Thank you, Madam Chair. I wouldn't dwell too long on this Housing Corporation because a lot of my colleagues have pretty well raised a lot of the questions that I wanted to ask the Minister. But I would just like to make a few general comments.

It was interesting to hear the Minister indicate yesterday that they have for sale signs in some of these units in some of the communities. There are a bunch of interested people in these units. Get rid of them. Get it out of their hair for now and let the people take care of it. For that only, Madam Chair, I wouldn't dwell too much.

Also, Madam Chair, with regard to the market housing initiative because I was a strong believer at the start with regard to what happened last year with the 22, but after consideration, Madam Chair, I am sort of having second thoughts because I think this program is important for the smaller communities and isolated communities. It is very hard to have units available for professionals. I think, for now, for the MHI, I will support the program for this year. I hope they consider looking at least putting a couple of them, one in Sachs Harbour and one in Paulatuk, which will address some of the concerns with regard for the teachers and nurses over there.

But having said that, Madam Chair, I think the department should work very closely with MACA and with the Power Corporation with regard to all of the services required, not just rush in there and they don't have any place to put them. You need that long-term planning that has to be ongoing right now, Madam Chair.

I just have a couple of questions with regard to the $2.5 million for the emergency repair which also would apply to seniors. Is there any stipulation for the seniors when they have to apply for this funding? As I understand, back in my home community, at least one person in Tuktoyaktuk actually was sold one of the units. I don't know to this date, I haven't had a chance to talk to him; but when they did buy that unit, the floor fell on them and the windows weren't changed. Are there any stipulations for the elders that can access this fund?

The other question I have is with regard to the transfer of funds from NWT Housing Corporation to EEC with regard to the public housing. It was interesting when I went back home over the weekend. Some of the LHOs said they were kind of worried because they were wondering what was going to happen with regard to their jobs. I think if the Minister can get his district manager in the Inuvik regional office to go down and explain to them exactly how the transfers are going to take place and how it is going to affect LHOs. I can do that, but right now, I will leave it up to the department to do that, talk with the LHOs.

Lastly, Madam Chair, I think one of the big concerns that may have been raised already was with regard to the sunset in 2038. Does the department have anything or are they planning any future funds for after the sunset clause comes in place? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in regard to the seniors repair programs and the emergency repair programs, like the Member mentioned, we do have a limit. It is all based on income. So, basically, people with low income don't have to pay. People who have a higher income may have to pay a portion of it. It works out to $30,000 for emergency repairs and then in regard to the senior repair programs, it's based on applications. Again, that is the way that works. But also, the Member touched on the employees and the social transfer. We have been holding workshops over the last couple of months with our maintenance people, with our LHO staff, and it is working with them and we are making them aware that the transition is not going to happen overnight. It is going to happen over the next year. At the end, they will play a key role in the continuing work that has to go on in regard to collections and counselling. I think their jobs will be secure in that area.

We are working with the Department of Education to ensure that they also have to be involved in this transitional process. It is not just simply between the Housing Corporation and Education, because they play a key role in delivering.

The question you raised in regard to the social decline and social funding over the next couple of years is 2038, that decline is right across Canada. It is not only here in the North. Every jurisdiction across Canada has seen that. But one thing we are working on is that we are developing a northern housing strategy to take to the federal government and meeting with the Housing Ministers from across Canada to develop a new housing program for the next decade because the ones that we have now are almost at their five-year lifespan. That is the commitment we got from the federal Minister and also the provincial ministers that we are going to start developing new housing programs for the future. Through our northern housing strategy, that is where we hope to really have an impact on developing a made-in-the-north housing strategy that meets our needs. That is the way we are hoping to head off the declining $30 million that is there in regard to social funding. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regard to the Senior Citizens Home Repair Program, would that apply to seniors who are retired and have a fixed income? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the whole idea of ensuring that seniors stay in their homes is to assist them through our different social programs, fuel subsidy and the repair program, so that we keep them in their homes as long as we can by these assistance programs, and also your tax rebates. I think this is one of them where it is there to ensure they have those repairs. But one commitment that I have made in the House is that the Housing Corporation will now include those seniors on their maintenance list for the Housing Corporation, so then the Housing Corporation will go into those seniors' homes and do their annual furnace cleaning or checking their water tanks and making sure that everything is functional. So that is the commitment we made to the Seniors' Society, so a lot of those dollars in regard to senior repair, that is usually where it is spent. We are hoping, through getting the local authority to include all of our seniors on their maintenance list, that the money that we do expend will be spent in the communities through the local maintenance program as we have through our local housing authorities.

The question you asked earlier about the mobile homes for Sachs and Holman, as long as we have a request from the community or the organization that is interested, we are willing to sit down and work with them to see what is the feasibility of getting these in there, so it is basically whatever we can do to assist by making contact between the Department of Health or Education and our regional staff that we will work to get these into communities as soon as possible as long as we have some sort of arrangement with the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just one last quick one here. What is the maximum allowable before the senior can access the senior program? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

It is based on the household income and also there is a household threshold that is looked at. Every community has a different threshold. It is based on a formula that is used. Also, it is the criteria that we have in regard to the Senior Citizen Home Repair Program. So it is based on the CNIT which is the community core needs income threshold. So it is based on needs. The more you need, the less you pay. The more you make, the...

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Just for clarification, Mr. Pokiak, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What is the maximum allowable in dollars? I am not talking about based on income or based on threshold. What is the maximum; $30,000, $40,000, $50,000, before they can access this fund? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

I believe it is $50,000, but I can get back to the Member with that.

Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you. My time is up, but I have one more. Okay. I appreciate getting that information, but, again, I think we should be lenient on the seniors. They are having a hard time. But I will look for the numbers. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. We have Mr. Braden next.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, if you take a look at the actuals for the headquarters, if anything, it has gone down by $760,000 from the actuals of 2003. Also, in regard to the district office, it has gone down about $200,000. In regard to our communities, we have increased their budget by almost $1.5 million. Also, what we are doing with communities is, now through the financial arrangements we have with them, they can retain more of the dollars that they collect so that they can keep those dollars in-house for operations, maintenance, and programs that they have. Through arrangements we are making through our universal partnership agreements and through their collection process, they can retain more of those dollars than they did in the past so, again, they have another avenue of increasing their revenues through that process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Well, perhaps there are some different sets of books that I am looking at and the Minister is looking at. I am sorry, Mr. Chair. I am just looking through my own papers here to find the financial page that I was looking at that very clearly demonstrated that this was going on. Perhaps I will pass over on that particular topic until I can find the right page, and then we can all compare apples and apples and try to avoid this kind of discrepancy.

Okay, let's go on to another area here, again, of the approach that the Housing Corporation seems to be taking to efficiency, economization and downsizing. Virtually every other department of this government took some pretty substantive program reductions in the name of financial difficulties that we thought we were facing, but also, certainly, Mr. Chair, in the name of continually trying to look at ourselves, the kind of actions we have undertaken and where we are putting our money. The Housing Corporation, by the information we were provided, is holding at 108 person years. Especially given the fact, Mr. Chair, that there is a significant transfer of responsibility on the books this year whereby the whole social housing program responsibility and delivery will be shifted over the ECE by the beginning of next year, yet the Housing Corporation's plans really would not indicate that there is any such transfer of any kind going on. I don't know how ECE is going to do it, quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, unless it gets some of Housing Corporation's people through the course of this year moved over. So I wanted to ask, is there something that's perhaps not in the business plan or that I've missed in terms of this change of staff requirement from the Housing Corporation over to ECE? How is this going to happen?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.