Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are working with Social Services to put together a strategy for the other units that are needed in the Northwest Territories. That should be done by May 1st, according to the information I have. Thank you.

Thank you. The honourable Member for Inuvik.

I appreciate also the new programs that the corporation has put into place. I'm just going through the Minister's comments about the down payment assistance program being introduced. I'm not sure what the level of funding is that you have available. Could you give me that information, how much is available under that program?

Thank you. Honourable Minister of Housing, do you have the information available?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have that information handy. It's under capital, but I believe it's tied into access. Just a minute, we might have it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's $2 million. (Microphone turned off)

Mr. Minister, the microphone was off.

I'm sorry about that, Mr. Chairman. It's $2.062 million.

I would also like to say that my constituents and I are very pleased with the way that the Housing Corporation has been doing their business. They have taken proactive steps to ensure that local markets get their fair share of construction, labour, purchase of supplies, and whatever they need to operate. It's been beneficial in the region where I'm from. Also, the concept of negotiated contracts is still one that I support to a certain extent and that, too, has been beneficial because it provides developing companies opportunities to have two and three-year training programs, to work in their premises and tie in with other government programs. This has been very successful so far.

The whole issue of being able to have a group of people in a community assess applicants for new houses has also been successful; especially this year, where everybody was involved who indicated an interest. The whole process came off this year without any glitches, or I haven't heard any. But everybody was quite pleased with the response that we had in trying to ensure that everybody participated in selecting the candidates for new houses. I wanted to thank the Minister and his staff, not only here but in the region, for their cooperation. I know I get full cooperation from the regional staff when issues come up and then they are dealt with quite expeditiously. I would like to say mahsi cho. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Koe, very positive conclusion on your part, that was very good. I have Mr. Pudluk, Mr. Pudlat and Ms. Becky Mike. Mr. Pudlat.

(Translation) Mr. Chairman, thank you. Just recently we asked questions with regard to the rental scale changes to Ministers' statements and oral questions within the past couple of weeks. Quite some time ago, we had a difficult time with regard to housing, like the $40 million cut by the federal government for social housing. I know that there is a budget restraint all over, but with regard to the rental changes effective April 1st, it seems like the federal government has pushed us into this difficulty. They have cut a total of $6 million for social housing.

The federal government has given us a lot of problems with regard to rent and social housing. I know that the Housing Corporation has worked on this for quite a long time. It is not just in the Northwest Territories that we are having difficulty, it is all over Canada.

Mr. Chairman, we have to deal with the older people with regard to housing, because they have had a difficult time. Even though it states that the elders will not be paying rent any more, I know that there is a lot of people that live in one house because of the lack of housing in the north, in the communities.

We have different cultures even though we all live in the north. So we would like to be treated that way, differently, in every community. That is why we often mention the rental scale changes that were put into effect on April 1st. I know the price to rent a house is getting more expensive all the time. I know that some of the people who are making good wages will have to pay a lot of money. That is why we voiced our concerns before the rental changes were put into effect.

We were called, by telephone, by our constituents to be concerned about the rental changes that have recently been put into effect. Some people have understood what they have to do, but I know that some of them are not quite clear yet. They have to always report their income, which scares some of the people in the communities because the more money they make, the more they pay.

I know that the people who are middle class are probably in a better position. There have been some people who have recently been kicked out of their housing because they couldn't keep up the payment. I wouldn't want to see this being done to too many people in the north because they cannot afford to pay their rent or they are in arrears. Because we are in different climates in every community, it can get very cold and we don't have any alternate housing available in the communities.

When we were younger it was different because we could make alternate housing. The young people are not in the same category as we were back then, when we were younger, because they don't know their culture as much as we do. And their lifestyle is different from the time when we were younger. For that reason, it is going to become very hard for some people to afford their rent.

We would very much like to be able to have our own houses but, Mr. Chairman, we are not all fortunate and we cannot all afford to have our own housing. It would be nice to be able to provide adequate housing for everybody in the north. And it would not be very good if a lot of people are being kicked out of their houses because they cannot afford their rent, or they cannot afford their own home. I know that we would like all the people who we represent to start having their own houses but only some can afford that.

Maybe it would be good if more people could be given their own house or could afford their own house. I know that there is going to be more and more people that cannot afford their own houses. Last week I mentioned a lot about the new rental scale, because I had some concerns about my constituents. I know there should be a better system with regard to providing housing for the people in the north. I am not really sure exactly how we can best deal with this situation, about people who have to be kicked out of their housing. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to make these comments today while we are discussing the Housing Corporation. I will stop for now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, do you want to respond briefly?

