Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Transportation, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have no knowledge as to why the contract was cancelled because it was not our contract. It was strictly the town's contract. We had no tender that was put forward relevant to the crushing in that pit.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Mr. Nitah, I am going to rule you out of order again here. You are asking what is his thinking? I will give you an opportunity to rephrase the question, taking into consideration your preamble to the question. Ask a question, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been a significant amount of work done in the last number of months. For myself as a new Minister, I have to look at that work. I have had my own concerns, as my colleagues will recollect, when I was a member of the Social Programs Committee. There are things we can do immediately. There are things that we are going to take a second look at, such as, in my opinion, the territorial health board concept.

One of the concerns I have is what has happened in this case is there has been a lot of planning done, but the politics and the paper got separated. We got too far ahead with a lot of paper and we did not do the consultation and the work that is necessary.

I want to very quickly meet with the deputy minister and get my briefings. I want to meet with the senior staff. I want to ask to have a chance to talk to the board chairs all within this month to look at what we can do right now. There are some quick wins we can achieve, I believe. There are many, I think, systemic irritants that can be dealt with as a matter of course as we look at the longer planning.

As well, I would like to have a very aggressive schedule to travel to the communities and to the constituencies, hopefully in the next 90 days, all with an eye towards being able to finalize with Cabinet a working document that will lay out the specific things we are going to do in addition to what I just talked about with the quick wins that we can do.

That is what I intend to do at this point, having had the portfolio for 16 hours. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am aware of the governance issues in my colleague's riding and we have an overlap issue as well with governance. I will commit to coming into his constituency. It may not be in the 17th hour, but I can assure the Member that I am committed to sitting down to try to resolve that issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question this morning is for the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen. It is in relation to the continuing and even more chronic housing shortage here in Yellowknife and I think it might reflect in Inuvik as well.

A quick illustration, Mr. Speaker. I know of one person who had an older trailer unit for rent in the city of Yellowknife and received 30 phone calls, let it go at $495 and then went on to get another phone call from Vancouver offering $850. The pressure on housing stock in Yellowknife is severe and it is not going to get any better.

My question for the Minister, Mr. Speaker, is what resources can this government bring to bear to help relieve and address the housing shortage in Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we are currently reviewing the EDAP policy to see if we can fit it into the Yellowknife market. We have met with private developers who inform us that they did not find it economical to put in new housing construction units. We are continually dealing with a number of agencies in the city, as well as Inuvik I might add, to look at other ways of introducing new home ownership programs in the city.

The Member is aware that we did meet, along with the Minister of Finance, with the City of Yellowknife to see if we can find more affordable land. We are undertaking a number of other initiatives. We are also talking with the housing market to see if it is practical to bring in modular homes as well, providing that the potential homeowners contribute more than 50 percent of the purchase price. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has quite capably covered a number of areas there. I think a longer-term solution to this is going to be a complicated one that is going to need a lot of people at the table. Specifically, it seems that lenders and the difficulty in getting mortgage insurance money is a problem. This is something, to my understanding, that really has a foundation with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Our government has some agreements in partnership with them.

I would like to be specific about mortgage insurance. Is there any movement in that area that will improve the lending and investment environment in Yellowknife? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were two points taken here. First of all, I would like to advise the Member that we are going back to meet with the federal Minister, Mr. Galliano, in November to see if we can make improvements to some of the recommendations that were made in London in August.

Secondly, we are continually working with other departments here to see if we can provide additional loan guarantees or other financing internally to help the development and meet some of the housing crisis here in the city. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to see the initiative with the federal Minister coming up later this month. Land and infrastructure development is a significant part of the start-up cost. Other governments, I think notably the Yukon, has a program where the territorial government will assist with the cost of infrastructure, that is roads, water and sewer, which will help enable new housing starts to begin. Is this government looking at that kind of assistance in high pressure housing markets such as Yellowknife and Inuvik? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am probably speaking about a success story of the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs when we did meet with the Town of Inuvik to identify various vacant Commissioner's land, which has turned into a housing development area. Hopefully, we can take that and make progress on it in our consultations with other municipalities that are experiencing the very same problem. We will hopefully have some solution to the problem and will carry on with formal discussions as we have previously. Thank you.