Thank you, Mr. Morin. Ms. Mike.

The other question I had was what kind of agreements are these? I would like to know because if it is something that is attractive, I might want to promote them in my communities.

Thank you, Ms. Mike. Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. They are partnership agreements with the local housing authorities or associations and I would be pleased to get that information for the Member in a package, so if the associations she represents are interested, she could give that information to them as well.

Thank you, Mr. Morin. Ms. Mike.

The other area that I have concerns about and that I have been asking about during question period is the rental scale. I don't want the Minister to misunderstand me, I don't oppose the idea of increasing rents, but the way it is being implemented. I feel that this department or the corporation could have done better dealing with the high-income earners in the level II and III communities before any kind of consultation took place with the Housing Corporation and the housing authorities and associations and hamlets, that these clientele should have been consulted first and made aware that this rental scale was coming about to give them leeway where they could start saving money if they wanted to become home owners. As a result of the way the consultation took place, these clients who are living in public housing with high incomes are going to be practically working just to pay for their rent.

I feel that within four years, I don't think the corporation will be able to get these people totally out of public housing, especially if their rent is going to be increased and will leave them very little to save up to try to get their own home where there is no private housing market. On top of that, let's not forget a lot of these families have never known home ownership until very recently when HAP was introduced just a few years ago. So the concept of home ownership in Inuit communities is very new and it takes a while for some clients to get the concept of ownership of a home, a little longer than those who have been exposed to it all their lives. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thanks. That was a general comment, I believe. Maybe, Mr. Morin, you would like to respond.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. An attempt was made to develop this new rent scale back in 1988 when Mr. Butters, the previous Minister of Housing, tried to bring it in. It was in 1988 or 1989. It didn't pass at that time because there were no home ownership programs for people to even get into. Then it resurfaced again when I became Minister. At that time, I think we were subsidizing higher-income people around $2 million or $3 million a year in some of the communities where other home owners weren't being subsidized that same amount.

Besides the financial problem we have, if we didn't do anything then we would have a major financial problem in the Housing Corporation and this government because the money would have to come from somewhere. So one of the guiding principles to develop a new rent scale was so that everybody was treated fairly throughout the Northwest Territories so everybody had access to programs and it didn't matter which community you lived in. The smaller communities are basically given the same fair treatment.

The process we went through when it was first introduced and then to go through the consultation process it was close to two years. All that time there were public announcements, meetings in every community, regional meetings, we also had the Advisory Committee on Social Housing to look at it. That's how we ended up coming up, in the end, with the rent scale. Immediately, when the rent scale was passed in the House, people were informed because that's the only time we could really inform individuals saying this new rent scale is now a fact. Before, it was just a perceived document, it wasn't something that was finished.

Also, we're working very aggressively with financial institutions and changing our programs and consulting with those people who it affects. We're finding great success; for example, in Iqaluit there's been a great uptake on home ownership and that's good. I believe I can safely say that we don't have any units not allocated this year. The units that are being built, people are saying we want those units now.

In my communities there is still a waiting list for home ownership, and we've had this policy in effect since 1983, that's quite some time ago, and there's still a waiting list because we just don't have enough money to pay for housing for everybody, to finance housing for everybody in the north who needs it. I believe there's a need of 3,600 units and we just don't have the money for that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much, Mr. Morin. Ms. Mike.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Minister's responses. Another thing is when these high-income earners finally access home ownership, in level II and III communities they are either employees of the GNWT or housing associations or the hamlet councils. These organizations fall under the same category as the GNWT staff where there is a $450 a month housing allowance provided. I'm wondering whether the corporation staff or the Minister have considered that, in the end, it will still cost this government some money because of that housing allowance provision for GNWT staff, if there has been any analysis done for home owners or those who have just become home owners who used to live in public housing and no longer live in public housing, whether that would be an additional increase in expenditures within the GNWT or not. I would like to know if there has been any analysis made on that.

Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I doubt it very much if that type of analysis would have been done or the value of doing it. If you take 100 households and average out the cost of running a Housing Corporation public unit, it would be $2,000 a month and right now, people are paying an average of $150 a month rent. That doesn't come close to the average of $2,000. I don't think that would make much difference.

The key is we have to always remember that we're operating under the principle of treating everybody fairly in the same wage category. That's the principle of the scale. If people have higher incomes and can afford to operate and own their own units, we can assist them to do that. That's our job. That person is going to end up owning the unit in the end which is good for that person and the family. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Morin. Ms. Mike.

