Thank you. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on a final note, I guess. We have heard several Members indicate in the last several days this government cannot afford to lower the services and programs we are currently offering and we certainly do not want to lay off any more employees than we have to and we have heard several of our MLAs imploring both sides to be reasonable and to come up with a solution. I am also throwing my voice into the same area and asking both sides to come up with an equitable solution and to, perhaps, compromise so that we can come up with a solution whereby our people in the Northwest Territories do not have to suffer further cutbacks in their services and programs. Thank you.

Thank you. Would you care to respond, Mr. Todd?

Well, I have been consistent since we started on this course of trying to resolve pay equity. I said that, one, it has to be negotiated, and that would be my preferred approach rather than a third party making the decision. Two, it has to be affordable. Now, I do not know what it takes, right now, to define to my colleagues and their partners, the UNW, what is affordable. I mean they can read balance sheets just the same as we can and the bottom line is if it is not an affordable issue, none of it is imposed upon us and we could be in this situation for years. What I want to do is resolve this thing so that it is affordable, and I will get the support of my colleagues to define what affordability is and to put what is due and affordable into the hands of our employees April 1, 1998. I certainly do not want to be in the position, and I know my Cabinet colleagues and I know my colleagues in the Legislative Assembly do not want to be put in that position that it has to be further layoffs or further cuts to programs and services. That is unacceptable. But to suggest, as has been suggested yesterday in the press, and we are trying to avoid it that our offer is insulting, let us define that and we will define that in the coming weeks. The public will judge whether or not the offer of this government, which we believe is affordable, is insulting or not. I do not believe it is.

Thank you. General comments. I have Mr. Krutko.

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, you know when we started this road to the sale of staff housing, I think I said at the time, one key issue I wanted to see was that the people who were currently in the houses were given the first option. Just to reflect a little bit, I think we did that and I think, have done that reasonably well. I was pleased with the uptake. In fact, it had gone actually beyond what I had originally thought.

When we indicated that we would like to sell them to developers, if you want, or individuals within the communities or development corporations, we made it pretty clear in the sale of those assets that were not purchased by our employees that we expected those units to be available at an affordable rate to the staff. I believe that is happening. There may be the odd case where it is not. We had some as you know, Mr. Picco alluded to earlier that we had some problems that in Pond Inlet. I believe we dealt with that and I think it got resolved. We have had some problems in maybe one or two other communities. Maybe there are some problems in Cambridge Bay I do not know about, but at some point we just deal with that in the normal course of doing government business.

The policy itself has worked relatively well in terms of homeownership. The policy itself in terms of private developers whether they are locally or regionally based has also worked reasonably well. We did take the steps at the time to encourage the developers and to ensure they were prepared to make this housing available at an affordable price. I think, knowing the development business a little bit, the price is reflective to some extent, the cost of the facility, how you finance it and return on investment. We are very much aware what that is. We have been monitoring some of that to ensure the developers who have purchased the houses are being reasonable and fair. Where there are cases that they are not that are brought to our attention, I will deal with them. Thank you.

Mr. Krutko.

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

Well, Mr. Chairman, technically and legally, we still have the Deficit Elimination Act that controls our fiscal behaviour. From a technical, legislative perspective that is important because that is law. It says we have to behave that way. From a management monitoring position, you have myself, as the Finance Minister and chairman of the FMB, who took the long journey of deficit cuts and took the pain and the abuse that would naturally come with it. Understandably so, it would not be prudent in my responsibility to bring us to where we are, from whence we came, to back to where we once were. That sounds OK, does it not? Where we are, from whence we came, to whence we are. So, I think there are enough checks and balances politically, in this House, for example, the careful scrutiny of the budgets. This budget really is the last budget. The way I see it in terms of the whole territory. I do not think there would be much to gain from going, as my honourable colleague says, on some kind of spending spree. I do not think the system is set up for that. I think his earlier comments today about the Public/Private Partnerships are legitimate concerns, which I have also.

We need to ensure that we watch that very closely. My department is working hard to try not only to reassure myself, but to ultimately reassure my colleagues here that there will be some checks and balances on that side of things. Other than that, I do not anticipate, barring a major disaster or absolute failure in the pay equity resolution, any major blips with respect to our overall fiscal framework. I am confident that if you put the qualifiers in, with respect to pay equity, et cetera, that we will meet the targets we have set for this coming year and bring forward another balanced budget and reduce the accumulated deficit significantly so that two new territories can move forward on a solid fiscal framework with limited, accumulated deficit components to their budgets. Thank you.

