Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, my question to the Minister is in regard to the pilot project that has been taking place, especially in regard to the log houses.

I for one have been requested by the chief of Fort McPherson to look at the possibility of working out a program with the community and the band council to look at the possibility of constructing log houses for the band members in Fort McPherson, similar to the housing units that have been constructed in Tsiigehtchic, and especially the one that we had the opportunity to fish with Mr. George Nevechy of Tsiigehtchic.

I for one feel that initiative was a good one. I think we should expand that project. Knowing that it was a pilot project, however, we were able to see that it is evident that we can build log houses cheaper than in the past. People should have the opportunity to make use of the materials around us, especially where we do have large timber supplies and are able to have the client go out and get their own logs as part of their contribution to their houses and also for them to construct log houses.

I would like to ask the Minister, will he consider the possibility of the band in Fort McPherson to work in partnership with the Housing Corporation to look at such an endeavour?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, one of the positive aspects of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is we have the ability to work on some new initiatives. One of these new initiatives is the idea of log-constructed homes, not only for Fort McPherson, but also other communities across the Territories that have expressed an interest.

The way it works at the moment, the NWT Housing Corporation provides the building supplies and other needed amenities. From that, we also engage ECE in some of the training components and we have some investment from the local communities. The preference is that we support those local initiatives and we expect the potential homeowners to go and gather the logs and bring them into the specific community that is mentioned. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister tell us if it is possible for the band in Fort McPherson to take on such an initiative? We have seen that Fort McPherson is not part of your budgetary process for log homes. I feel that this project could go a long way, especially with the support of the band. They already have wood misers and equipment in the community and they have people with different skills. I think building them would help with the economics of it and being able to develop a skill that they could probably use elsewhere. It could allow them to expand the project to other communities within the Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I will speak to the manager of this because that has been widely requested across the Territories, to start looking at not only the construction of log houses, but also developing a training component. We do have an expert within the corporation who specializes in log construction and log building.

It is nice to hear the Member's question regarding whether we could deliver. I would like to give the Member the assurance that we have already begun the process not only in Tsiigehtchic, but in Deline and a number of other communities across the Northwest Territories where they have access to harvestable logs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I still have not heard a response to my question regarding the band in Fort McPherson being able to take advantage of this program. We hear about Deline and other communities, but this is an initiative the community wants to be able to get into. How is a community able to access such a program if they are not on the list already?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just trying to give the Member an overview of how we can facilitate that community request. Again, to be specific, it only requires a proposal from the community. We will have our officials go into the community and discuss the potential of this request with them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will put that forward to the band to put in a request.

The other area I mentioned is that a lot of people who have their own homes are trying to find alternative ways of bringing down the high cost of maintaining and operating their homes. One of the ideas I was approached on from the community of Aklavik was, what is the possibility of putting in another source of heat, which is wood, and having a program delivered through the Housing Corporation to use wood as a second source of heat, because of the high cost of diesel fuel and what not?

For some people, it is costing them over $1,000 just to fill up their fuel tanks. You are spending somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 just to heat the homes.

If there are ways of finding alternative sources of heat rather than diesel fuel by using wood, you will not be burning that much diesel fuel in your home and it would bring down the use of the furnace. It would not kick in as much and you would not be burning as much diesel fuel. Having a second source would really help with the high cost of trying to heat your home and the maintenance cost of that unit.

Will the Minister consider looking at that as a possibility of a pilot project or a proposal that could be put forth, so people who want to find an alternative to diesel heat, which is a high cost of almost 80 some odd cents a litre, it gets pretty expensive. Will the Minister consider looking at that?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I will provide this as a followup to an answer I provided in the House last week. We do already provide wood stoves. Also, I would like to mention to the Member that we will also offer it to those who want it. It is no big problem to us to offer to those residents who want to include wood heat as a secondary source in their homes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The way it stands right now, you have a choice between diesel and wood, but you do not have an opportunity to combine them so you can have both sources. I think that is where you have to make a revision to the program that is there now, because it limits you to one or the other. It does not give you the opportunity to combine them both. That is where I am coming from. In order to do that, you have to amend the program so it has that flexibility that you are not restricted. Will the Minister consider making that amendment to the program now so that you have the opportunity to use both sources of heat?