Another thing I wanted to say for the record, Mr. Chairman, is I want the Minister to know, regarding family members living in one household, the Inuit culture is not like southern cultures where, more than likely if Mr. Morin or the deputy minister have relatives living with them, they would charge them rent. Whereas, for the Inuit, it is unlikely for a grandfather, having two grandchildren living with him in public housing, to charge them rent.

I am concerned about that cultural difference where the household income is to include family members who are working. There's a potential for tension to build where there is already tension. Because in the first place, these grandchildren are sometimes living with grandparents because the lack of housing in communities. That's one of the reasons family members live together, whether they are working or not. Housing associations and authorities have only been addressing those most in need in the community so a lot of the time, single adult family members end up living with their family because there are no houses, even private rental units, available in the communities.

I think we should look very closely at including family members' income in assessable income. In the three communities I represent, I know this is the reality and it is of concern to me and I think it is also the concern of Nunavut communities that don't have a private market for homes. I think the rental scale should be continually monitored to see what kinds of negative impacts it will have in the communities. For instance, I know that when rents are increased, it will mean less money being spent on the few private companies that exist in the communities. It might have direct impacts on local businesses as well.

It's not just the families who are affected. It's going to affect local businesses as well when people's disposable income is reduced as a result of increased rent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Mike. Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with the Member that any policy of the Housing Corporation, including this rental policy, should be monitored. We have a process in place now through community and regional consultations and communication we're now developing now with local housing authorities that any problems that arise should be addressed. I completely agree with you that we shouldn't ever make policies, carve them in stone, and say that's the way to do business. We should be flexible and see how the policy affects people, how they react and address that. I agree with you 100 per cent on that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Morin. Any other general comments or statements? Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to be as positive as I can and state that, although this rental scale increase has been difficult for all of us, I was impressed with the consultation process the Minister initiated, the open way in which the corporation structured those consultations. I know it was expensive but I'd like to see, as much as possible, that process continued. There were many good recommendations that came out of that process, not just relating to the new rental scale but also relating to the matter of delivering housing programs. We all concentrated, in the special advisory committee and the corporation, on the rent scale and home ownership programs because those were the big priorities this year but there are a whole bunch of other issues that should be addressed.

As Ms. Mike was saying, there is a need to monitor the implementation of the rent scale to test out whether the assumptions that it was based on are actually going to work. I want to support continued consultation of the kind that was undertaken, even though I know it was expensive. I think it built up a lot of goodwill where there wasn't a lot when this started out.

One of the things that was strongly recommended in the Baffin consultations was that there be increased resources to the housing associations -- and I guess they're called local housing authorities now -- to take on the additional responsibilities of counselling people in home ownership, encouraging them to consider it, and helping them to prepare for the responsibilities, such as management of money, et cetera. I want to note that the corporation has delivered on the strong recommendation in that area. At least my community tells me there were increased resources provided to the local housing authority to use at their discretion in implementing the new rent scale and I would like to say that that has made a difficult job a little easier.

Secondly, my general impression is that the home ownership programs that have been put in place are working. I'd like to particularly mention the down payment assistance program, I was delighted to find out there is a high take-up in Baffin of that program. This is good for the region and for the corporation because, for a relatively small investment, the corporation gets home ownership units, compared to the costs of the other home ownership programs. It may be that the down payment assistance program is specially suited to high-income earners who are not desperately looking for alternatives to social housing, and that program seems to be particularly well-suited to Iqaluit where at least it's a community where there are options for people to build their own homes using private companies. I'm not sure that those same options are available in smaller communities, but at least in Iqaluit it seems to have been taken up by a number of people.

The Minister and his officials know that I was very upset about the arbitrary decision to declare single people ineligible to apply for home ownership programs that were in place this year for the round of applications for the coming construction season. I think the Minister and officials have agreed that a fairer way of approaching this problem would be not to exclude single persons from applying, but rather to say they can apply; however, priority will be given to families, especially families with children. Any of the single people I've talked to who wanted to apply felt that was quite a reasonable thing, to give higher priority to people with families and children, but they were very insulted when they weren't even allowed to apply. I'm sure the Minister knows that a single person in the Northwest Territories, especially a long-term resident, especially an aboriginal person, is not really a single person. They have an extended family, they're part of an extended family network and it's very unlikely that they'll live alone in a home ownership unit if they get it. Many of the people who applied this year from my riding were Inuit, were people who had their own children or responsibilities for their extended family, and they were in that category where, if they had been able to apply for the program and get houses through the home ownership programs, they would have benefitted their whole extended family.