Thank you. The ten minute time period is up. I will recognize another Member on the list. Mr. O'Brien. General comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question I have is following in the same vein as Mr. Krutko and others. You speak about the housing situation and affordability as it relates to staff members being able to buy staff units that were available. In some cases these individuals were paying anywhere between $1,200 to $1,400 in rent. They have the opportunity to buy the house at a fair market value and their rent goes down to maybe $400 or $500 per month through their mortgage payments and so on, and that is actually giving a good break to the employee and the new homeowner. The concern I have is with the people or staffers who do not have the opportunity to buy a house. In my case, there are no houses left in the community and they are still leasing their existing units and paying what they would consider fairly high rents which are anywhere between $1,300 and $1,400 per month.

Is there anything that you have looked at, have given any consideration in trying to address this issue? Because we have a situation where we have nurses that are under pressure, they do not feel that their benefits are up to par. We have the same situation with some other employees and this could be a way of trying to alleviate, I guess, some of the pressures and the stress they are under by trying to reduce the rents for these people. Has that been a consideration, Mr. Minister?

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have two responses to my colleague's question. On the nurses

situation, I concur there is a problem there. The nurse's are slightly different because some of them are living in the nurses station and my honourable colleague, Mr. Ng, reconfirmed what he was already doing, and that was trying to take a hard look at the compensation package for nurses in which the cost of accommodation is a factor. I believe, he has indicated that he would have something ready by the middle of February, I think, was the deadline. I think that it is important we set some deadlines. I believe, hopefully, on that side of it, we can bring some resolve and some relief to the professionals that we desperately need and some of the difficulties that my honourable colleague has alluded to on a number of occasions in the House, with respect to the medical health staff.

On the rest of the staff, actually, the $40 to $50 million EDAP Program is targeting not only to people in social housing who can afford to have a mortgage, but it would also target some of our staff that rent private accommodations or are in leased accommodation. We hope that this initiative will encourage, if you want, more private homeownership and, at the end of the day, provide them with an opportunity to own their home and afford, I guess, what I would call a mortgage that does not overburden their fiscal condition. That is kind of where we are hoping to go with it. There may still be some people that slip through the cracks, I do not know. Certainly, it is the intent of EDAP and the intent of my colleague, Mr. Ng, on the health stuff. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one final question. In reference to the new proposal, and I am not looking for detail, just a general overview, we talked about approximately 1,000 new homes that may become available through various processes. One of the comments that you have indicated or made was that there would be a lease option or aspect. Can you give us some general details on exactly how that would work and what the impact would be? Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Todd.

Maybe I was misunderstood, but I guess what I am saying is the EDAP program that we are talking about is really more an expansion of the current program with some refinement to it. With respect to private sector dollars, I am hoping, we can encourage the private sector to put some cost-effective housing into the communities that require it that is affordable.

I know that may be difficult in today's world when you are looking at stand alone facilities, et cetera, but we think there may be some savings on the capital costs in multi-plexes, et cetera. Some of the changes we are going to need, we are hoping that, for example, we could get multi-plexes. You know how you see in the city here, you see a number of people building these condominiumized multi-plexes and selling them for anywhere from $109,000 to $125,000 at Yellowknife rates. We are sort of trying to refine the program so that kind of cost-effective housing would be available for people that may wish to purchase them who say cannot afford a three bedroom 1500 or 1400 square foot stand alone facility. I am hoping that there will be some uptake there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. O'Brien.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Minister would this be a rehash or would there be any similarities to this multi-plex proposal or possibility. Would this relate to the old rent supp program that we had in place a number of years ago?

Thank you, Mr. Todd.

No, I am sorry, no. It really relates to the ability to build a multi-plex facility. Let us say, hypothetically we have five people in Arviat who have the capability of paying an $80,000 mortgage, $90,000 mortgage, and if you put a multi-plex in place that is going to cost $135,000 each, rather than a stand alone house at a $185,000 or $190,000. We roll in with an EDAP grant for those people, they then have an affordable mortgage because they are in a multi-plex type unit where there is some savings in the capital costs. That is what we are looking at right now in an effort to get more houses on the deck, if you want, and to try to accommodate the income level that I think Mr. Picco talked about earlier.

There is a lower income level that we are trying to get at because most of the higher income levels have actually bought the staff housing, got into the EDAP program or mortgaged their own houses, but there is a whole bracket of people in another income who, we believe based on the demographics we have done, could in fact afford a mortgage, but a mortgage of a lower cost housing, if that is the way to put it. That is kind of where we are heading here with this issue.

Again, it is not a panacea for all our woes in housing, but it is just one effort to try and answer what we believe is a need and that is a little bit more cost effective housing for those who are not in the high end of the income bracket to afford a stand alone facility. Thank you.