Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister then further reassure me that the 36 units built in Inuvik are all designated for social accommodation?

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will ask the president to respond to that directly. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is really hard to interpret when the Housing Corporation is moving into an area that should be market driven. In this case it is my understanding that the Housing Corporation is providing financing to construct the units and, in fact, not all the units are social housing. Can he confirm if they provided some up-front money for the people in Inuvik? I thought I heard him say that there are 12 units that are not for social housing.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The NWT Housing Corporation did not up-front any monies, but we did put out a request for proposal (RFP) last year to provide the NWT Housing Corporation with 36 rent supp units in Inuvik. There were 36 existing rent supp agreements and the owner decided to add those 12 extra units at his own expense. That is how it became a total of 48. The 36 are rent supp units for the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have to take a look at the whole situation in more detail before I can ask any more questions along that line. I will just change my line of questioning to projects that are being constructed, or contracts that are being awarded in the smaller communities. I am especially concerned that a lot of contracts are being tendered out and we see these units get partially built and then they are sitting there for many months on end. I would like to know what is the stand on how long it takes to construct a house? How long is that, and how long after the deadline does the Housing Corporation give before they move in and take over the project?

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not familiar with the construction time table, but normally a house of standard size, say 1,000 square feet, would normally take four to six months to completion date. We do monitor the construction phases, so I am again going to ask the president to reconfirm what our expectations are of the contractors under a tender. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just reviewing the NWT Housing Corporation Act itself, the powers and duties of the corporation, it says:

The corporation shall carry out the duties and functions provided for by this Act and may carry out other duties and functions related to any program of housing or housing development that may be assigned to it and, without restricting the generality of the above, the corporation may provide, develop, maintain and manage housing for:

1. (a) senior citizens;
2. (b) families and individuals receiving social allowances or social assistance;
3. (c) individuals requiring minimal nursing care;
4. (d) families and individuals generally;
5. (e) students or apprentices and their families;
6. (g) co-operative or non-profit organization housing accommodation.

Under the power and duties under (b), it says: "Families and individuals receiving social allowance or social assistance." I would like to ask the Minister how that responsibility falls in line with the increases that we are going to see with regard to delivery of the programs and services. That is one of the responsibilities that you have within the Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is difficult to understand the question, but again if there is emphasis to be placed on the specific area then obviously we need to look at our public housing program and how we deliver it in terms of those who are in need and those who cannot afford home-ownership. Obviously our obligation is to then take a look at those who would qualify under our public housing program, and there is a process in place where we have agents in the communities who have a board of directors that would evaluate the clients through an application process. If that is the gist of the question, then that would be my reply. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the key words there are families and individuals who receive social assistance. One of the things that I see happening more often is that there seem to be more restrictions put on families, or grandparents and their grandchildren, or the immediate family. Those aboriginal organizations have large family units. In a lot of our communities you are either related to half the town or the other half is related to someone else. With respect to these large family units, because of the restrictions you put in place, especially if a senior or a grandmother has her grandchildren or her nieces or nephews or even her daughters who may want to come to visit or stay over for a couple of months, we penalize them. We tell them that they cannot have so and so staying with them, you will be penalized or your rent is going to be increased. I think this government should be avoiding those types of circumstances.

Also in a lot of those communities you do not have any alternative places for these people to live. You made a comment earlier about people moving to the larger centres and regions, and that is one of the reasons why. A lot of people who go back to their home communities end up living with their parents or their grandparents, and you become a burden on your own family and you have these arguments within your own family, "It is your fault that my rent went up, so get out" sort of thing.

As a government we should not be implementing these types of restrictive policies which basically condemn families. If anything, we should be promoting families to start living together and being more of a cohesive unit so that the grandmother can enjoy her grandchildren or nieces and nephews, to spend time with the family, instead of penalizing them because they might have come in. They may have a part-time job as a summer student and stayed with their grandparents, then they went off to school and the grandparents are stuck holding the bag. The Housing Corporation says, "Sorry, you had Johnny staying with you over the summer and this is how much he made. That is considered income, so now that is going to be put against you."

I find it awfully hard, especially when you know that these people come back home and they want to spend time with their parents and they want to spend time with their grandparents, but it does cause a lot of frustration within the family with regard to the emotional and mental disruption that this causes to families. I would like to ask the Minister if there is anyone looking at the whole area of reuniting families in these communities, looking at some of these regulations and policies you may have which restrict the ability of families to start living together and spending time together without being penalized?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are two key points that I would like to respond to in the context of the question. One is in regard to as a Minister, I am working on leading a discussion within the Housing Corporation to equate the total household income so that those families that are impacted, who have the ability to buy or purchase a home, either through SOPHI or one of the existing programs, most preferably EDAP. The other is to revisit some of our policies that require us to either revise them or redraft the whole policy that would be consistent.

Again, the emphasis here is to deal with it in the context of the universal parts of agreements where the communities have control over some of the problem areas that surfaces from time to time through either quick policy shifts or subtle ones. So we see a number of good ownership programs that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation changed in 1997. In light of the fact that we know that there is going to be some funding eliminated from CMHC, we need to look at that in the longer term.

Mr. Chairman, I feel that we do have to sit down and discuss some basic policy changes so that we can commit to adapt to the changing environment as well. Thank you.