Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Notwithstanding the Minister’s good catch-up work described in his statement today, inadequate housing and the delivery of our housing programs remains a huge issue today. For everyone -- workers, parents, children, elders -- the home is the foundation of health. No one can participate fully in society without a place to store and cook food, to sleep, bathe, do laundry, homework, and host friends.

Adequate, accessible and affordable. The latest core needs survey tells us that things continue to grow worse in all these areas. Just having a house isn’t enough. Issues of overcrowding, poor condition and high cost are almost as crippling as the lack of a home.

The affordability figures are startling. Recent figures indicate you must have household incomes of $74,000 to $107,000 to rent privately or own and operate a residence in communities such as Ulukhaktok, Fort Liard, Wekweeti, Fort Resolution and Norman Wells, and even Yellowknifers face high costs as well.

What does this mean? It means many people must live in public housing. It means that, no less than health care, housing must be viewed as a social program with government supplementing costs because real costs are simply beyond many people’s means.

This brings in the administrative side of meeting social needs. While we see progress on rental arrears, local housing authorities continue to suffer budget penalties because of gaps between rents they are expected to collect and those they can realistically collect. For example, one LHO with improved collections of outstanding rents is still being penalized $300,000 per year for uncollected rents. The uncollected amount comes off the next year’s funding. How does that work for bookkeeping and sustainable programs?

No matter how much money LHOs collect, their costs don’t go down and the need for housing only grows. Viewed as a social program, rent collection has nothing to do with an LHO’s responsibility to deliver programs. Removing funding from the next year’s budget does nothing but worsen the situation. When delivering a social program, negative bookkeeping helps nothing. These are difficult issues and I’ll be asking the Minister questions, time permitting, today.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Seniors’ Society has worked with the Department of Health and Social Services for over 15 years to ensure dignity, independence, participation, security and fairness for seniors across the NWT. As the population of the Northwest Territories ages, the NWT Seniors’ Society is an increasingly important resource for elders across the NWT. It is the only volunteer agency representing the individual and collective interest of all seniors in the NWT.

Its first multi-year funding agreement with Health and Social Services was in 2006 to 2010 and helped the NWT Seniors’ Society fulfill its mandate and offered some stability to their organization. To get that, I can tell you that I, at the time, relentlessly lobbied then-Minister Michael Miltenberger to consider that option, which he finally did. Multi-year funding is beneficial to the Seniors’ Society and, of course, to all NGOs. It allows them to play the delivery role of programs and get the most mileage out of our short territorial resources.

Past governments have supported the Seniors’ Society. Ten years ago documents were tabled in

this House recommending some of the actions that the NWT Seniors’ Society works to implement today. These actions include strategies to prevent elder abuse, promote volunteerism, improve income support, coordinate services for seniors and improve housing. These things are among the many factors that contribute to seniors’ health and well-being.

The NWT Seniors’ Society is instrumental in connecting seniors and the support that they definitely need. They have a proven track record of getting things done for the right people who need help the most. Let’s recognize their important role in improving the quality of life for our seniors and reinstate the resources that are needed.

Later today I will be raising the issue with the Minister of Health and Social Services to act swiftly on reinstating a multi-year funding agreement with the NWT Seniors’ Society which has been the hallmark of the last Assembly. I think that issue needs to continue to go forward and recognize the respect and dignity the society needs by our government’s direct and honest support.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m pleased to recognize three members of the National Energy Board: the chairman and CEO, Gaetan Caron; board member, Georgette Habib; and to show there’s life after being a clerk of the Legislative Assembly, Mr. David Hamilton, board member.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize today Mr. Patrick Chicot from Kakisa. Patrick’s here with our Pages that are working very hard for us from Kakisa and will be returning home on Friday. I will be recognizing the Pages tomorrow.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Welcome everyone in the gallery today. I hope you’re enjoying the proceedings.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the career and technology services in Tu Nedhe, both Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e. I have questions for the Minister of Education pertaining to the situation in Lutselk’e. Can the Minister clarify why the current community learning centre facility cannot be maintained temporarily for a career and technology services trades programming until the Lutselk’e Dene School expansion occurs?

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

As the Members know, there is a community learning centre going up in Lutselk’e. The existing building that is in place right now, I guess it has been surplus to the community on the CLC, the community learning centre. The money that’s been operating with the existing building will be transferred to the new facility. If the community wants to take over the facility, the operating cost of the building will be on the onus of the community. That’s part of the reason.

I’d like to thank the Minister for that answer. I thought that the building was going to be decommissioned. There is a critical need for tradespeople and opportunities for the people in Lutselk’e to be employed at the mines. Does the Minister think that if there’s not enough money in the budget for the local district authority that the Department of Education would be able to assist in the operation and maintenance and custodial services to provide in the old community learning centre to be used as a shop?

As I indicated, the money that will flow with the new community learning centre will happen. The Member is asking for additional funding. We provide funding to the local DEA to provide programming in CTS and different areas. At this point we don’t have the additional dollars to put into the system. This is an area we can look at for next year’s planning session. At the same time, the funding that has been in existence is being transferred with the new building.

Can the Minister commit to giving direction to the staff to work with the local district education authority to come up with the costs to operate the old community learning centre as a shop for the career and technology services?

I can have my department work with the DEA on this matter. The

Member has brought this to our attention on a couple of occasions now. We’ll definitely work with it and with the Member as we move forward. I’ll definitely agree to having my department work with the DEA.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister do that for the 2011-2012 school year? The beginning of the 2011-2012 school year?

Those are the things that we need to look at: what’s out there right now, what are the options. We need to get back to the department and find what we need to work with. This is an area that we need to look at in more detailed information and we’ll see what the outcome will be.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate the Member’s concerns in this regard. It should be made clear that the local businesses were given all preferential treatment available under our government policies to support northern businesses. With all that considered for about a $250,000 contract, there was a difference of over $100,000. So there was quite a substantial difference in the prices and, secondly, it should be made clear that while we are having discussions about government policies, it’s really important to make sure that we don’t suggest that any staff has done anything wrong. Stanton staff have been under attack in the House and I have to tell you that all government rules were followed and especially in this contract process.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it’s a legitimate discussion for us to discuss what more could we do to give preferential treatment to northern businesses, but for this contract all the rules were followed, the staff did all the right things and if the Member suggests that maybe we should give everything to a request for proposal, we could do that, but that’s a separate issue.

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that this was handled as a tender because that’s how it was done previously. This was not a new process. They were not looking for new ideas. It was a northern business that earned this contract last time as a tender and so it went out as a tender for the second time. Thank you.

Thank you. I think the Minister missed my point. I have no concerns with the process. I never once mentioned the process. My concern is that a request for tender does not get us the evaluation of the contractor that we should be getting. It doesn’t allow us to look at all aspects of the service that we’re asking for. I know that the northern agencies were given preferential treatment, that was made very evident to me and I have no concern with that.

It’s been about a month now since that contract has been awarded and I now understand that some of our medical travel staff are experiencing some problems with this new contractor. I’m told especially slow and lengthy turnaround time to get itineraries for travel bookings. So I’d like to ask the Minister how are things working out with the new contractor. Thank you.