Thank you. My second question on this is pending the applications that the department receives for assistance in this area, is he willing to amend the policy to increase more funding across the Northwest Territories in future years? Thank you.

Thank you. This is very early in the process, so we’re not sure what kind of uptake we’re going to have on this. We’re looking at possibly 175 across the Northwest Territories initially, graduating them into quarterly sections. So there will be a continuous intake instead of doing all of them the first quarter and then having nothing left over for the rest of the year. So the initial plan is to try and assist at least 175 by quarterly installments. Thank you.

Thank you. In terms of getting this information out to the general public, does the Minister or the department have a marketing strategy to let people in the communities know that

this program is available for them to access, and what is that marketing strategy? We only have pretty well the summer to get that done. So over the next three months does he have a marketing strategy to let the public know? Thank you.

Thank you. There have been a lot of changes in the Housing Corporation with the shelter policy review, a lot of proposed changes. We have a very extensive communication plan that we’re planning on rolling out very soon here to make the public out there aware of all of the programs and some of the changes that are going on within the NWT Housing Corp. So we’re hoping to roll that out fairly soon, and get the information out, and be on the website and a fairly extensive communication plan. I’d be willing to sit down with the Member or Members and share that with them. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One final question in regard to this new funding. In some of the communities what we are seeing is much like public housing. We do have a lot of people staying in the same house. With some of our professionals and young professionals out there that are trying to take care of their debts from school, we do see multiple people living in the same house to decrease their debts. With this program coming out, there’s a possibility that they might take advantage of this program where they can get supplemented for their rent, which will even decrease their lower costs. How is the Minister going to regulate those kinds of applications so that the people who really need them get this program for them and not people who are looking to take advantage of the program? How is he going to regulate this? Thank you.

Thank you. There is always a danger that there are going to be some people that try to take advantage of some of the programs we have to offer. We have to do our part to ensure that this is distributed fairly and to those that are most in need. I think in such small jurisdictions in the Northwest Territories, working with the communities we all know the people in the communities that are in most need, those that are trying to get a good start in life. We feel that this is going to give them that good start, and like I said before, they can either graduate into regular market housing or they can graduate into home ownership, which we are intent. But we feel this is an excellent program that’s geared towards giving these people a good start and not have to be so dependent on the government right off the bat. So this is a very good program and the Member makes a good point. We have to monitor this very closely to ensure that those that need it are the ones that are using it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions will be directed to the Deputy Premier of the House, the Honourable Jackson Lafferty. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the concerns about lack of response and, in some cases, timely response. It’s funny, as I’m sitting here I got a print-off of something from Mr. Ramsay’s office regarding information I asked in February, but actually that started off the discussion where the commitments were actually all made in the House, which I will table later today.

So to draw some sort of comparison here, this is the same problem we had in the last Assembly and we tried to take steps with this. So that’s why I’m asking the question directly to the Deputy Premier, like at the time I’d asked the Premier.

So my question to Jackson Lafferty is: What is he prepared to do to take to the Cabinet table to encourage his colleagues at that Cabinet table to ensure that they act and certainly respond appropriately when Members ask questions, whether it’s through e-mail or in the House, that we get a timely response? Because we’re acting for our constituents and we’re working for them.

This particular issue does come to the Cabinet table. We do have a standard rule that any information or concerns that are brought forward by Regular Members are responded to within five days. It all varies on if there are organizations that we have to reach out to to get more clarification. It will take some time in some areas, but our overall goal and objective is to get back to Regular Members within five days. Either to respond back saying we’re looking into it or at least respond back to them. As I’ve stated before, some areas will take some time as well.

I’ll thank the Deputy Premier for that particular response. I’m glad to hear that they have a bit of a framework. I didn’t think I heard the word “policy” or “procedure” but I certainly heard the sense of a framework, five days.

Would the Deputy Premier find in his understanding of that framework that waiting 103 days for a particular commitment made in the House or 90 days for an information request made to the Housing Minister’s office, would he consider that timely within that five-day framework and if not, what is he going to do?

All the Ministers are here today. They are listening to the concerns and questions that are raised. There are some areas that do take time. We have to work with NGOs as

well as department organizations within the communities and Aboriginal organizations. Sometimes we are limited in resources, as well, to dig up some more research analysis and so forth.

The 90 days and 120 days that the Member is referring to, we need to get more information on those areas. The standard rule is to reply within five days as best as we can and at times it will take a longer time.

What I heard was a lot of dancing around the question, which was simply: Does the Deputy Premier find it reasonable if a Member has to wait 90 days or 103 days? Does that reasonably fit into that five-day framework? Respectfully…

---Interjection

No, I’m asking if it fits within the framework, sir. Respectfully, I would say that, you know, I understand people are sick. I’d like to ask that question. Does that fit within the five-day framework, the 90 days or 103 days that I was referring to? What’s he about to do about it?

Again, it is a case-by-case basis. Some cases are very unique. It will take some time. But it is a standard rule of up to five days.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In particular to the 90-day reference, that was the department of Housing regarding the naming of one of their buildings. Does that still fit in the description, the framework, I call it, that the Deputy Premier has referred to? Does that fit into that description and why would or wouldn’t it?

I do believe this information needs to be discussed. There are times when we do discuss these situations within Cabinet as well. At the same time, we’re just down the hallway as well. If there is information that is not reaching the MLAs, please stop by and inquire about those with the specific Ministers or the Premier and then we can follow up instantly. There are times where information takes time to explore and do more research with our community organizations. We’ll do our best as a government to follow up.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier today I referenced in terms of trying to explain people that are unilingual, just an opportunity for them to understand the complexities of how this government disburses within the year the $1.4

billion it’s proposing to spend. My question is to the Minister of Finance.

I know that we seem to be kind of forecasting how it is that we’re going to spend this amount of money within the year. I would like to know if the Minister could apprise this House in terms of perhaps some consideration of a savings and investment strategy or plan that the Minister perhaps might bring to the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we laid out in the budget, we are in fact going to be focusing a lot of our attention on replenishing our depleted cash reserves to put money aside so that in year three or four we will be able to add additional resources and revenues into increasing our commitment to infrastructure in a lot of the key areas. This is going to be done in a number of ways. We’re going to limit the forced growth; we’re going to continue to work on being efficient and effective; we’re going to continue with the attention to how we spend the money within government to avoid unnecessary expenses.

The key piece for us is we’re $656 million in accumulated debt, most of it long term; about $240-some million in short-term debt. We need to be able to engage those savings. We’re projecting revenues that are going to be contingent on what happens globally. It’s also going to be contingent upon things that are constantly in flux, the main one being corporate income tax. Throughout all that we do have a plan that will in fact make us more fiscally stable and able to invest more greatly in infrastructure and at the same time spend $1.4 billion on programs and services.

My follow-up question is perhaps my last one too. Has the Department of Finance considered perhaps the concept of an investment fund that the government would consider and implement right away? One of the concepts that’s been, already I think people know it, is the idea of a Heritage Fund.

I agree with the Member about the Heritage Fund and its role. We’ve committed to when we do devolution and when we get into year three and four, we’ll be looking at trying to finally put some seed money into that very important fund.

It was also raised in the House today about trying to increase the money for investment in businesses to the Minister of ITI. We had to, in fact as part of our financial restructuring, turn back the Opportunities Fund where we had about $120 million sitting in a bank for investment, but it wasn’t covered by our borrowing limit; it would have gone against our borrowing limit. We do have a number of areas

we’re looking at. Some will happen in due course here in year three and four.