Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister for Housing NWT. I outlined a myriad of problems brought to my office by constituents in public housing at Lanky Court. Can the Minister tell us why individuals being moved out of their public housing units to repair them are being charged moving expenses and utility account service charges, and will the Minister commit to reimbursing such unfair charges? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for asking the question as well. The information that I did receive is that the Yellowknife Housing Authority did pay for the moving expenses, and it didn't appear that there was any issues with the assessment of the additional deposits on their utility accounts, but if there is something -- if there is receipts, if there's something that I could look at that I could further look into this file as well too. I would not want to see the clients endure these additional expenses when moving from unit to unit as well. And right now that -- looking at anything that we need to do to improve our client service with housing, I appreciate the comments coming forward as well. And it's the time for us to start recognizing how we could improve services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le Président. I want to thank the Minister for that. And I'll work with my constituent to get the receipts over to the Minister's office pronto. But just trying to get a response in a reasonable time frame from the Minister on my constituent's concerns about public housing in Lanky Court has been a real challenge. I suggested several times that public housing tenants are being told to move or store belongings for insect control that cleaning products and storage containers should be provided. Can the Minister tell us why cleaning products or services and storage containers are not provided to public housing tenants to facilitate improvements in their housing conditions? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question as well too. And I just wanted to apologize also for the delay in the responses. I did have a new team established within the last year. So we are getting more coordinated, and hopefully we're able to respond a lot more quicker. We are also -- I don't want to take up too much time, but we are also working more closely with the local housing authority and improving our communication and our relationship with them as well. Right now we do have some storage facilities that are provided to some clients, but it's looked at as a case-by-case basis. Just for an example that one of the storage facilities were provided to a client that was in a Fort Gary apartment complex, and it was a cold storage facility that was provided to deal with the movement and also to house the tenant's belongings while the house was being treated for a bug infestation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le Président. I want to thank the Minister for that. And I'll advise my constituents that if they have problems with storage containers and so on, they should contact the Minister's office. As bad as conditions are in Lanky Court, the statistics bureau figures on specific housing problems reveal that about 10 percent of NWT houses have mold and/or insect pest problems. This strikes me as a pandemic, Mr. Speaker. What public education and awareness measures does Housing NWT or community housing organizations take to raise awareness of these problems and give advice on actions tenants can take? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member because I'm starting to recognize that this is quite a huge issue here in Yellowknife with the Lanky Court. We do have the pest control companies that do provide information as they are providing the assistance and the work in these units as well. Right now one of the things that housing is developing is improvement with our clients as well too. So we're looking at educational materials for the tenants as well when we're looking at what needs to be maintained, what needs to be recognized, and when to call our local housing authorities right away to deal with these issues. Another thing that I just wanted to mention is that within our conversations with the federal government, we were successful in receiving $60 million over two years. We will be committing $30 million of that funding to public housing renovation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. Again, on mold, pests, and bad indoor quality -- indoor air quality and other housing stats, the numbers show that housing core needs have steadily gotten worse from 2009 to 2019. Today it stands at about 24 percent. A quarter of our houses are not good. This government continues to spend far more on roads than housing. Can the Minister tell us when this government will spend at least as much on housing as it does on roads? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for his questions as well too. And I do understand where he's coming from when we're talking about funding and trying to address the housing needs throughout the Northwest Territories. And we continue to work together as a government in trying to address these needs. But what we've done successfully is we've worked with the federal government as well too and really tried to enhance those federal applications going forward. And I've recognized that it's not all of a one-government approach, and it's not only the GNWT to address this crisis. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that we were very successful with the Indigenous governments and partnering up with them for them to receive housing money as well too. We also do support them with the community housing plans to identify the housing needs in each of the communities as well. There's a lot of funding that is out there, and housing tries its best to making sure that we do receive a bit of that federal funding coming to the north. I know I'm taking a little bit of time. The other thing that I'm just still wanting to mention is that we did put forward another co-investment application as well to address the seniors housing needs in the Northwest Territories, and we were successful with that application. So we'll see 12 new housing units for seniors that will be built for seniors and their mobilization as well too recognizing their limited mobility. Those would be constructed in 2023-2024. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. The question needs to be directed to one person so I'm guessing that'll be Deputy Premier. Deputy Premier.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we as a Cabinet have standing committee meetings on all of our different discussions, whether it be our bills, legislation. We sit in front of committee, and we go through all the -- all of our work in detail, and we get feedback. And it's -- you know, it's a whole-of-government approach with Regular Members and committee. In terms of looking to commit right now, for me just sitting here asking to go into the community directly, we'd have to individually look at our schedules. Right after we're done session, some of us have FPTs; we have community tours; we have bilateral agreements. I'm not saying no, but I think that we as a government could perhaps look at each of our individual schedules and respond back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, absolutely we have requests often from Regular Members to go as Ministers. Perhaps we've been to your community several times as a result of your request to us. We've gone to some of the other ridings as a request of the Members. I encourage the Member to reach out to our ministerial offices, find a schedule that works for all of us, or perhaps even a couple of us. I mean, you know, we all can't sometimes make it all together, but we will give it some effort to be able to get to some of the communities when and where we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Deputy Premier. For the record, we haven't seen you since last year. No, I'm just kidding. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. But your line of questions needs to be to your invitation for Cabinet. We can't go to another line of questioning for a different Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you. We may have a chance later today, but I doubt it, but just a thought. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Speaker, this time last year when I spoke to the Minister about rehabilitation services, including speech language pathology, the Minister advised that health recently organized the delivery of speech services to focus on children from birth to five years of age. How has this change impacted service delivery in the last year, and how has it changed wait times for speech language pathology. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.