Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, yes. When the Housing Corporation gets further into this it is a new activity. Up to now, the Housing Corporation has focused on social housing and various programs to help the private sector or individuals buy housing of their own. The ability of the Housing Corporation to do this is certainly within the parameters of their legislation. Again, this would be a new activity for them.

Mr. Dent.

I'm quite surprised at that; this sounds like a fairly major change in policy. Why was there no discussion with Regular Members that this has happened? Why is it taking until some five months later that we're finally hearing about it?

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, there's been volumes of discussion on this over the past four years. The issue is the challenge of getting housing into small communities. When the government got out of staff housing we expected the private sector to step in. There have been various initiatives to try to get their interest in it. It hasn't worked. This is not a major policy change, this is simply taking housing and moving the responsibility from FMBS over to the Housing Corporation. No policy had to change on the Housing Corporation side. It's an activity that when they get into it will be new for them, but it fits within their legislation. They are already, as I mentioned before, responsible for social housing and they have also had various programs to assist people to purchase housing from EDAP to MDAP to various other programs. To some extent, the Housing Corporation has already been in, in a different way, the private housing market. Thank you.

Mr. Dent.

It's a bit of an arcane argument, perhaps, but I guess I would argue that it represents a substantial shift in the activities of the Housing Corporation. Maybe there were volumes of discussion, but it was never presented to a standing committee that the mandate of the Housing Corporation was going to be exercised in this way. As the standing committee normally is responsible for oversight of the activities of the department or the corporation, one would have expected that the Regular Members who are charged with that oversight would be made aware of a substantial change like this.

I think one of the areas where this raises a whole concern is about whether or not there is now going to be adequate policing to make sure that there is no interference in a market where there might be a private entity. This government is on record as saying it was getting out of staff housing to support the development of the rental market in smaller communities. It's had programs to try and make community corporations and communities take on the provision of housing for teachers and nurses and so on, but we have never actually had the Housing Corporation going in and providing rental housing as this seems to be proposed.

How do we know the program is going to be exercised in such a way as not to provide competition to the private market that we've been trying to foster for the past five or six years?

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I think Mr. Dent's jumping ahead a little bit here because all that has happened so far is a transfer of the remaining staff housing units over to the Housing Corporation. That's 25 housing units that have been transferred to them. The Housing Corporation will be responsible for renting those units, selling those units, whatever they will do with them, at a no cost to the government basis. They will not be subsidized.

At the same time, the Housing Corporation has been asked to do a needs assessment of the housing needs in the non-market communities. That needs assessment is coming forward. Once we receive that needs assessment then there will be an opportunity, and I'll make a commitment on behalf of the Minister and myself, to bring that forward to a committee.

Clearly, this is within the parameters of the legislation of the Housing Corporation. They have been in private housing already under a different arrangement through the various down-payment assistance programs and so on. The needs assessment that is being done is only for non-subsidized housing. It's not a continuation of the programs on social housing. There's opportunity for the committees to be briefed before there's ever a major initiative in this area. All we're doing here, though, is moving the staff housing over to the Housing Corporation. Thank you.

Mr. Dent.

Mr. Chairman, if that's all we're doing then why do we have in here, in the schedule, the words "for the purpose of renting out the units to the general public"? It sounds to me that the decision has already been made about how the process works. This may be the right thing to do. I can't say it is or isn't because it's never been presented to me the arguments for why this is happening. I'm not trying to enter into that argument right now.

My point is that this is a change in the operations of the Housing Corporation. It may be good, but I don't know at this point in time because it's never been presented to me. My point is, I've been involved in the Assembly for 12 years and I don't recall the Housing Corporation undertaking this kind of operation. So if it's new, I would think that it would be something that would be presented to the Members of the Legislative Assembly.

Now, it could be presented to us with all sorts of fan fare as the best program since sliced bread, but it shouldn't be presented to us through the back door in a supplementary. It should be coming to us up front to discuss the policy. That, Mr. Chairman, is my point here. Not whether it's a good program or a bad program. The fact is I'm offended that we're hearing about it for the first time in a supplementary appropriation.

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I think I understand the point that Mr. Dent's trying to make. All I'll say is that these 25 housing units, the ones that were left, were on the responsibility of FMBS. They have now been transferred over to the Housing Corporation. Certainly we will put down as renting out the units to the general public. I hope that's what the Housing Corporation does with those units, that they don't just have them sit there empty. I don't understand Mr. Dent's point on that one. We want to have some revenue out of them. We want to also meet the housing needs in those non-market communities. So, that will happen. I don't see any big changes. The Housing Corporation, in fact, has been for a number of years now doing the property management for FMBS. It wasn't managed through FMBS, it was routed through the Housing Corporation. So there's no big shift here. All we've done is transferred the ownership of those units from the government over to the Housing Corporation.

In terms of, will this be the best program since sliced bread? That's possible. We don't know that yet, Mr. Chairman, until we see the needs assessment on non-subsidized housing. I hope it's the best program that we could put together on the housing.

Mr. Chairman, I don't see this as a big policy shift. We don't know for sure yet until we see the needs assessment. We'll bring that back to the committees and at that point make a decision of whether or not it's reasonable to proceed with it or whether it's something that we should shelve. Thank you.

Financial Management Board Secretariat

Financial Management Board Secretariat, directorate, not previously authorized, $1.71 million. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the same line of questioning. To transfer approved appropriations for transferred housing to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation as follows: operations expenditures, $926,000; amortization expense, $154,000; total of $1.8 million. Then they've got down listed as a negative. Can you tell us why it comes in as a negative amount?

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, because that money is moving out of the FMBS budget over to the Housing Corporation. So it's money coming out of this pocket. Thank you.

Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I'm interested in this item as well. The Minister indicated that this is not a big policy shift and in fact made the case that all we're doing is moving the staff housing responsibility from FMBS to the Housing Corporation. But I'm sure, or maybe I should ask, the record of decision coming out of Cabinet would just indicate that that's all that was going on with the shift of responsibilities. It wouldn't be a directive or an allowance for the Housing Corporation letting them get into the renting out of units to the general public in non-market communities on a non-subsidized basis? Because whether that's right or wrong, I'm not saying it's wrong, it may be, as Mr. Dent's indicated, a very good idea, but that in my mind is a policy shift. There's a record of decision coming out of Cabinet that that be what the Housing Corporation should do going forward, then that is a big policy shift, I would think.

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me clarify. This is not a transfer of staff housing. We got out of staff housing years ago. We haven't been in staff housing for years. What we had were some 25 housing units that are left over from the old days. Those have been owned by the government. Those housing units are being transferred over to the Housing Corporation and they're expected to rent those units or, if they have no need for them, to sell them. But they will manage them. That's just a transfer from FMBS over to the Housing Corporation.

In terms of the Cabinet direction, basically Cabinet direction was to...Cabinet or FMBS? FMBS direction, actually, not Cabinet. FMBS direction was to transfer the units over to the Housing Corporation and for the Housing Corporation to come back once they've done the needs assessment. I don't remember exactly what it was, but that is in effect what FMBS has asked for. The needs assessment should be coming forward shortly.

Mr. Bell.

Let me ask if the establishment policy for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation includes rental to the general public or does it just specifically mention social housing?