Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This corporation does know what it's doing and we have vested our money in a way that we're going to definitely make a difference. The project that we took on should have taken a year-and-a-half. We did it in 6.5 months.

Yes, we have nine units occupied. In Tulita, in the one unit that's vacant, we already have an expression of interest by a professional that wants to move back to Tulita.

In Fort Good Hope, we have two units that professionals employed by the Health and Social Services Board are interested in renting. We also have an interest from the land corporation to purchase.

In Fort Liard, we are completing a sales package with the band and also a renewable resource officer.

In Lutselk'e, we have two residents who are interested in purchasing and one of them is a professional. There are two other units being looked at by the Development Corporation.

In Fort Resolution, we have an expression of interest by a Housing Corporation employee and a person who is working at the mine. We also have an expression of interest by a teacher who wants to purchase and another individual who is in public housing.

For us to sit here and make it sound like we are not doing anything when the idea was to establish a market in a non-market community where no one else will go...

We talk about housing needs in the territory. We have some surveys where some communities are accessing almost 80 percent core need and yet we can sit here and ask what we are doing. We have 2,300 public housing units in the Northwest Territories. We've assisted 587 individuals through our EDAP programs and countless other people with independent housing units and making sure seniors stay in their own homes. I find it hard to sit here and hear that nothing is happening and we don't know what we are doing.

The bottom line is, under phase two, we can prove that we can bring down the cost by 50 percent compared to a stick-built to make it more affordable for people in communities.

So we can sit here and argue, but I would just like to state for the record that if we want to meet our core need in this territory, the numbers we are talking about are $450 million to deal with the housing crisis we have in the Northwest Territories. We try to make attempts to deal with housing issues, deal with housing problems and that is what you are up against.

I would like to state, for the record, I am very proud of the corporation and the people we have working for us they have done everything they can to deal with the housing situation we are in with the limited dollars we have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister indicated and there are Members who suggested that we should look into building multi-plex units for market housing. I know the Minister is looking at multi-unit mobile units and that's the reconfiguration the Minister and the department is going to do next year. I understand from looking at the department's goal, this is a long-term goal. This is not a flash in the pan. This is a two-year program here and there is every indication that this is going to be what the Housing Corporation wants to be involved in in the future. As long as there are non-market communities in the Territories, it's the role of the Housing Corporation to provide housing. I agree with that. We are talking about how to do that better and we want to have an opportunity to speak to that.

There were suggestions about looking at building stick-built or doing multi-plex like apartment buildings. Could I ask the corporation to do a longer and more comprehensive plan about how they are going to supply private housing to non-market communities other than ordering 22 mobile homes every year? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we are in discussion with development corporations and community corporations to look at partnering on the concept of looking at duplexes or multi-plex structures, not only for our needs but also for their needs, so we can go into it by way of a joint proposal where we go and look at some sort of shared arrangement or loan guarantees. We are looking at that and have talked to several development corporations who have expressed an interest. So there are those discussions going on, but it's important to note that there is a lot of hesitation for people to go into a majority of those 20 communities who are in core need because there is no economic return on investment for them. They don't want to get into social housing because they know once you get into it, it's a pretty expensive proposition. If you are looking at public or social housing, those development corporations are very hesitant to look at that.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister's remarks to Ms. Lee's comments was absolutely right about the shortage, the need, the crisis we have in every one of our communities. I am not against the original design of this program, which was to help small communities get essential workers in comfortable, affordable houses. That's where the corporation has missed the target and that's where Cabinet, in the directive they have issued, has to take some of the accountability here. The problem that I have sitting where I am tonight, Mr. Chairman, is that I am asked to assess the viability of a program on a certain set of expectations. Those have failed. Now I am being asked to duplicate the whole thing again, in fact even go further, $2.2 million to $2.6 million now, with very little justification that we really learned how to do this better and how to meet the original target need for essential workers in communities.

The Minister has taken the part of this program that didn't work, those 13 units that aren't occupied and they said we will sell them off to whoever we can or we will turn them into social housing. We will do something with them. In the meantime, where is the answer for those communities that needed housing for their essential workers? That is what I am being asked to judge and to approve and I don't have the supporting evidence. That's why I am sounding frustrated and hostile about this.

