This is page numbers 4805 – 4846 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was communities.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Blake. A different line of questioning, but I’ll allow the Minister to respond if he chooses.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. For that reply, I’d have to defer to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources on that. Of course, ENR signs off applications for consideration under the HTC program and they also validate the claim and the claimants as well. So we’d have to work with ENR on that response for the Member. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Blake.

Frederick Blake Jr.

Frederick Blake Jr. Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason I asked that question was, as I mentioned, in the criteria it’s 25 percent of what you harvest is what is required and that’s what the Minister was referring to.

So I’d like to ask the Minister, is the Minister open to reviewing and making changes to the 25 percent that is needed to qualify for the compensation application? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Mr. Speaker, I believe I have made a commitment in the past to have a look at this, and again today I let the Member know that we are willing to take a look at this. It would have to be done in conjunction with ENR, and we’ll make that commitment to have a look at the program and funding criteria. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.Last week we had a fire in Colville Lake. A man’s house burnt down and he lost everything. There isn’t a fire truck in Colville Lake, per se, and they used the water truck to try to put the fire out there. Just recently I heard that there’s an elderly man in Fort Good Hope who just lost his house to a fire with the inadequacy of a stable, reliable fire department there.

I want to ask the Minister of MACA in his capacity as the Minister, is this something that he could look at with the issue of the whole fire reliability in the fire department that are working in the Sahtu region, to ensure that the hamlets, the communities, do have a stable, reliable fire department so that people could feel somewhat safe in their small communities?

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.We have our assistant fire marshals that are stationed in every region, and part of their duties is to go out to the communities to ensure that they have adequate training. If the community requires training or requests training, then our folks can go in there and assist them with that. They can help them identify the types of equipment that they may need. All the communities are funded so that they are able to purchase equipment if they have a need for it.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Mr. Speaker, I know some of the communities in the Sahtu certainly have their fire equipment and their volunteers in place, and they’re on stand-by, of course; they’re doing other jobs in the community.

I want to ask specifically about two communities, Colville Lake, which I talked to the chief last week as to their need to get some assistance from the department to look at a fire truck in that community because they no longer feel that there’s adequate equipment in Colville Lake.

Now, in Fort Good Hope, according to the CBC reports – I haven’t checked it out myself personally – there seems to be a lack of volunteers, or a stable, reliable volunteer fire service there. This is why the old elder’s house burnt down.

So I want to ask the Minister if he could ask his fire marshals, fire division, to ensure on a quarterly basis or a monthly basis that there are fire department volunteer members set up and ready to go in these communities.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

We would like to see a good, strong volunteer fire department in every community, and the key word is “volunteer.” In every community they have to rely on the volunteers. Most communities have a fairly healthy volunteer fire department.

Once they have the volunteers or the volunteers identified, then we can work with the community as far as training goes and help them identify some of the equipment that they may need. So, we would like the communities to take the initiative to get their volunteers out, and then will work with them to ensure that there is some training that’s available to them and they’re also made aware of what types of equipment they may need.

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

The communities certainly volunteer their time in some of the Sahtu communities. I guess I’m looking at Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake, if the government or the fire division can take the initiative to ask the communities to come in, look at the volunteers, see if the equipment is up to date. You have the volunteers, the training there, would like to come in. Sometimes the government has to take the initiative on these specific essential services for our communities.

I am asking if the Minister can have a discussion with his fire division and say we need to get into these communities and see what is available and how can we assist them so that houses need not be burnt down in the Sahtu anymore.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

We would like nothing more than to have all our fire departments trained and adequately equipped to deal with fires so we don’t have situations like we just recently had in Colville Lake and Fort Good Hope. However, if we were to come in and say we are running a course here and we want you, you and you to volunteer, then we’re basically dictating to them how their community is run. If they come forward and say we have some volunteers, we are interested in this training, we would love to come into the community

to ensure that the community is trained and are aware of what types of equipment they would need. So I think this is an issue that is going to take partnership between communities in the Sahtu and our assistant fire marshal. We will do what we can to ensure that they have all the training that they need. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Norman Yakeleya

Norman Yakeleya Sahtu

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are some provisions and some programs within government that come into the communities and offer training programs. Minister, I think that’s what I’m asking if you could offer, take the initiative from the fire department, say we would like to come into Fort Good Hope, come into Colville Lake on one of the perfect opportunity dates. Because in Colville Lake, right now they’re all excited because trapping season is here.

