Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The development of the Assembly's position on housing is one that is very high up on the radar screen, very close to all of our constituents, no matter what riding we are from. We are addressing these needs, Mr. Speaker, through our voices here in the Assembly, through our research, through our participation in forums, in housing seminars, in meetings and workshops with our constituents and with the non-government organizations, Mr. Speaker, which are so incredibly valuable to the delivery of housing programs for those in need, for the homeless, for the disadvantaged. Mr. Speaker, there are aspects of this that really must be recognized. It is something we have to remind ourselves of.
Sixty percent of the entire budget of this government -- that is about $600 million -- is delivered through non-governmental organizations and boards and authorities. Now when we are looking at something as all-encompassing as housing in our society, this is something that touches on many different organizations. It is through
the dedication and commitment and passion of those volunteer-lead organizations like the YWCA, the Salvation Army here in Yellowknife and housing authorities, that we're taking our queues and getting our signals and bringing the attention, bringing the focus, bringing the momentum and the urgency, Mr. Speaker, for the needs that are outlined in this motion. In fact, when we were drafting this, we went from single line furthermores and therefores, Mr. Speaker, to almost two pages, trying to decide how we are going to help keep this message at the top of the radar screen. How are we going to get it through, how are we going to do something that is going to get action and results? We honed this down, Mr. Speaker, to five different areas that we feel are at the very top of the radar screen, and this is what our motion addresses. So to the motion, Mr. Speaker, a coordinated housing program for seniors and disabled persons.
I have attended a number of different workshops and forums in the five years that I've been an MLA, Mr. Speaker. I've seen that we are, as a relatively young jurisdiction, developing our social safety net. We're not doing too bad a job in terms of the policy side. We're listening. We are growing and maturing as a government, in realizing and doing what we can to deliver these kinds of services. But we do have a long way to go in terms of coordinating and really delivering, in as many communities as possible, what the disabled and senior people really have come to so rightfully deserve in other parts of Canada. We're getting there, but we cannot stop at the basis of a piece of paper and policy.
Mr. Speaker, our motion also calls on the government to pursue initiatives with aboriginal organizations, DIAND, and CMHC, to secure additional funding to address aboriginal housing needs. This is where during question period I spoke to the potential of a very powerful partner to be brought into this. This is the weight and strength financially and, of course, to the communities, to the people of the aboriginal development corporations and First Nations. I think there is a natural fit here if we, as a government, can think outside that box and look for really innovative ways to involve other people in arriving at these solutions.
Mr. Speaker, we also heard considerable traffic about the need for government to make sure that when we're going to make an investment or a move into a community, that we do so with the basis of some research and knowledge and confidence about what is going on in a particular community. The market housing initiative, whatever you want to call it, is a prime example of that. In fact, it's almost a contradiction in terms that we're trying to introduce in non-market communities or those that don't have a viable private sector market of their own, we're trying to inject or impose the idea that there can be conventional market housing. If this was possible, Mr. Speaker, doesn't it make sense that there would already be something there? Why are we trying to jam something into a community that is contrived or artificial or really has no basis of success or sustainability from that community's point of view?
The Minister has made a very strong point and, in fact, it was at least in part at the urging of Members on this side of the House that we wanted to have housing solutions delivered to those small communities so they could stand at least that much more of an opportunity, more of a chance to keep their essential workers, their health workers, their teachers, the social service workers, so that at least we wouldn't have the excuse or reason or cause of poor or inadequate housing as the reason these communities can't keep these people. We continue to endorse it, we need to have that. The way our government is delivering that service has certainly brought this into question and that was the reason, Mr. Speaker, for that particular part of this motion.
I have focused on the need for what I think is an extremely serious long-term problem for this government, and that would be the loss over the next 30 or so years. It might seem like a long time, but it has happened to us every year. We're losing, bit by bit, tens of millions of dollars that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation was injecting into the Northwest Territories. The opportunities that we have to replace that with our own devices, I would say we're kidding ourselves, Mr. Speaker, if we think we can do this from our own resources and with the conventional ways of thinking that we have always brought to bear on this. We've got to get going on this one. It will become a much more serious issue not only on our revenue side, but on our expenditures side. Certainly, Mr. Speaker, from the point of view of the health and wellbeing and the wellness of our communities and families, we have to attack this.
Homelessness is another one of those situations, Mr. Speaker, when good times, boom times come, there are inevitably people who are forced out of that stream of wealth and prosperity and really fall into the cracks. It's been something that really hasn't been that much of an issue. It really is not that large and has not been a chronic situation, I think, until in very recent years. Mr. Speaker, especially in our larger communities now where the wealth and the attraction is coming, we're finding that those people, the truly homeless, are becoming much more evident on our streets and businesses, in back alleys and homes. Here in Yellowknife one signal of this is the amount of crime, Mr. Speaker, that is happening in our businesses and in our suburbs. This is at least one sign that homelessness really is here. It is here to stay and we have to do things to deal with it.
Mr. Speaker, those are my general comments in support of this motion. We covered here how many different departments? We covered the Housing Corporation, of course; we covered Finance; I suppose we could also say that somewhere in here was the Minister responsible for homelessness. But I would conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying that each and every one of our Ministers and the Premier within our portfolios has got a very direct and a very large mandate and responsibility for the state of housing and homes in the Northwest Territories. None of our departments and none of our Ministers can dodge this one and I hope that we can engage them all in this very critical government-wide, territory-wide, society-wide issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause