QUESTION 70-17(3):
VACANT HOUSING UNITS
IN THE SAHTU REGION
MR. YAKELEYA: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation. I want to ask you how many vacant units are in the Sahtu.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
HON. ROBERT MCLEOD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d have to find that information and pass it on to the Member.
MR. YAKELEYA: I look forward to the reply from the Minister. I want to ask him, on the vacant units they have in the Sahtu, for example, I had a phone call from Colville Lake. There are a couple of vacant units up there. I also had a call from Chief Frank Andrew and there are a couple of vacant units in Tulita. I know there are a couple in Deline. I want to ask the Minister if his corporation has a plan on how to get people into those empty units. There are a lot of issues there, but how and what is the Minister doing to get people into those units?
HON. ROBERT MCLEOD: I appreciate the Member telling me how many vacant units are in the Sahtu. We had a very aggressive vacant unit strategy a few years ago because of the investment that was made by the federal government. We had 135 units. We’re happy to say those are all full. We have a few new units that are going up. There may be a couple vacant in each community, but what we’re planning on doing is we’re hoping to get more and more people into those units as they qualify for some of our programs. We’ll move them in there. Compared to the situation of a couple of years ago, I think we’re down to very few vacant units now. We usually have them there for reasons to try and find suitable tenants to put in there.
MR. YAKELEYA: When these phone calls came from the leadership in the Sahtu… I want to ask the Minister to provide me what it costs the Housing Corporation to keep them operating and functional and how long they’ve been vacant and how can we work together to hope to get my people into these housing units.
HON. ROBERT MCLEOD: I’ll be happy to work with the Member in trying to do what we can about the vacant units. I know we are working with some potential clients not only in the Sahtu but across the Northwest Territories. We go a long ways in trying to get tenants into some of these houses, whether it’s a HELP unit or a supported lease unit or a home ownership unit. We try very hard to get them in there. Compared to the situation we had a few years ago, our vacant unit numbers are way down and these are usually there, so we can try to get some suitable tenants to put into these units.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
MR. YAKELEYA: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We went to Colville Lake, Mr. Abernethy and I and Mr. Beaulieu, and we witnessed and saw the three empty units in Colville Lake. I know the Minister is working very hard to get clients in there. We certainly support that. It’s been a couple of years since we have had these empty units sitting there. We will work with the Minister to get these units occupied. There are a number of initiatives that we could look at to get the units occupied. I think it’s a crying shame that in Colville Lake there are units that have been sitting empty for so long. I’d like to ask the Minister, is he going to put something forward to us to say this is what we can do that meets the needs of our clientele in our communities to get those units occupied so people can have a house they can call home.
HON. ROBERT MCLEOD: The Housing Corporation works very hard to try to get people into units. However, we have to make sure that these folks are able to maintain the units and we’re not setting them up for failure. We are working that particular situation. I know we’ve tried to make some contact and I’ll have conversations with the Member about that. We work very hard to get tenants into a lot of these units, the ones that have been vacant for awhile. We don’t want any more vacant units. We’ve managed to turn a lot of them into public housing units just so we can get them occupied. It is still a bit of a challenge but we’re working very hard to make sure that these units are occupied.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
MR. BROMLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Public Works and Services today. I’d like to address a question of how we can support our arts community across the Northwest Territories and in particular through a display of art in our GNWT infrastructure. In every community this government has buildings that are frequented by our public and by visitors. It’s a real opportunity to display art and add some benefits both to the economic side and to the identification of the Northwest Territories. I’d like to start by asking the Minister whether or not we have a policy that promotes the display of our NWT artisans’ work in GNWT buildings across the NWT.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Glen Abernethy.
HON. GLEN ABERNETHY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t actually know if we have a specific policy about local artists’ art on walls in public spaces within our government buildings, but I will check with the department to find out if we have anything.
MR. BROMLEY: I appreciate the Minister’s commitment there. To some degree I think, I don’t know, the Minister doesn’t know. I don’t know that anybody in the House knows. That’s a reflection of the situation. I think we owe it to our people, our artists, to be on top of that and get a policy in place. Would this Minister commit to, if we don’t have a policy that he can share with us, if he would commit to looking into this and getting a policy in place?
HON. GLEN ABERNETHY: It’s an intriguing idea and it might be a great opportunity for Public Works and Services and ECE and ITI to get together to figure out how we can get local artists’ products on walls. As long as we’re not talking about consuming floor space, obviously, which is incredibly expensive, but as long as it’s walls in public parts of buildings, it’s certainly something that we should be pursuing and I’m happy to take that forward and discuss it with my ministerial colleagues to figure out exactly how we can try to make something like that happen.
MR. BROMLEY: Again, thanks to the Minister for that commitment. I assure him I am not asking to put big holes in walls or anything like that or take up valuable government space. To a large degree we do have artwork here and there on our walls but not necessarily NWT artwork. Hopefully the majority is. To actually display local artists would be a real service and in line with government philosophy. I like the idea of the Minister working with other ministers appropriately. I wonder if he could also maybe work with artisans across the NWT and get some input there. I’m not suggesting he travel to every community or anything like that, but I think our artists typically have some really good and creative ideas. Would he be willing to expand that consultation a little bit, putting this policy together should we need it?
HON. GLEN ABERNETHY: I think what we’re talking about is utilizing existing wall space in the public areas of buildings where we might have an opportunity to hang product from northern artists. I will work with my colleagues and we will have conversations with some of the local artist organizations in the Northwest Territories to get their input on how to best facilitate the placement of their art, artists from the Northwest Territories, in public areas of our government buildings.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
MR. BROMLEY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, thanks to the Minister. I’m already getting suggestions from my colleagues here and one suggestion is airports. I know some municipalities take advantage of that. I know the GNWT does here and there. That might be a place to also include. When it does come down to it, without putting holes in the wall or anything, where there happens to be vacant space I see nothing wrong with making space available to artists for the display of performances and so on. Perhaps the Minister could include that in his consideration.
HON. GLEN ABERNETHY: Agreed.
MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Item 9, written questions. Ms. Bisaro.
MS. BISARO: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 6 on the Order Paper.