You may have a furnace today, but if this will bring down the cost of operating or maintaining the home, that should be the basis for it. If putting this in here will bring it down to a more manageable level for the homeowner so they can maintain their own homes, will the Minister look at that amendment or change to the existing programs?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to inform the Members of the House that there is no need to amend the policy. We do offer both. I think what needs to be done here is we need to develop this as part of our communications strategy and make the people aware this program does exist. Again, the question was raised last week if we did have a communications strategy. We do and we will incorporate this very part of it, the heating element, to the communications strategy in the communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to bring up a couple of things. First of all, regarding the harmonization program, I think the concept of having everybody pay some sort of rent and try to encourage people to seek employment is a good one. However, I have some problem when it comes down to charging the seniors rent in the communities.

We all know that, for the most part, a lot of the seniors are having financial problems as it is. A lot of the seniors are looking after their children and some of them are looking after their grandchildren. The dollars they receive do not go very far. I wanted to raise that.

Also, the concept of having students who are in post-secondary school also pay rent. These students are making very little dollars through the SFA. Most of them are getting $675 a month, I believe. That does not go very far. If we want to encourage our students to stay in school, we have to look at ways to help them financially. I do not think this is doing it justice by incorporating a rent that will create further hardship.

My other comment was regarding the EDAP program. This is a program that I voiced concern over several times now because I do not see it working in the communities I represent.

I do not believe we have very many houses that were built under this program. The ones we did get off the ground are facing very tough times. A lot of them had to be refinanced and last year, I think, we only got one in the community of Fort Providence. It is really not keeping up with the housing demand. I think we should be looking at this.

The way the program is set up, either you are making too much money or you are not making enough. So what happens in that case then is the dollars that are budgeted are, for the most part, going into the larger centres and we are not getting the houses in the communities.

In the case of the Hay River Reserve, they have a few houses under the IHP program, I believe, and Fort Providence has two. It really is not keeping up with demand.

In the year before last, we had 25 applications for housing in Fort Providence alone. We have only managed to put two IHP houses in there and one EDAP.

I really encourage the Minister to review this whole EDAP program and maybe look at restructuring it so we can accommodate more people in the communities.

One more thing I would like to mention, and it was raised to me by several seniors now, is a seniors' repair. We see a lot of cases where the seniors are getting houses through the IHP program. I believe there is going to be a senior strategy introduced pretty soon where seniors will get independent housing. However, a lot of these seniors who are put into independent housing are now facing difficulties with mechanical repair and even smaller items, such as changing doorknobs and jammed windows and stuff like that. I think there should be something introduced that would allow for assistance for the seniors.

Those are the three items I wanted to raise, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. There are not really any questions in there, but does the Minister want to respond to those? Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it is important that we do talk a bit about the harmonization policy, which is a joint effort between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and ourselves.

It is, of course, going to impact on the majority of the population. We are aware of that. It is a matter now of trying to see what is the best way of developing an approach that would alleviate some of the concerns. Those are not easy.

Secondly, in reference to the Member's statement in regard to his housing situation in the Deh Cho, our housing officials met with the Fort Providence Tribal Council and will work on trying to develop a community-specific program. We have the capability of doing that from community to community because everyone differs so much in how they approach the housing needs.

The last item on the EDAP program, in a lot of those non-market communities, it does not work. We are trying to adopt programs to do that. So what we have done in the last 12 months is to work with the communities in developing a partnership or working arrangement where we can join our combined resources to meet the objectives.

We know certainly EDAP may only apply in the tax-based municipalities where you have a housing market. Where they do not have a housing market per se, hopefully we will be able to work with the community in developing a housing market in that specific community. However, again, they are few and far between and we are aware of that.

Mr. Chairman, I think my three answers really capture the essence of the comments and the questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Roland.