with the regional leaders upcoming I believe on the 23rd and

24th of November. The Members are a part of that

process.

The constitutional discussions that the Dene Assembly is having is probably along the lines of what Mr. Erasmus spoke to me about, and we’re interested in where he’s going with that. In fact, I know the motion that was passed this summer is something that I’m willing to have a discussion

about their involvement in our political development forum and see where we’d go with that. Thank you.

Can the Premier provide some of the real tough challenges in terms of moving forward into the constitutional development forum on the views of the communities and the regions in regard to their self-government negotiation discussion and also the views of the GNWT in terms of how do we put together a real strong northern governance here when we have two different views? Can the Premier outline some of the challenges that we, as Members, are going to have to have some discussion on?

I think the challenges have been pointed out quite a number of times by Members of this Assembly, by aboriginal leadership, by people across the Northwest Territories. When it comes to dealing with Ottawa, for example, dealing with industry, dealing with our regulatory regime, there are so many levels involved in the process in the North that frustrate, confuse the industry, as well from one government to another, when decisions are being made by those who do not live in the North, that have a direct impact on our day to day lives. Those are things that we need to deal with. Recognizing that some of the groups in the past were not prepared to have the discussions because they were in very early stages of self-government talks, and there was the Tlicho self-government put in place, that caused many to be apprehensive about a constitutional discussion.

So the idea that I put forward to the regional leadership was a political development forum and that is recognizing the roles that we have in place today. Once we map out that for ourselves in the Northwest Territories, then I believe down the road the constitutional process can be one that is much clearer.

Now, I applaud National Dene Chief Erasmus for his work in pursuing a timeline. I think that’s even something we could look at at the northern leaders table, is a timeline for a political development forum. Things are going to change in the Northwest Territories. That is a reality and we need to catch up with the times and move with that.

So there are many challenges and that’s why I’ve asked Members to be a part of the political development forum as we go forward. Thank you.

In light of some of the recent developments happening in the Northwest Territories, I think because it’s going to be more interesting in the future, I do applaud the Premier for getting on-board with this issue. I think the real challenge is that will take some willingness and cooperation to get the leaders together to sit down with Ottawa and say enough is enough, we want to now take charge of our own destiny in terms of what’s happening in the Northwest Territories.

Is the Premier talking with other northern leaders and aboriginal governments about going down to Ottawa, have a heart-to-heart talk with Ottawa and say we want our North, we want it back?

Actually, I’d like to thank the Member for raising this because I believe that’s some of the debate and the discussion we should be having in this forum about the future of the Northwest Territories, where we’ll go in not just the end of this term two years from now, but what will it be in 20 years, 50 years from now? That’s the kind of leading discussion we should be having. That’s the kind of investment in time and resources we should be making as a Legislative Assembly.

We are challenged. What I’ve done is bring that table together and further hoping to incorporate the process in a joint mandate setting in a sense of when they come to the table it’s not just Government of the Northwest Territories saying this is what’s on the agenda, it would be the regional leaders who also say, well, we want this item dealt with as well and let’s deal with those common issues. We need to come up with a process where we can address those common issues, and based on those common issues, come up with common messaging and then go to Ottawa with that. That’s what we’re starting to build and put in place. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The time for question period has expired. I’ll allow the Member a final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.