Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a return to an oral question asked by Mr. Steen on March 16, 1999, on the Down Payment Assistance Program. Mr. Steen asked whether there was a residency requirement attached to the Minimum Down Payment Assistance Pilot Program (MDAPP).
Mr. Speaker, the objective of the MDAPP is to provide financial incentives to individuals or families, regardless of income, to become homeowners as a means of stimulating economic activity. The target audiences for this pilot program are NWT residents who lack the savings required for a down payment, those residents who may wish to move from one community to another in order to access employment or training opportunities and workers on rotational shifts who work in the NWT, but live in the south.
Mr. Speaker, because the NWT Housing Corporation is trying to attract these rotational workers to take up residence in the NWT, there is no residency requirement for this pilot program. If there was a residency requirement, Mr. Speaker, then these workers who earn a living in the NWT, but pay their taxes and spend their wages down south, would not be attracted to move up here.