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.