Mr. Speaker, that is pure speculation on the Member's part, that that would happen here. I don't believe that it would. I don't think that the department or the administration now is interested in doing that. I think the interest is genuinely there to make sure that we are doing procedures properly and to identify areas if we are not so that we can strengthen the good and replace the bad. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some more questions, and perhaps tomorrow I will ask these questions, but the last question I have for the Minister today is I just wanted to know how this experiment of going from a security type of institutional setting that typifies a correctional facility to this healing and holistic type of programming is going. What success has been seen to date? If I could, Mr. Speaker, I also wanted to ask how including federal inmates that are housed in the North Slave Correctional Centre impacts this healing and holistic approach and how they are dealt with with the federal inmates as well? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My learned colleague on the other side has certainly found a way to get in 23 questions when you are only supposed to have four. I will answer those last two, though. In regards to including the federal inmates within the population, it is important to remember that the institution is not maximum

security. So the types of individuals who would be considered for placement there by Corrections Canada are going to be consistent with the type of individual that we have in the population generally right now. We certainly take a look at people. If somebody is not suitable to the population, they don't have to stay within our population. They could find themselves transferred to an institution down south very quickly if they turn out to be not suitable. I have been aware of a number of times that that has happened just in the months that I have been Minister. I know that that sort of issue is watched very carefully. In terms of whether or not this experiment has turned out to be a success, that is like asking, after we expand schooling to include kindergarten, whether or not it is a success after six months. You can't say that. It is way too early to give that sort of answer. This will take a number of years to prove whether or not it was the right thing to do. What we do know is that the old standard of throwing them into jail and throwing away the key wasn't working. It wasn't accomplishing anything. It wasn't helping people to stop from coming back. Jail was just a revolving door. They got out, they came back. There was nothing that we could point to that was helping people to become ready to participate in society. We are hoping that this experiment will work, but it will be some time before you can point to empirical evidence to show it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Item 8, written questions. Honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are to the Minister of MACA regarding the water treatment plant in Fort Good Hope.

At the Sahtu elders' gathering in Deline on August 9th to 12th of this year, several of Fort Good Hope's elders wanted to know about the quality of the water at the Fort Good Hope treatment plant.

1. How often is the water "tested" for quality purposes?
2. What types of maintenance are done on the treatment plant and how often?
3. Are there other water treatment plants in the Northwest Territories similar to Fort Good Hope's?
4. Will the department meet with the Fort Good Hope elders to talk about the results of the report once completed?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of committees on the review of bills. Item 13, tabling of documents.

In accordance with section 21 of the Retiring Allowances Act, and section 11.1 of the Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act, I hereby table the Pension Administration Report - Retiring Allowances Act and Supplementary Retiring Allowances Act, at March 31, 2004.

Item 14, notices of motion. Item 15, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 16, motions. Item 17, first reading of bills. Item 18, second reading of bills. Item 19, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.

I move for a break.

---Laughter

I will ask again, what is the wish of the committee with respect to these two Ministers' statements?

We wish to consider the Sessional Statement, Madam Chair.

Is the committee agreed?

Okay. We will take a break.

---SHORT RECESS

I will call Committee of the Whole to order, and the first item we have today is Minister's Statement 48-15(3), Sessional Statement, that was presented by Premier Handley. Are there any general comments? We're going to ask Premier Handley to respond to any comments and questions from where he's sitting in the Chamber and I would ask the Members if there are any general comments. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Certainly I'm really pleased to see some of the updates and some of the achievements of our visions that we had when we began the Assembly, that we developed in January and February; in particular with regard to the challenging needs of our health and social services needs of all the communities and our whole territory. There was also some progress on addressing our formula financing needs. In particular, I think one of the best things that we've achieved so far to date, of course, is balancing our budget for the 2003-2004 fiscal year. That was quite an

achievement in itself and that's one of the things that the constituents that I represent certainly were looking for when they asked me to represent them as MLA for the Nahendeh riding.

That being said, a lot of the constituents have been saying housing is indeed a priority for all the residents and communities, not only in my riding, but throughout the NWT as a whole. My opinion on that is that it doesn't seem that the government is making it as high a priority as everything else. Some of our achievements to date could make room for making housing more of a priority. I believe over the last three or four years we say housing is a priority, Madam Chair, but our budget continually seems to decline in the housing area. I'd like to bring that to the forefront and say if housing is such a priority for our government, then let's actually do something about it. I know that we're trying to address that the best that we can now, but some of the things we're going to need even I don't like saying, but we need a huge capital injection just to get some sustainable baseline for housing.

I'd just like to know what the government's plan for housing in the next year or few years is in terms of making it an actual priority for our government. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member's comments and we have been working hard to achieve our strategy that we collectively set out. I also must say that I'm satisfied with the progress we've made in a number of areas. I agree that housing continues to probably be the single biggest and most widespread problem. There are very few communities without issues around housing.

