Daniel MacIsaac
Northern News Services

Inuvik (Apr 07/00) - Inuvik's MLAs expressed disappointment about the postponement of the Aurora College project as they discussed development this week.

Housing Minister Roger Allen and Boot Lake MLA Floyd Roland held a joint constituency meeting Monday night at the Small Family, just a week after Roland was outraged to learn in the assembly that plans to replace Inuvik's aging Aurora Campus had been put on hold for at least three years.

"We got the interim appropriation bill done during the last sitting and there were some changes on the education side, but not many others," said Roland, "but of course there was the $10 million in deferrals on capital projects like the college."

Allen said he approached Finance Minister Joe Handley and Education Minister Jake Ootes for an explanation of the delay, and said it came down to spreading out the deferrals to communities throughout the territory.

"They said that, overall capital-wise, Inuvik is not that bad," he said. "We've got the hospital project, the pylons will be going in for the young offenders' facility and construction should be completed there by 2002 and there are several other projects in Inuvik and there'll be $2.5 in spending this year and early next year."

Roland said that because the hospital-replacement project is a P3 partnership, it won't be affected by the capital deferrals. He said the deadline for a final decision on a request for proposal has been pushed back a month to the end of April to accommodate developers asking for a time extension -- but he added he's hoping construction can begin this fall and be completed within two years.

With the Muskrat Jamboree wrapping up and the Catch the Spirit 2000 business conference in full swing, only about a dozen constituents showed up at Monday's meeting. Among them, was Bertha Allen, chair of the Inuvik Elders Committee, who once again raised the issue of seniors' housing and a seniors' facility.

Housing Minister Allen wouldn't make any firm promises on the latter but said that between now and when the assembly reconvenes on June 20, he'll be touring all the territorial communities to assess housing needs. He said that with the federal government wrapping up its involvement in housing, the territorial government is adopting a new policy aimed at decreasing the number of residents living in public or subsidized housing and increasing the number of home-owners.

"Forty per cent of the population of the Northwest Territories pays some sort of rent and 60 per cent rely on social funding," said Allen. "We're targeting that 40 per cent to get them into home ownership, so that eventually we'll only have 100 per cent in social housing who are disabled, for example, and who can't work."

Allen said the purpose of his needs-assessment tour is to determine how this goal can be achieved in individual communities. He cited the example of Wha Ti, where the Housing Corp is working in co-operation with Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development and the community on a project aimed at building more affordable homes using locally produced logs as opposed to importing more expensive mobile units.

The two MLAs also touched on the subject of education and the recently approved changes to the Student Financial Assistant Act. Roland said that while they do not affect Dene students, the Inuvialuit and Metis now have two options.

He said they can choose the old route of accepting a grant and paying taxes on it or take the new option of accepting a remissible loan -- so that their tax burden is decreased -- but have to maintain specified grade levels and work in the North upon graduation for a specified period of time.

"It's better than the old system," said Roland, "though not all students are treated the same."