Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think this would be good progress. I think becoming

routine and perhaps an annual way of reporting it, perhaps encouraging a departmental competition would be good. Finally, towards this, I’m wondering if the Premier would consider establishing a Premier’s Award or something like that for those employees who go above and beyond and show major ways to capitalize on conservation and at the same time lowering of costs to this government.

I would be happy to take that into consideration to add that as one of the designations for either teams or people within the government to either suggest or show areas of energy conservation for the departments.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke on the high cost of foods in the Sahtu region. I want to ask the Minister of Transportation, in terms of our past discussions, with the issue of the Food Mail Program, with respect to transportation...Has the Minister made any type of contact with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs or Canada Post in terms of seeing if Norman Wells could be a point of location to distribute the Food Mail Program?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department has been in contact with INAC and has provided some suggestions as to how to improve the Food Mail Program. One of the things we did bring forward was to remove the point of origin for shipments and allow them to be consolidated into any southern transportation hub or cargo hub, for that matter. We also suggested that they allow the airlines themselves to administer the Food Mail Program.

Can the Minister inform the House as to the type of indications from the Department of Indian Affairs as to how soon this Food Mail Program in terms of its original points of departure if they could somehow give an idea as to when they will have this in Norman Wells?

It’s quite difficult as to when the federal government will be responding to our suggestions. There is a committee that’s been formulated that the department is administering. The federal government, INAC, are doing the review. There is a member from the Northwest Territories on it. Indicators are that they will be

ready to come forward with a public release on their findings sometime this summer.

I certainly appreciate the comments from the Minister in terms of the Food Mail Program. I hope that’s something like the electricity review that we’re having in the Northwest Territories so that we can know exactly what the price of food does really cost when they factor in all the costs once it’s delivered into our region. I would ask the Minister if he would, through his contacts with this review, if there’s any chance of this side of the House in this Assembly having some discussions on the important program the federal government has to offer to the people on the review of the Food Mail Program in the Northwest Territories.

It’s been fairly difficult to get information on the review itself. It is a federal review. It is a federal program. We have been asked to provide some input. Outside of that, we don’t have a lot of detail. I will and I am in the process, as Member’s have requested information prior to this, of writing a letter to Mr. Chuck Strahl voicing some issues and asking for some information. I also will ask some of the committee members that are representing the federal government on this program review to consider maybe making a presentation to the small communities that are being serviced by the Food Mail Program so that will allow them to have some input. I would commit to doing that.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to the Minister’s communiqué with Minister Strahl. In Norman Wells two litres of milk is $7.19 versus in Yellowknife $2.54. The point I’m trying to get at is our people in the small, isolated communities want to know why the same two litres of milk costs so much in Norman Wells. We’re directing and having some say into this government here. I’m asking the Minister if he could work with his colleagues, as the government here, to tell the federal government why this Food Mail Program needs to be improved in our small, isolated communities in the Northwest Territories. Can the Minister give that commitment to us?

The whole idea behind the Food Mail Program was to make nutritious and perishable food more affordable to our communities. We have 17 communities across the Northwest Territories that take part in the program. There is, I think...And I agree with the Member that there is a need for the Regular Members to have direct input. I certainly would make the request to the federal government to allow some of their program people to come and hear the Members

from the small communities that are representing communities that are part of Food Mail to have a say.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d just like to ask some questions to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. Much has been said by this side of the House over the last couple years in trying to get some answers on returning the public housing rental subsidy back from ECE over to the Housing Corporation. I would just like to know how much work has been done with respect to that.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe we just passed the motion in Committee of the Whole two or three days ago. We haven’t had a lot of time to do work on it. I’ll have to say, though, that this is an issue that has been raised many times by the Members of this House over the last while and we certainly agree that we need to take a look at the issue.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment is the one that’s delivering the subsidy and we have to work with them. They have provided me with some of the earlier reports that they have done in terms of research and it’s more along the lines of how to review how to make the program more efficient, not to see how well the whole program has been working. I wanted to be able to review that information and I’ve committed to get back together with Minister Jackson Lafferty from ECE to make the final decision. Now that we have a motion, I’m sure those are the next steps that will be decided on.

We all know government doesn’t work at light speed, so two days is pretty quick, I guess. But our motions have been in effect for a couple years and the whole issue is that the Housing Corporation and ECE are using economic rent. For a simple two-bedroom that would be $1,600, market rent is estimated in my community at $1,200. The problem is we are overcharging our people. I really object to that and I’d like to tell this government that is a real issue here. We’re overcharging our people, we’re creating hardships. We have to act quickly and return the public rental housing subsidy back to the Housing Corporation, because at that time that similar situation was worth about $600 a month.

I believe the Member is raising two different issues. First of all, the first question was regarding the amalgamation or transfer of responsibilities for the subsidy programs to ECE. Now we’re talking about rent scales. That’s actually two different issues that more than likely would have to be both addressed and reviewed. We haven’t decided to do both. We have a motion in this House to do a review of the effectiveness and how, overall, the separation of responsibilities for social housing has been working. Rent scales is another area that needs to be looked at and we will be looking at how to do that also.

To our residents and constituents it’s the same issue. They’re being impacted and paying higher costs, they’re falling behind in arrears and it’s creating hardship. I again ask the Minister of Housing to work with his colleague, the Minister of ECE, to move this thing forward. How long do people have to wait for studies?

I disagree with the Member that they’re the same thing. We could put the subsidy program back into the Housing Corporation and the rents will still stay the same. That doesn’t have any bearing on actually what the rent scales are. The rent scales are another issue that we have to look at. It’s based on income, condition of the house and a number of factors. Lowering or changing the rent scales also has another issue that comes along with it, which is how do we cover the operation of our social housing units when the federal government is reducing their assistance to us. Where do we find that? We’d have to go back to Finance to find new dollars to support the program. It’s more complicated than just deciding to lower the rent across the board. We recognize it’s an issue. We need to look at it. It’s something that we will be talking about to with ECE, because they’re the ones who provide the subsidy levels. That’s a separate issue. I agree it also needs to be looked at.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I think the key message here is that we have to tell our constituents, and the people of the North in the regions and the communities, that government is acting as quickly as they can and I’d like to get that commitment from the Minister.

There is a whole wide range of issues that the Housing Corporation is looking at right now. There are some as a result of questions in this House, issues being raised in this House. Some are as a result of motions in this House and Committee of the Whole. So we’re looking at thresholds. We’re looking at the subsidy

amounts. We probably, more than likely, would be looking at rent scales along with ECE. We’re also looking at the issue of how well the program has been run since the social subsidy programs have been transferred to ECE. We’re looking at incorporating an appeal process. So we have, I would say, roughly eight or nine initiatives, reviews and decisions that will have to come as a result of those reviews that also have to be made. I will and I have committed to meeting with the standing committee to look at all the different areas that we are reviewing and have more detailed discussion with the Members and listen and take the input they provide and try to incorporate it into what we’re doing.