I will be asking at the appropriate time, I believe the Minister has reconsidered that approach for the coming year and I think that will be an improvement.

I would also like to say that I think the jury is still out on just how this rental scale will work. I want to see how it affects the arrears in my community. The housing authority in Iqaluit has worked very hard on getting the arrears down. I hope that the trend will not be that the arrears will start to build up again when we implement the new rent scale.

Secondly, Mr. Chairman, I've began to have some doubts about this 30 per cent rule, the 30 per cent of gross household income. The reason I have doubts about that, Mr. Chairman, about whether it's really going to allow people enough money to survive on is that if we turn to the private sector and look at the rules that banks follow when assessing what is reasonable for a family to pay towards a mortgage for a house, my understanding is that banks will not risk giving mortgages to households where as much as 30 per cent of the gross income has to be put towards the mortgage. The rule in the real world out there is that a bank won't risk giving someone a mortgage with that high of a proportion of the household income dedicated to the household expenses. The banks think that people who are paying that much towards the costs of housing aren't going to make it.

I think we may have to ask ourselves whether this is realistic, especially in the Northwest Territories, to take that big a chunk of household incomes out of the family and still expect them to buy food, Pampers, maintain a subsistence hunting lifestyle, et cetera. This is one area that I think we should closely monitor as we're assessing the impact of the new rent scale. Is it realistic? I know CMHC may say this is what you have to do, but we have to ask ourselves is it going to work. If it's not going to work and we start to find that we have to evict people because they can't afford to pay their rent, then we have real horrendous social problems.

As Ms. Mike said, for one thing, where do these people go if they're evicted? For another thing, do you penalize 80 per cent or 60 per cent of a household if 40 per cent or 20 per cent of the household refused to pay rent according to their share of the income? Do you penalize an elder who doesn't have to pay rent now because one or more of their children refuse to pay rent? Evict the elder along with the kids because a couple of kids didn't pay rent. I hope we don't have to deal with a lot of these questions, but if we have to start dealing with a lot of these questions maybe we should review whether 30 per cent is realistic.

Mr. Chairman, one other general comment in closing, and I'll have a few questions when we get into the detail. The Housing Corporation is changing radically. It's taking on staff housing; it's no longer building houses; it's supporting people in home ownership; it's putting more responsibilities on communities, appropriately, to manage and maintain housing and implement the new rental schemes and the new home ownership programs. Because the corporation is changing so fundamentally, I'd like to see a new corporate strategy and corporate plan, new corporate goals and objectives, and I think that this work is being done by the corporation. I understand that there's a lot of rethinking of its goals and objectives and its structure. I think it's important for this Assembly to be made aware of the changes that are being discussed internally. They should be presented to us, we should have an opportunity to review them and comment on them. I hope that in the life of this government, that will happen. I hope we'll have a chance to get the benefit of seeing the work that I know the corporation is doing so the people of the Northwest Territories can, through us, assess what's happening and make comments on what's happening and make sure it's going to work.

So I'm going to be asking about the new corporation vision of the Housing Corporation and how this Assembly is going to find out about the work that's being done by the Minister and by his staff on retooling for the 1990s and beyond. Those are my general comments, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Patterson. I'd like to draw Members' attention to the gallery where we have Mrs. Violet Beaulieu. Members should recognize her today, she's the chairperson of the Fort Resolution Housing Authority. She's also Mr. Morin's mother-in-law who has come to keep an eye on him.

---Applause

All right, Mr. Morin, you have a chance to show your stuff.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd just like to assure the Member that the consultation process will continue. It will be kicked up and running by March of this year. By the end of March, the process should start to kick in, the consultation process.

Restructuring of the corporation to help out the housing authorities; you're 100 per cent right that it is 1994. The way the corporation has done business in the past has to change, especially in light of the $47 million cut we had from CMHC, and the needs of the people we serve have changed. Home ownership is what we really have to impress upon people. We have to work with our community organizations to strengthen them so they can deliver the programs. Things that were delivered from headquarters where everything was centralized in the past have to be decentralized and I'll let the president expand on that later on today if a question arises.

