(Microphone turned off)

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Thank you. Mr. Patterson.

May I request unanimous consent to carry on with my statement?

The honourable Member is seeking unanimous consent to continue with his Member's statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Please proceed.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As I understand it, Madam Speaker, the Housing Corporation also proposed to lift the ceilings now in place for social housing in Iqaluit, on the basis of fairness and equity. However, Madam Speaker, I want to say this about fairness and equity. Social housing tenants, in my constituency, do not have wood to build houses or to fuel their stoves. Social housing tenants, in my constituency, do not have all-weather or even winter roads to reduce the highest cost of living in the country. The rent ceilings were put in place many years ago, to recognize the high cost of living of communities off the road where there are no local fuel supplies. Since the cost of living and supply of local wood has not changed, how can it be fair or equitable to now remove the ceilings on rent?

Madam Speaker, I cannot emphasize enough the sensitivity of this matter in my constituency. I fear that if these arbitrary increases are imposed -- and I understand the deadline may be as soon as July of this coming year, when federal funding is cut off -- many of my constituents, including large families, will have no choice but to move into deplorable shacks and qammaqs before they will pay these sharp increases in rent. A number of them are already living on the beach in my constituency, as Members of this House know.

My constituents will expect the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Minister of the Housing Corporation to take more forceful action with the federal government in the face of this treacherous action, not to repeat the treachery with my constituents, who have no alternative. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you. Item 3, Members' statements. The honourable Member for Natilikmiot, Mr. Ningark.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, as a courtesy, through you, I would like to inform the House that I will be absent from February 16 to 19, attending the Kitikmeot Inuit Association conference in Cambridge Bay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ningark. Item 3, Members' statements. Before going to returns to oral questions, the Speaker would like to recognize a former Member of the Assembly, Mr. Abe Okpik.

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I would also like to recognize Bertha Allen, president of the Native Women's Association.

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And councillor Steve Brooks from Hay River.

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Welcome to the Assembly. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, oral questions. The honourable Member for Iqaluit, Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Housing. Madam Speaker, for a number of months, the Minister responsible for Housing has been updating this House with regard to his many trips to Ottawa and elsewhere to negotiate with the federal government to make up the short fall in funding for social housing. I would like to ask the Minister if he could advise the House of the current status of those negotiations. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Housing, Mr.

Morin.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The current status of the negotiations to reinstate funding for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is we're putting a package together to present to Mr. Paul Martin on behalf of the Government of the Northwest Territories, not only on the housing issues but the health issue and other issues affecting the government. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 5, oral questions. Supplementary, the honourable Member for Iqaluit, Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, we know that the federal Minister of Finance is going to be presenting his budget very shortly in the House of Commons. Is that when we might expect to have an answer on this issue of the restoration of social housing cuts, during the federal budget? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Housing, Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I haven't had an opportunity to look at the federal government's budget, I don't think anybody has. I don't expect to have our housing problems solved by the federal budget. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 5, oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. Patterson.

My final supplementary, Madam Speaker. Then, when does the Minister expect to be able to give this House a final answer on this issue? Thank you.

Minister of Housing, Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. We have made presentations to the federal government on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories. We presented the unique case of the people of the Northwest Territories and made it very clear to the federal government that they have a legal responsibility to the aboriginal people of the NWT to supply housing. We've always come from that direction and we will continue to do that.

We've met with them several times to try to get funding for social housing. There is funding for aboriginal housing on reserves in southern Canada. That funding, I understand, will continue. In 1994, there is zero funding for new construction of social housing in the Northwest Territories. Through the Minister of Finance, Mr. Paul Martin, we are attempting to negotiate a package to solve that problem.

Through the CMHC route, the process I was directly involved in, I think we've dried up all avenues to get funding reinstated. There is a slight light at the end of the tunnel. I hope it's not a train, but there is a slight light that with the savings we create within CMHC and the Housing Corporation, we can put that money back into housing. But, I don't expect to get anything through the CMHC process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Morin. The Speaker would like to recognize Mrs. Esther Braden in the gallery, the president of the NWT Seniors' Society.

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In addition, I would welcome the elders that are visiting us today, also.

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Item 5, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Lewis.

Thank you. The Minister of Housing, Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Just to set the record straight, we managed to return last year with $10 million above and beyond what we would have been allocated under the CMHC process, in case Mr. Lewis forgot about that. My reading of the issue of the federal government's responsibility to aboriginal people is that the federal government has never, ever lived up to that responsibility since they started building houses in the Northwest Territories and I don't see them accepting that responsibility, to date. They should. Thank you.

Thank you. Supplementary, Mr. Lewis.