Two questions. Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is indicating that I alluded to the fact that there were increased costs. My comments were that we wished to remove any potential for increased costs. As the Member knows, it's very difficult to calculate whether the BIP does cost us more or whether it costs us less, and that's a difficult calculation to make. In this case, we wanted to ensure we had removed any potential for increased costs and that we knew fairly comfortably that we were working with solid numbers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't believe the Minister is working with solid numbers and I don't accept what the Minister just stated that the Members are aware that it's hard to figure out the cost of the BIP. I don't accept that. That has been the government's position for the last Assembly. During the debate about the government exempting the BIP on the jail, that was a multi-million dollar project. If the government cannot figure out what the extra cost would have been on 22 mobile homes, I want to know what all the number crunchers are doing in the government if they can't figure that one out. I want to know from the Minister what information he used and the Cabinet used in waiving this policy. I'm telling you if you're going to exempt yourself from government policy, you better have the figures to back it up. You better say it's costing us X amount of dollars and it's worth it for us to exempt ourselves. So I want to know from the Minister what were his numbers. Thank you.

Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we've discussed this, as the Member indicated, yesterday. I informed the committee that we used the best-case and the worst-case scenarios that we could provide. It's very difficult to calculate these things, so what we did was calculate them on a best-case and a worst-case scenario. I have committed to the committee that we will compile all the information and it will be submitted to the committee. I will commit again to the Member that we will get this information to her. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Mr. Speaker, today my question is to the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. I would just like to say thank you for addressing the honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes with regard to the flat rate rent scale zone. I did bring it up yesterday in Committee of the Whole that it's something that my constituents were interested in. More specifically, the way it currently exists is that they're not interested in paying rent or mortgage on a fluctuating scale. I was just wondering if the Minister was looking at some other alternative where they can base the rent scale on let's say last year's annual income. I'm just wondering if perhaps the Minister is looking towards that at all.

Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, we have looked at the concept of a flat rent scale and, as I indicated in my response to Mr. Allen, it is not something that at this point we are looking at as an option. Right now our social housing programs have a ceiling of 30 percent of household income, and we are concerned that by going to a different methodology of calculating rent, we would allow our clients to have to pay higher than that. It would have effect on some of the groups. We would really be putting extra burden on especially our seniors and our singles. So it is not something we are looking at at this point. It is something that we are keeping an eye on or leaving open as an option as the CMHC funds decline, and we have to keep everything that is a possibility on the table. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As I understand more about the flat rate rent scale, I am not in a position to support an increase in the cost of living when it comes to one of the basic necessities, which is having a roof over your head. However, I am just trying to get the Minister to lean towards an appetite that my residents are interested in, which is to base their rent and/or their mortgages on last year's salary, instead of doing a month-by-month verification of income. I am just wondering if the Minister has looked at that and if there is

an appetite by the department to go in that direction. Thank you.

Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, we haven't recently been looking at any changes to the way we apply our rent scales to our public housing units. In fact, we are in the process where we are trying to increase and encourage homeownership. Our rent scales reflect what the client is making, we do an assessment on a month-to-month basis; however, if the Member is encouraging or would like us to take a look at the whole policy again, and look at a longer term, then maybe it is a good opportunity or a good time to review the situation. We have more people entering the workforce, so we can take another look at it and come back with some comments for the Members.

Supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I am glad that the Minister is willing to be flexible and open to this whole question, and willing to address it. I think I brought it up, as well as the household income, anything else like running a business, you operate best once your expenditures are fixed, and, of course, rent and/or mortgage is one of the biggest expenditures that any one person and/or family has. So this is just one of my ideas of stabilizing household income as well as maybe reducing some of the overhead with regard to maintaining the current program the way it exists for the department. I am glad that the Minister would be willing to look at that. What process would kick in from the department that would address this process of re-evaluating rent and/or mortgage scales? Thank you.

Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I hope I was fairly clear that we would take the opportunity at this time to direct our officials to take a look at how we charge rent. We have to recognize the nature of a lot of our clients in our public housing units are on the low income side of the wage scale. More and more of our clients are seasonal workers, therefore the income fluctuates throughout the year. We have to have a system in place that is responsive. The current system has proven that it works. Although it has its problems, as the Member has indicated, it allows for huge spikes when a person goes from not working to finding a job. Again, we will commit to the Member that we will take a look at the system we have in place, and make comments back to the Member.

Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much. I would like to thank the honourable Minister for his reply. My next question is should we be leaning towards this direction? What is our relationship to the local housing organizations in each of the communities, and how can we say this is the direction we are going and do we have input into how they run their boards? Thank you.

Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our relationship with the local housing associations or authorities is a partnership arrangement. We have signed universal partnership agreements with roughly half of the LHOs in the Territories. These agreements will be kicking in on April 1st of this year. As per sending a directive, I don't know if that is the way we want to approach it, but if we could come up with a better way to appraise the rent and do assessments, we certainly will bring that to their attention and encourage them to utilize it. Thank you.

Colleagues, I would like to draw your attention to the visitors' gallery. We have a class from Range Lake North School, the grades 6 and 7 classes, with the principal Sandra Bowden, teachers David Speakman and Mr. Spencer Lyman, and also one of the parents, Mrs. Eleanor Young. I would like to welcome Eleanor. I know Eleanor from her many days up in Holman Island with the Beaufort-Delta leaders meetings. So I would like to welcome you to the House and hope you learn something here today, and if not come back and we will try to redo it all over again. Welcome to the House.

---Applause

Item 6, oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I want to direct my question to the Minister of Transportation. Mr. Speaker, this has to do with the fact that the Department of Transportation had figured there should be no improvements to Highway No. 6 in the foreseeable future. Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out again the importance of this highway link for residents of Deninu Kue insofar as travelling to the Hub -- Hay River -- to pick up medical supplies, prescriptions, dental and banking, and many other activities that members of Deninu Kue and the settlement of Little Buffalo River rely on on a daily basis. The volume of traffic has been increasing over the last two years due to the fact that we lost our air service. Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Minister to tell me how the department measures the volumes of traffic on the highway systems, and what the criteria is to prioritize the amount of work that should be on each road system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.