I just want to make a few comments and then I'd like to, Madam Chair, ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to provide more detail on what we may be doing. We have, as you know, as we've said in this House, tried the non-subsidized or unsubsidized housing project which, I think, worked with considerable success. I know Mr. Krutko has met with the federal Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation along with our MP, Minister of Northern Development. He has also looked at some potential projects that we could undertake with those who are providing temporary accommodation for pipeline workers, assuming that the pipeline goes ahead.

In terms of capital injection, yes, we probably do need a capital injection in housing, but at the same time we also need to continue to work toward having people become more self-reliant, more responsible for the care and maintenance of their own homes, so they have that sense of pride. That will continue to be a theme that our government will carry out, as well as trying to meet the capital needs that are necessary.

Madam Chair, I'd like to ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation if he would like to elaborate on this further. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. I've had several meetings with key stakeholders in this. I have met with the Minister responsible for Housing, Mr. Fontana. I've met with Ethel Blondin-Andrew, who is now the Secretary of State responsible for Northern Development. I also had a meeting with Bill Erasmus with AFN. They also are looking at housing being one of the critical issues, especially for First Nation communities across Canada.

It is high on the agenda across the nation and I think by building these working relationships through reorganizing and realizing our challenges are different in the North, I think we do need a major influx of program dollars. CMHC backed out of the whole area of social housing a number of years ago and now we're feeling the effects of that. In the last two years we've had a decline in the amount of money we get for social housing from CMHC. I think because of that, we have to be motivated into finding new ways of continuing to deliver programs and continuing at a faster pace.

I've also been meeting with people in the different sectors with regard to people in the manufacturing sectors and also with our market housing. Regarding market housing, as far as I've seen it, we have put 22 units in place. They're still not occupied yet. Again, there are 66 beds in seven communities that weren't there before. We have to try these different initiatives of trying to meet the many restraints we have, especially in smaller communities. The investment has dropped off, but I think we have to work with other organizations.

We have a major project on our doorstep with regard to the pipeline. We're looking at 300-man camps that are going to be constructed up and down the valley for the construction of this pipeline. I think working with industry, making them aware that we have to have a legacy that when these projects happen that at the end of the day we're not left without anything. One of the things I've been working on with the different companies is looking at the pre-design, preconstruction of these units that are going to come to the Northwest Territories and design them in such a way that they're able to configure them so they can be converted from industrial trailers into usable residential units. That's another way that we can look at not only saving costs for ourselves, but making these units affordable to people in communities that can use them right after these projects are over. That we don't have these massive camps which get trucked in, put on a barge, taken up to the project, used for three years and then demobilized, put back on the barge, sent back south and that's the end of it. I think we have to be unique in how we look at housing. So we are looking at it in different areas.

But I think as Members of the Legislative Assembly and ourselves, we do have to look outside the box. We're always restricted to CMHC standards. We have to follow their rules. They tell us what programs to deliver, but I think we have a unique opportunity here now with looking at the mandate of the corporation. We should be tabling here shortly phase two with regard to our needs surveys. We need to look at the seniors, single people and disabled people, how they fit in this picture and come forward with our 10-year plan and see where we go in the next 10 years. We want to work with Members in the House to find ways to get us out of this hiccup. We have to do something drastic to find the money to build almost 3,000 units just to meet the demand that's there right now.

We have had the private sector come on board, assisting us in different areas, but again, we have to find new ways of building these partnerships with the federal government, with AFN through the aboriginal funding programs they have, ourselves as government and people in the private sector. So those are some of the things that we are looking at to try and move ahead. But definitely having an influx of resources in this area will definitely help, because there are some communities where we've seen a little bit of decline with regard to the needs surveys and seeing that we have made some gains in that area. In other areas we have not seen the change. The numbers are still constant. We have to start trying to find ways of being open-minded to realize that we may need to try something different. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. With five seconds on the clock, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank the Premier and the Minister for their kind response and I think above all, if anything, I'd just like to say to the government let's highlight this, let's move it up on our agenda. Let's take more of an active approach on addressing our needs.

In my riding alone, I think there's one particular community that really skews it. It's actually Fort Liard. Just for that place alone to get all their houses back up to snuff, be it for whatever reason that their houses have been left by the wayside and it hasn't really been addressed. I always tell people Fort Liard is always left out in the cold just because on the geographic map, they actually are in the corner and people forget about them, but I'm not. I was just talking with some of the housing experts. We're looking at almost $750,000 for that community alone just to get things back up to square one and address those needs. The Premier himself said in his statement, healthy people need healthy homes. It's one of the basic necessities in life.

With that, I'd just like to encourage the government to continue. Every time we do sessional statements or produce updates on our vision for this Assembly, we keep moving housing higher and higher to the forefront. I'm proud of the Minister, too, for speaking with the federal Ministers, because I was never very comfortable with CMHC. I think it was over a 10-year period they were going to decline our social programming dollars down to nothing. I still think that we do have a case in saying it's premature. In fact, we're not even self-sufficient. I'll just conclude with that, Madam Chair. Mahsi cho.