Mr. Speaker, the government has, for many years, at least 15 years, been postering outside the ropes, so to speak, to finally grapple with this beast which is the fact that there are vast inequities that exist in the way we treat government employees across the territories. We have no level playing field as far as what rents are charged, the conditions of houses, and the utility rates. There have been studies done, and the Special Committee on Housing touched on it. There have been task force reports which all say the same thing, the government should get out and do something about the inadequate levels of rent which have been charged. We finally decided to do something about it in January and it is going to be difficult. There are going to be a thousand little detailed questions and inadequacies which surface. I would suggest most agencies and most people would prefer to leave well enough alone, if you could call it that. I personally feel there are more injustices present in leaving the situation the way it is, than there are in existence in the strategy we have launched.
We are committed to carrying out the strategy. It is going to cause hardship for divisional boards. They are going to be pummelled by their employees. Employees are going to threaten to leave, they are going to point out their rental increase. Some of them are going to complain about the lack of notice and many other things. There is going to be some uncertainty about whether teachers will leave en masse and also if professionals will leave en masse. In my view, people will stay. I think they will listen to our debate in this Legislature and will take into account the points which are made. It is up to us in this Legislature to carry on a rational debate about what it is we are trying to do.
As I said earlier, we have people in the Northwest Territories who number up to 15 people in two bedroom houses. We have people who number up to 20 in three bedroom houses. We have houses which have doors with no doorknobs on them. We have houses which have no existing windows. We have atrocious housing conditions in existence now. In balancing that, the argument is, there is this potential saving if we pull out the strategy of up to perhaps $5 million which is now being allocated for the exclusive benefit and use of 1,800 government employees, 1,800 citizens of the Northwest Territories. We have 57,000 people in the Northwest Territories. Is this a fair way to use increasingly scarce resources?