Thank you. I am actually surprised to hear that there is such a policy in place. I would like to ask the Minister if you could provide me with that. My next question is regarding evictions during the winter months. It was always something that many people assumed was not possible, to evict people out of their homes during the winter.

The Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That policy rests with the local housing authority or the LHO. We certainly can, in the future, ascertain that policy where there may not be any evictions, or certainly encourage them not to occur. I certainly want to take that and put it as a priority of the NWT Housing Corporation in terms of its relationship with the LHOs so that it does not reoccur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not sure of the exact numbers, and I do not have all the names of everybody who is being evicted, but we have some seniors on the list for eviction in Fort Providence. Now, the seniors do not pay rent, so I would like to know if the Minister would take a look at this situation in particular, because I do not understand. Is it because they have children who are living with them, and the senior then becomes responsible for payment? I am not clear how this could happen, that we are going to be kicking out some of our seniors and putting them out into the cold. Could the Minister commit to looking into this situation, especially in the case of Fort Providence?

The Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will begin by saying that we want to do an operational review of the LHOs to ascertain the level of problems. There are those who are being adversely affected, such as a senior. Their rent is based on the household income, so we want to look at a number of different areas that do affect the tenant or who the house is awarded to as a tenant. Certainly I want to let the Member know that we will do an operational review to at least itemize several of the problems that may occur from time to time. Thank you.

Mr. McLeod.

I am glad to hear the Minister say that. I am hoping he will do this in a timely manner. The majority of these people who have been evicted are moving in with their parents, so it is going to be a compounding problem. As they move into their parents' low rental houses, the parent is going to have to pay additional rent. It is just a matter of time before we are evicting practically the whole community out of their units, because it is something that is growing. I understand there is another eviction list that is being developed. We are looking at upwards of 15 families being evicted in the next while. I do not know where it is going to end and I think it just points to the fact that we have a problem. It has to be dealt with.

That is what I wanted to state when I first started speaking, that we have a double standard. We have communities in the North where nobody pays rent, yet in some communities, in this case, we are having to deal with a lot of people who are going to be evicted. We have seven families now. We are looking at more. We are also looking at many people on the arrears list for land taxes. So it is not a small issue here that we are looking at. It is a huge issue that affects a lot of different families.

However, I wanted to ask the Minister, when it comes to home-ownership, in building homes that would be owned by the client or the people in the community, we are only building at the rate of two a year in Fort Providence, while our waiting list is upwards of 30. When I see committees like AOC or Regular Members state to the department that they should be looking to take some of this surplus that we had this year for, I think it was $160 million, and they do not tap into that budget. It makes me wonder if the Minister feels that we have adequate housing in the communities. Is that his position?

The Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to start from the reverse back to the front, saying that it is not my position. Again, I want to emphasize what we feel is important and that we need to look at the communities case-by-case and that we do enter into agreements with the aboriginal development corporations, as well as community organizations, to find creative solutions to a number of housing problems.

I recognize that there is a fiscal dilemma here, but the overall intent is to ensure that we have a mix-and-match of approaches here, that we can identify by either single housing initiatives or having more senior housing initiatives.

In the broader context, we do want to promote EDAP through a number of the communities who can afford it. For those who cannot afford it, to implement more of the independent housing programs. I want to let the elected Member know that we have considered all elements of our housing and home-ownership programs so that we can help the communities benefit. Again, development is through a number of processes here, either through the aboriginal development corporations or through the UPAs or PAs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of areas that I would like to explore, one of them that we have already seen some ground covered on is in the communities, especially Yellowknife and Inuvik, where there is accelerated growth in the economy. The options that residents and potential newcomers to these communities have are very, very limited. Here in Yellowknife, there is some optimism, at least on the construction front, regarding apartment buildings. It seems that a number of private developers are going ahead on some existing land options. We hopefully will see a reasonably quick turnaround in our basic vacancy rate in Yellowknife. I will not speak for Inuvik, but in the capital, there is some optimism for some short-term relief.

It addresses apartments. We are still looking at ways to enhance the diversity of our housing stock in the capital city. In the area are things such as condominiums, mobile home units, and individual stick-built houses. I wanted to ask the Minister and the department, in the tax-based communities, what options does the Housing Corporation provide that will enable diversity in our housing stock for families and individual home-owners? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to speak to generalities and then I will ask the president to set out some more concrete answers to this. Yes, I have been in several discussions as well with members of the Yellowknife community and some have suggested, as recently as Saturday, that we should talk to the aboriginal governments to set out leases such as they do with the Musqueam Reserve in British Columbia as a method to overcome some of the land problems. That seems to be the core of the housing problems here in the city.

They also discussed the feasibility of going to pump out water systems that would go away from the main artery of the city which is on a piped system. Those are some of the concepts that have been raised and I am prepared to discuss that with our senior officials, but again, in terms of the tax-based municipalities, they certainly want to introduce other housing options providing we can work with the municipalities on some land regimes and some land costing.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, ask the president to reply more to the concrete question. Thank you.

Mr. Beaulieu.

Mr. Braden.

Thank you. Those are directions that I can support. I guess what I am seeking here, Mr. Chairman, is an indication that the Housing Corporation is a leader and certainly one of the agencies with reasonably deep pockets that is going out into the community and looking for partners, options and ideas that can help open up more land.

The Minister alluded to this and he brought me into the second area of questioning, which is the need for affordable land. Before houses and apartments can be built, we need to have land that is ready to go, that is serviced to have the things in it that we need to help build a community. Here is where the collaboration, especially between the Housing Corporation and MACA, is very critical along with the municipal level of government.

It is in that area that I wanted to probe a bit more. The Minister mentioned one very interesting possibility there and that is to work with aboriginal corporations and First Nations that are within city limits or neighbouring the city. Can I go to, specifically, the collaboration that should be there between MACA and the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation? It seemed that was lacking in some of the reports we had earlier. I wanted to ask the Minister what he is doing to address that collaboration with his colleague and neighbouring department. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the Member for that question because it was something I had worked on before I had my portfolio changed to another department. It is still a very good question and I want to say my interest remains in that, because under the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation Act we can also have investment in terms of land development. We recognize that there is a major cost here in the city. We want to, again, as the Member put it so eloquently, collaborate with the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs to try and identify through their own capability of accessing Commissioner's land or turning that over to the municipality and then begin to discuss the feasibility of developing it for home-ownership.

Of course, that will fall under one of our key categories in research and development, the analysis of that, so we certainly feel there is an ongoing requirement to liaise with MACA and also the city to identify what we deem as affordable development areas within the city that still remain as Commissioner's land. We will continue that discussion with MACA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To another important partner in the whole housing landscape here, and that is the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I would like to ask the nature of our agreements with the corporation. A bit later in the budget document, we have some details of several areas we rely on for, it looks like about half, of our revenues. A significant piece here.

What is the long-term nature of our agreements with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Mr. Chairman? Thank you.

Mr. Minister.