The new down payment assistance program is being taken up in many communities. It is a good program. So far, it looks very promising and is a way we can get approximately three or four units built for the price of one. It seems to be working out quite well. The Member for Iqaluit also raised the issue of single people being ineligible. Single people are now eligible but their priority is lower than married people or people with children. Families come first, single people will be at the bottom of the list but they will be eligible.

---Applause

There will be 30 per cent deductions on the rent scale. That is the maximum and will kick in only for the higher-income people. The majority of the people are between six and 20 per cent, I believe. You must remember we put in place the sliding scale this year where you start off at six per cent and go up to the maximum. A lot of people are in the scale and it encourages them to work. If it does present a problem, we will look at it, I guarantee, because we aren't in this business to starve or throw people out into the street. We're here to assist people and if there is undue hardship for them, we will make every effort to change that.

There is no way possible that it will penalize elders. If a person doesn't pay rent in a unit, an elder will not be evicted. Counselling will be in place for the person who doesn't pay the rent and if that doesn't help, then that person would be evicted. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much, Mr. Morin. Are there any other general comments, concerns or questions? Ms. Mike.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There were a few things that I forgot to mention. Mr. Chairman, if I sound like I'm being very critical about this, it is not to say that I think the corporation is doing a very bad job. I'm being critical in hopes that someone down in Ottawa is reading the Hansard of our Assembly, including Dingwall. First of all, I would like to encourage the Minister to, as he mentioned in his opening remarks, have the Housing Corporation take over GNWT staff housing. In just about all the communities I have visited, one of the things I have observed, Mr. Chairman, is that public housing has been better maintained than GNWT staff housing. When the corporation takes over GNWT staff housing, I'm hopeful that the Minister will seriously consider having the local housing associations and authorities maintain these houses.

The other thing is, I wanted to say, for the record, that I remember -- and this is way before the Government of the Northwest Territories was born -- when the federal government started building public housing. Most, if not all Inuit, were in huts. I remember when the area administrator of the federal government started allocating houses in Pangnirtung. Our family was approached and told that we had a unit; however, my Dad was not enthusiastic about it. My mother at the time went ahead and moved, taking all the kids with her, to the house, leaving Dad behind because he was reluctant to move into public housing. Dad was alone in the hut for more than one week but finally gave in and moved in with the family.

At the time -- and I'm sure the Minister has heard this all over Nunavut -- the rent was $18 a month. I can't remember, some were as low as $2 a month, I think. As a result, as I indicated earlier, there's a cultural difference in terms of looking at owning a home. Most Inuit communities have been exposed to public housing for a very long time. Initially, the federal government provided it and eventually, 20 years ago, the GNWT took it over. A lot of families remember that and it has been one of the obstacles, I think, in trying to get people to start owning their own homes. That has always been an argument.

There are still some huts that exist today, Mr. Chairman. One is in Clyde River and is owned by the elders. Traditionally, these huts only had one entrance but, because of how chaotic things could get, his hut had to have two entrances. I think it had something to do with fire safety. It's not even practical now to build your own hut if that's what Inuit families choose to do. In situations like this, what do we do? I really hope someone down in Ottawa is reading the Hansard.

Another thing too, we have a lot of women working with reasonable incomes and even single mothers have gotten by, but this rental increase is going to have an impact on them. It's hard enough being a single parent, looking after children. A day's work is never over for a single mother and there are day care expenses they have to pay. A lot of these women are support staff, administrative clerks and things like that. This rental increase is going to have an impact on these individuals. It seems that when anything happens, it is always women who get affected the most. Those are the things that I wanted to say for the record, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Well, we have a few seconds before 12:00 pm, Mr. Morin, would you like to try to respond?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The communities I represent are no different than the communities the Member represents. When the federal government introduced public housing in our communities, there were elders who told me that they had small houses built out of logs that they owned themselves. They were encouraged to move into public housing. They were told that the rent would be only $5 a month and that's it, that they would only have to pay $5 a month for 10 ten years and then that house is theirs. Their house was burnt down. When they moved in, they burnt down another house. That same story is throughout the Northwest Territories. There isn't much I can do about it because there is no legal documentation for me to fight that battle on behalf of those people. That is what I need.

Also, through the restructuring, we are looking at maintaining our public units better. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.