Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to say that I have been very frustrated over the years with regard to the numerous small problems that exist in the communities with housing. Some houses are not completed electrically and mechanically in a lot of cases. There are problems with some of the designs of new alternate units. The Minister knows what I am talking about. I hope those types of inefficiencies can be corrected, and I'm sure they will be. That is one of the concerns of the smaller communities.
There are quite a number of outstanding problems that exist in the communities. Whenever I travel to the communities, I am always confronted with the same problems that never get resolved by the Housing Corporation in my region. I just want to say that the regional office manager has made it a point to identify all the outstanding problems that exist in the small communities. They are keeping track of them and if anything comes up in any of the communities, they make note of it. This only started this summer after meeting with the regional office.
Prior to that, there were a lot of promises made by the Housing Corporation staff to the people in these communities, and these promises were never carried through. I've been running into that for the last three years. Finally, this summer, I was able to sit down with the manager and state my case. As a result of that, there is ongoing tracking of all these different problems, and hopefully these problems will get resolved in time.
I just want to let the Minister and his staff know that these outstanding issues that are out there in my constituency and need to be taken care of. The staff of the Housing Corporation made promises to the people in the communities, in this case there were a lot Dene people in the communities, and among Dene people your word is very important. If you give you word, you have to back up that word with some action. In a lot of cases, perhaps there are too many problems to deal with and the person who had been working in that area may have forgotten that some promises were made.
What I'm trying to do is try to identify all these different areas and all these different promises that were made, and make sure that the Housing Corporation lives up to its commitments and the promises that were made to the people in the community. Hopefully, all these outstanding issues will get resolved as soon as possible.
In many cases, I am told, there is funding to take care of some of these problems; yet, there is no work being done on it. But now I am told that they will get on with it and hopefully resolve these problems.
So that's the only problem I have with housing. I still have some problem with the way the access and the needs...There are still a lot of needs out there. The Minister knows that I've taken pictures of people who are still living in tents in my area. Even in the cold of winter they are still living in tents. Gradually we're taking care of these people who are still living in tents all year-round, including winter. This year I have been told that there are a couple of people who are still living in tents who will be getting adequate houses like everybody else. So, hopefully, all these different problems will get resolved.
In the other communities they may have a lot of houses, they may have a lot of people there who they look at and have needs. But when you go to Liard, there are still people who are living in tents. I don't know if you have to work with numbers to determine how many houses each community gets, but there are some real needs out there that need to be taken care of. I'm sure that the department and the Minister knows what I'm talking about, and that these people who really do need the houses eventually will be allocated some units. That's all I have for general comments, Mr. Chairman. Mahsi.