Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When you go out on budget dialogues, it’s a commitment that takes a number of weeks. There’s a Swedish word that caught my eye that sort of lays out some of the challenges of that task. The Swedish word is “resfeber,” it’s the restless beat of a traveller’s heart before the journey begins, a mixture of anxiety and anticipation. Every time I go out and go around the territory, I always wonder how it’s going to go. I look forward to going out to the communities to meet with people no matter who shows up, not only in the rooms where we are, but in the coffee shops and in the offices when we go around to meet employees.

So how do we get more people out? It’s a good question for this Assembly because as I came back in here, I looked around the auditorium and there’s not a soul in here but the work we do is important. We come here day after day, sometimes people show up. I know we’re wired in for people. People in the communities value the fact that central agency folks, especially finance people, take the time to go out there. How do we do that? There has been advice provided and we’ll look at the struggle of trying to do our budget consultations, the timing, because it ties in with business plan reviews, the work that we do, advertising, trying to figure out ways that we don’t conflict with community activities. One of the challenges being we have to book so far ahead, by the time we get there, other things could overtake us. I think there are ways and we look forward to feedback form the Members. Thank you.

My next question is: What did we hear this year and how does that apply and how has it been applied to our current budget?

The work we do is cumulative and every Assembly builds on the work of previous Assemblies. Every budget builds on the work of previous budgets. The 17th Assembly charted out a bunch of priorities that we’ve been trying to

implement. We’ve done things that the communities have asked us to do. We’ve put more money into prevention. We’ve protected programs and services. We’ve beefed up our capital plan in the places like the Far North. We’ve put in projects that are going to help not only provide infrastructure but some employment. As I pointed out before, this is not a situation where communities are sitting there and it’s a blank slate. They have MLAs that sit in this building, and I commended MLAs prior to this, that reflect the views of their constituencies to a great degree. Plus, we all travel. It just gives us a chance to put faces to names and to hear firsthand many of the things we already know or think, or we know are critical principles and values of the Northwest Territories and of government, and in some cases they give us good advice, regional advice that we can look at when we come back. It may not be reflected in the budget, but it could be reflected in how the departments adjust their business on a day-to-day basis. Thank you.

I would like a specific example of what, out of this year’s budget dialogue, came out from the public? Because I’m concerned the presentation was just made, the presentation was there, the public was heard, but nothing was implemented.

What specifically was implemented from this budget dialogue will be going forward or was implemented to this budget?

Let me give a couple of examples. There are a legion I could give, but let me give a couple.

The Western Arctic Geomatics Centre we’re setting up in Inuvik. It came up that we need to look at getting stuff out of Yellowknife; we need to tie into the work of the fibre optic line; we need to do a better job now that we’re the land owners post-devolution, and we need to invest money to do that, and we’ve done that with the western geomatics.

We committed to decentralization and one of the places that we’re going to decentralize to, some positions from ITI parks to Hay River.

This is the problem that I have, is I think that those park positions were in the budget before the budget dialogue. So, I’m looking for specific examples from the budget dialogue that were implemented. We already knew about the fibre optic line; we already knew some of this stuff. I’ll even go back to the previous budget dialogues.

What has the department learned from the public, has implemented and put into our budget process and into the operations of the government?

Let me use another example. We put I think $425,000 into doing an Integrated Case Management Pilot Project, of which Inuvik and Yellowknife and, I believe, Hay River are going to be beneficiaries to push the departments that deal in the social envelope to integrate their case management approach so that when they deal individuals and clients with multiple presenting problems they do it in an integrated, coordinated way. A goal we’ve been striving to get done ever since I can remember and I’m in my 40th year now in government. We believe

that maybe this will help us turn the corner on that. That’s a specific one.

If we want to look back, the fibre optic link has had a life in the previous Assembly, and as we build off the work of that Assembly, we’ve now broken ground, we’ve got counties beating the path to the door of Inuvik. We’ve put in the Western Geomatics Centre to build off of the opportunities that the fibre optic link provides. I would be glad to maybe share again a copy of the budget address with my colleague for Hay River North because it is replete with all the fine things that this Legislative Assembly has asked to get done that we are doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.Earlier in the day I spoke about the need to get more public housing units in Fort Simpson as well as begin a plan about doing a homelessness complex. I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation – I know that we do have a Homelessness Strategy – what kind of supports are there in the Homelessness Strategy that can help with projects such as this? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; we do have a Homelessness Strategy. One of the parts of the strategy is the Northern Pathways to Housing, and it’s a pilot project that we’ve been trying to implement in the communities. I think we have four communities that were identified. We have two communities, Aklavik and Behchoko, that actually have their proposal put together; and we have Fort Simpson and Fort Good Hope that we’re continuing to engage with, hoping they take us up on our offer.