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, the NWT Housing Corporation has a wide variety of programs designed to serve people, regardless of whether they are low-income or high-income people, in the communities. Depending on the amount of dollars you make, that determines which program you can tap into. For the lower-income people, there is the rental program. That's the new rent scale. For those people that can afford to own their own homes, we have a wide variety of programs to assist those people. Hopefully, people can always find a place to fit into the programs. That's the reason we redesigned all the programs. It's not the intention of the NWT Housing Corporation or myself as the Minister to throw people out of their houses because they missed one month rent or whatever. Our programs are set up so that if a person is having a difficult time paying their rent, he'll be consulted and worked with in order to get his financial affairs in order. It's only in the very last case, after all other avenues have been tried, that a tenant would be evicted. That is the same today. There are people out there who are willing to pay the rent that need the units. We have long line ups in every community. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. On the list I have Mr. Pudluk but he is temporarily out of the room. Are there any further general comments? Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the NWT Housing Corporation, back a couple of years ago, the new access program got into use, it was introduced. You could say that now would be the time to look at the first year and how this new program is functioning. Perhaps the Minister could tell us how this new program is going at the present stage, in terms of how many units have been given out to the

communities and the type of programs that have been given out. Some of them are HIP programs, some of them are special units, some of them are the access units where you pay so much a month to obtain a house. There were different programs that were introduced to us and we, as the House, accepted these new and different programs to replace the type of funding that we lost when the federal government decided to cut us back on our funding toward social housing. If the Minister could explain how this new access program is functioning at this point in time, I would appreciate that. Thank you.

Qujannamiik. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The programs have been in place now I believe, since we changed. As the Member is well aware, when we got elected in this term, we only had the two basic programs, HAP and the rental program. We found that approximately 90 to 95 per cent of the people were failing through the cracks and couldn't access the programs. What we did was change them and deliver more programs to make more people eligible so we could help more people through the home ownership program. The access program was no different than the other programs. We will review them in the present state and go back to the communities through the community consultation process to get their input into what they thought of the programs, if we should make changes to them or how we could develop them to better serve the client's needs. It's an ongoing change that we're doing.

The corporation has been through major change over the past three years and I think now is the right time to start looking at what we've done, how much we accomplished, and how we could do it better. I agree with the Member that we should do a review of the programs. Thank you.

Thank you. The honourable Member for Nahendeh.

Thank you. It's good to hear the Minister saying that the Housing Corporation could do some sort of an in-depth look at how much they have accomplished to date and how effective this access has been to date compared to the old programs. I know there were a lot of positive things that were said when this new program was introduced; trying to capture people who were failing through the cracks and so forth. We should actually try to find out if this program is doing what it was set out to do. I'm glad to hear the Minister saying that they will be looking into it.

Another concern that I have with the Housing Corporation is the delivery of the program. In my constituency, even though we are very close to southern suppliers and are on the road system, we still experience construction of NWT Housing Corporation units in the wintertime. One of the arguments that we have with the government and the reason we split our budget to do capital in the fall and our O and M in the wintertime, is to try to deal with the problem of winter builds. Yet we are still experiencing that problem in some of my constituencies. What we set out to do by splitting up the budget has not taken place. This has always been a concern to me and I'm raising it again; that is, we approve the capital budget in October/November and it's been about three or four months now since we approved that budget. I'd like to know if we'll be experiencing the winter build again, or are we going to have construction starting as soon as the snow melts and the ground thaws out, usually some time in May in my constituency. I was wondering if that's going to be happening in my constituency this coming summer? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the major objectives of the NWT Housing Corporation is to evaluate all the home ownership programs to determine their effectiveness. That's in our objectives for this year. I agree with the Member 100 per cent that we shouldn't be starting construction in the fall and building in the winter. My riding is no different than his, let me assure him. We started some houses in January. It's completely unacceptable to me. The South Slave was the worst this year. The reason for that was that we're approximately one year behind delivery in that region. We had so much catching up to do because of some management changes that we had to make. We have the manager back in place who had gone to school. He assured me that the delivery would be done on time so I'll assure the Member that your houses will start on time as they will in my riding this year.

Qujannamiik. Member for Nahendeh.

The problem that we're talking about is where we have very nice long warm summers and don't take advantage of them, and instead, wait until the snow flies until we start construction. I know the builders in the community wait all summer and it has to do with your organization, at the regional offices. I don't know what happens, but they have to get on the ball and get things rolling quicker.

We can't continue to say this and I would like to suggest that you put sanctions in place for workers if things don't happen when they should. There should be someone taking responsibility for that problem. It's getting to a point where it's very irritating to come here every year and talk about the same problem over and over again and nothing is done about it. I know you and your managers are assuring us it's not going to happen again but, if it does, what are you going to do about it? Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll get rid of the president. No, just kidding. Let me assure you, if the Housing Corporation starts building in your region when the snow starts flying, something else will be flying as well. People will be looking for work because that's unacceptable.