Thank you, Mr. Patterson. Mr. Minister.

Thank you. The honourable Member for lqaluit.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will let the Minister know which ones I am interested in. I think the Standing Committee on Finance expressed its interest in having information about negotiated contracts made public in the spirit of full disclosure; I think both advocates of negotiated contracts and those who might be more critical of that approach; and, there are different views even within the Standing Committee on Finance. People of both those viewpoints felt that if there was disclosure of the details, then we would know if we were getting value for money or it would be proven that the corporation was getting value for money. So I would like to ask the Minister specifically about negotiated contracts and whether it will now be the corporation's policy that the details of those arrangements would be disclosed publicly as a matter of course. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we have agreed to that already.

Thank you. General comments. Mr. Patterson. My neck only turns about 90 degrees. Sorry about that. Total O and M, $62.035 million. Mrs. Marie-Jewell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask a couple of quick questions. One is on page 4 of 11 of the Minister's comments. He indicated that a plan dealing with the management of the government staff housing program will be tabled in the Assembly later in this session. Can the Minister advise as to when he anticipates tabling this? He also stated the Housing Corporation is working with the departments of Personnel and Public Works and the Financial Management Board to develop this comprehensive plan. I

asked him earlier in question period the number of PY's that may possibly be transferred from DPW for this initiative. Can the Minister indicate when he intends to table the government staff housing program which will be dealt with by the NWT Housing Corporation during this session?

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will table it during this session but I can't give an exact date because we are working with other departments on it. It will be tabled this session.

Thank you. The honourable Member for Thebacha.

Thank you. The other comment that I wanted to make, Mr. Chairman, is not only with regard to the timing of construction as I've heard the Member for Nahendeh and the Minister comment on, but I would like to express my concern on the late timing for construction.

In addition to that, earlier in this session I had asked the Minister about the status of the rural and remote programs which are not in place any more. In his response he indicated that they were looking at their rural and remote programs and if they decided to buy them out, it would cost the NWT Housing Corporation, I think, $3 million and an FMB submission would accumulate to that amount. Could I ask the Minister whether or not the NWT Housing Corporation has formulated an FMB submission to buy out the rural and remote programs across the north?

Thank you. I want to remind my honourable Members over there, when my honourable friend speaks, I want you people to be quiet. Thank you. The honourable Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our approach in the past with this program is that we looked at the overall cost of buying out all the clients and it was $3 million. I directed the department and the department does have a person working on this just about full-time now to develop a paper that we could negotiate with, with CMHC. CMHC has turned us down once already and what we are doing now is developing a paper to see if CMHC would be interesting in forgiving the interest if the capital was paid off on some of the clients. Some are all paid off already or just about paid off and a lot of them have paid the capital costs back. It's just the interest that seems to be accumulating. Once that paper is put forward, I'll get Cabinet support to do it and then negotiate with CMHC to see if they will do that. Thank you.

Just a reminder to the Members of this committee of the time, so if you want to conclude the item, anyone can make a motion to do so. The honourable Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to this rural, and remote program, what time frame are they looking at? Do they anticipate that this would be done by this year or by the fall? Could the Minister give us a time frame that the Housing Corporation is looking at to address the rural and remote program? Thank you.

Thank you. Honourable Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It could take up to two years to do it all. Some of it could be done by the summer, some by the tall. It will vary. We're dealing with such a mixture of clients that we have to look at them all independently to see which we can do more quickly. Those we can do quickly, we will get done and those that are more complicated will take more time.

Thank you. NWT Housing Corporation, total O and M, $62.035 million.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Ms. Mike.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to know the total person years, because there is nothing in our 1995-96 main estimates.

Thank you. I believe it is exactly what the paper says. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We circulated a paper with all of those numbers on it. I'm just looking for it now.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are 185 positions.

Thank you. Ms. Mike.