It’s up to $100,000 to renovate an existing unit and there is ongoing funding of $70,000 over five years. That would go a long way in trying to help address some of the issues facing these smaller communities, and also it would be an opportunity there for some employment in a small community, because we do want to work with a community organization to deliver this program on our behalf. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That’s certainly something that we can move towards. I was talking to my colleague Mr. Yakeleya, and the Housing Needs Survey of 2014 indicates the Nahendeh region, of course, is number one again in core needs. We had addressed that the last survey but it’s creeping back up again, and some of the issues are new and emerging young people and families. So I appreciate that answer about homelessness.

Can that program also work in conjunction with our Anti-Poverty Strategy and accessing more funds to make units available for homeless in the regional centres like Fort Simpson? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it is our hope to try and address the homelessness. It used to be that it was more of a regional issue, but I think we’re finding more and more that it’s continuing to branch out into a lot of the smaller communities and that’s one of the reasons that we’ve come up with this program to try and assist with that.

There are opportunities there to tie into the Anti-Poverty Strategy and all the different pieces of work we’ve got going out there. We have identified some money through our corporation to help deal with this and we’ll continue to do so. I think we have about four or five programs that are specific to design to help deal with homelessness activities across the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I’d like to thank the Minister for that answer. As well in addressing the homelessness, I think part of the issue in Fort Simpson, as well, is the lack of public housing. I indicated in my list, particularly for single people there’s a list that’s almost 30 people long. In fact, a couple of the applicants have been on that list for about seven years.

So I would just like to know, how are we addressing increasing public units in the community of Fort Simpson, especially in light of there being a private developer that has 12 to 14 units and I think they may be shut down within the next year or two, as well, and that will certainly increase the need for more units for Fort Simpson. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, the person who has been waiting for seven years, I would have to look into that. As I was saying the other day, there are many reasons people are on a waiting list, but one of the requirements of receiving support from income support is to be on the waiting list – they could be on the waiting listen even with support from income support – but also paying off their arrears. I’ve seen a number of cases where they’ve been on the waiting list for a long time and taking care of their arrears and they were, in fact, allocated housing units once their arrears were paid off. I commend them for that. There are a couple of cases where they’ve been on a repayment plan for a number of years, but they’ve seen that through and are now in public housing.

As far as increasing the public housing stock in the Member’s community, we do use the Community Needs Survey that we just completed in 2014, to help identify some of the communities and the most in need. Again, the Member pointed out that his region was number one, so we use that in helping to allocate units to a particular community.

I mean, we’re challenged with some of the funding decline, but we’re taking steps to try and deal with that issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In using the housing needs assessment, I just wonder if in this case of the assessment being done in 2013-2014, I wonder if I can ask the Minister if he can check with his officials if they’re aware of this private housing provider about his units, 12 to 14 units being shut down and how that would affect the current needs assessment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I’ll be glad to have a conversation with the officials and ask them about the units being shut down in Fort Simpson and how that’s going to affect our numbers there. I will gather that information and I will have conversations with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The agreement was an extension to the Investment in Northern Housing Initiative that provided $1.8 million annually from the federal government, which is matched by the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. So that gives us about $3.6 million in investment over the next five years.

We’ve used these funds in the past to help deal with some of the programs to help low- and modest-income homeownership repairs, and it doesn’t address the problem of declining federal funding to operate social housing.

We’re continuing to have discussions with our counterpart in Ottawa on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we know that CMHC funding for the Northwest Territories is declining from $21 million 2001 to zero by 2038 with only 23 years left in funding. We also know that 50 percent of our housing stock today is over 30 years old or more.

Can the Minister tell us, what is the current strategy of the NWT Housing Corporation in dealing with these two very important problems? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, we’re very fortunate that the 17th Legislative Assembly has added about $2.1 million annually to the NWT Housing Corp to help offset some of the decline in federal funding. We do have a long-term strategy. I mean, we would hope that the federal government enters into an arrangement on public housing for long-term, stable funding in partnership with us, because we see that as a way of going forward.

But we are taking steps to address the declining funding. I’ve spoken to this before. We’re building more multi-family, energy-efficient units to help with that. We’ve done about 700 retrofits to existing units during the life of this 17th Assembly. We’ve invested

in energy initiatives like solar and biomass. We’re also realigned our rent scales and we’ve improved the administrative efficiencies of our operation with the local housing authorities. I have to give a shout out to the local housing authorities, not only to them but to the clients because many of them are stepping up to the plate and starting to honour the commitments that they’ve made. That’s why I made the announcement during my opening remarks yesterday; that the collection rate is at 97 percent, so I think a huge shout out should go to them.

This helps us deal with the sustainability of our public housing stock, because if we can collect rent, then we can reinvest that money and not have to count so much on the declining federal funding. So we’re taking steps to deal with that, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.