When is the most beneficial time to come into the communities of Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake? We’d like to offer these training initiatives. You let us know and then we can work in partnership. I think that is the route that I am looking for from the leadership from this Minister, to ensure people in the Sahtu that there will be reliable firefighters in Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake so that no more houses can be burnt down in those communities.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Mr. Speaker, that’s something we can work on. We can work with the communities and say that we would like to come in at a certain time, offer some education on fighting fires and potentially a course. So, we will work with the communities and see if we can make that happen. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We could talk about problems with housing and who it affects until the cows come home, as they say, but we clearly know it affects seniors, new families. It affects large and small communities in different ways, but equally in the sense of it’s a problem.

Mr. Speaker, we could talk about suitability of houses and certainly core needs. We can also talk about the vitality of the community being destroyed as the population leaves without housing options. I’ve cited lots of examples out there, so let’s start with one of the most important questions on this particular issue.

How many new houses are going to be built in this next fiscal year in the Northwest Territories? Let’s start with that.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Housing, Mr. McLeod.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We all recognize that housing is a big concern across the Northwest Territories, and in working with the Legislative Assembly, I think the Housing Corporation has done a fairly good job in trying to address all the concerns that are out there.

To the Member’s question, we have… Well, this past year alone we have 46 public housing units, replacement units; we have six new housing units; we have a couple of seniors units – three, actually, seniors units that are being built – then we have 29 new market housing initiatives where we are putting 29 units into communities across the Northwest Territories. We also have our modernization and improvement project of our public housing stock, about 198 units that we are doing this year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

I appreciate the answer from the Minister. So, we are talking approximately, if I got his numbers correctly as I wrote them down, we are talking about 38 new houses in the Northwest Territories that will change the market in a positive way for Northerners. It doesn’t matter if you live in Yellowknife, you have affordability issues, you have suitability issues here; it doesn’t matter if you live in Paulatuk, the issues are the same. People are struggling for good options.

How does the Minister justify, on average, slightly more than one new house per community in the Northwest Territories as addressing the problem? I get it that they build them one at a time, but we are losing options of three or four. We are not keeping pace with the need.

So the fact is: How is the Minister justifying building only one house per community as a solution? Thank you.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

Mr. Speaker, I feel we’re providing more than one house per community. We looked at the community needs survey that was done. We tried to identify some of the highest needs in regions and communities, and we target our investment into those communities. Also, with the market housing initiatives, we’ve had meetings with the NWT Teachers’ Association that identified some of their more challenged communities, so we have tried to target some of our units into those communities.

We have 100 units over the next three years that are going to the communities. That’s just market housing communities. That’s not including the housing investment. I think we are doing a really good job in addressing a lot of the concern from the small communities.

Of course, we are challenged, as this Assembly knows, with the declining CMHC funding and it is hindering our ability to build new public housing

units, so we’re having to replace a lot of units. More and more people are getting into homeownership through some of our homeownership programs, so we make targeted investments. One community may not get anything for a while, but their turn will come up and they’ll get their fair share of infrastructure. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins Yellowknife Centre

The Minister is actually getting ahead of me on the next question, which talks about a community may not get any infrastructure whatsoever for many years to come. When he says their fair share of infrastructure, that only might mean one or two houses new to that community. It is a positive effect. Also, to be fair to the Minister, very quickly, he said that we are doing a little better than one per community. He’s right; we’re doing 1.15 house per community across the Northwest Territories. That is 38 houses in 33 communities. Let’s give him the credit he deserves by all means, by saying he is building 1.15 house.

We haven’t solved the non-market community initiative problem. We have several communities that have no housing market. Tell me how many houses he plans to build in the Housing Corp this coming year, and by golly, please be more than one per community.

Robert C. McLeod

Robert C. McLeod Inuvik Twin Lakes

If you look at the units we provide, or if you look at the housing we provide, and if you look over the number of years, we have 3,100 units; we have 23 public housing units that we have on the ground, plus our Market Housing Initiative and our other units that we provide.

I attended a conference that spoke to Aboriginal housing down south – a couple of Members actually came with me – and I think the Northwest Territories is doing a fantastic job providing houses. We heard the story of one house every 15 years for a particular community down south, so I think we’ve done a good job in recognizing and addressing the housing needs across the Northwest Territories.

Could there be improvements? Of course there can, and that’s what we are working on with this Legislative Assembly. We are planning and we are going to be debating that in the upcoming capital budget. I think our budget for this particular year is $36 million, again, invested strategically. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Jackie Jacobson

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