If the corporation wants to come to me with a plan to get mobile houses up there and try to start a market where nobody else will go and that is a genuinely solid argument, then I am interested and I will listen. I will think about signing off on some more taxpayers' money to take that risk because I think it's a good idea. But don't ask me, Mr. Chairman, to approve a program on one set of circumstances that is going to morph its way into something else. I don't like to do business that way and that is what I am being asked to do.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to go back to the houses on the beach in Tuktoyaktuk to see if the Minister can provide some further information because at the time this report was filed by the Auditor General, Mrs. Fraser said we don't really know where it is for now. I will just paraphrase briefly from the report and again this was sent to us on September 22nd of last year and she concluded that: "The corporation shows the cost of these units, these nine unassembled units, originally designed for Alaska, at almost $1 million including the shipping costs, given the missing parts in the reported damage to some of the crates, it is not yet clear what the ultimate loss will be."

So we have some units on the beach in Tuktoyaktuk, according to the Auditor General. Can the Minister advise what the status is of these units? Do they have any potential for really being used perhaps hopefully to house some of our own people?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To let the Member know, these units are not on the beach in Tuktoyaktuk. They are in Sachs Harbour, Inuvik, Tsiigehtchic and Holman Island to serve the homeownership program. The Member is referring to a document which is not part of this budget. I think that those units have been moved out of Tuk. They are in communities to be used for housing. I think that it seems like we are fishing here and they are definitely not on the beach in Tuk. There is a client in Tuktoyaktuk who has taken one of these units.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the information. Respecting that this is indeed not a document before us, perhaps a briefing note could be circulated to give us that kind of good news.

Mr. Chairman, the mandate of the Housing Corporation is under review or is going to be reviewed and rebuilt over the course of the next year and I welcome that exercise. I would like to ask the Minister what kind of opportunities the people across the Northwest Territories will have to participate in telling us how they would like to see their government's housing authority developed. What should the new marching orders be and how is the consultation going to work for that? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have been having workshops with our local housing authorities, meeting with our maintenance people. We have been doing that for the last few months. It's not as if we have been doing this in-house. We have been out there having regional conferences and also bringing in our management staff who basically run the local housing authorities on a day-to-day basis. They are the ones who are giving us insight into where we are going, what we are doing and how they would like to see change. So we are involving people, not only in headquarters, but people in the regional offices and people in our communities who deliver our programs. So they are involved in the mandate that we are looking at. So that's the process we have been using. We have been having quite a few workshops and involving them in the overall process of where we are going and allowing them the opportunity to get insight. So we have been involving the local communities and housing authorities to be involved in the mandate review. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What I heard was the community chose, et cetera. What I am looking for here is the word "public." Are we going to proactively take this out to the public and get their views, or is this going to be more or less an internal consultation exercise? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Before I get the Minister's response, may I have some quiet, please? Thank you. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we are dealing with a major shift of the corporation with regard to looking at its mandate. Like I stated, we want to make sure we do it right and whatever changes we make, we want to ensure we can deliver on them. We can't just automatically go out to the public until we have something to go out there with. Right now, we have a draft that we will be taking to Cabinet to get Cabinet direction on where we go next. Then when we get the detail about what the mandate is going to be, then we will take it to standing committee. Once it gets to the standing committee, then we can see if we are ready to go to the public. It has to go through a few more stages before we can go directly to the public. Right now, we are in the development stage. Like I stated, we hope to have it ready for Cabinet April 1st. Then we will get Cabinet direction on whether we are going in the right direction, whether we have to go back or pull it together more. Once we get a more detailed mandate of whether we are going in the right direction, then we will go to standing committee. Once the standing committee has had an opportunity to review it, then we will determine if it should be released to the public or not or whether we are even in the right ball field. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I will be supporting the initiative for the housing...

---Applause

You wanted to go detail, and you would have missed that. But, Mr. Chairman, I just want to get...

---Interjection

Hey, now. That's mean. Point of order. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I could continue, I would just like to hear some firm concrete answers in some of the lessons we learned from the first initiative. As I have told my committee members in AOC, growing up in a small community, I recognize how difficult it is to find housing. My parents lived in government housing for many years.

Mr. Chairman, growing up in Fort Simpson, my parents lived in government housing for many years. The market was very small in Fort Simpson even for government employees to move around as our family grew. So I have some experience knowing that in a small community, you just don't have the market to bring in professionals at times and you are always struggling to find places to put them. When we first moved to Fort Simpson, there wasn't a house right away. We had to wait and we were at the hotel. It was only a few days, but can you imagine what it would be like if you were in a situation where you had to wait months?

That's kind of the reason why I am behind the market initiative, because recognizing that we have communities out there that don't have SAOs and how do we plant them down in those communities. I have told this to my colleagues. It's for reasons like that alone that I need to support this. When you have a community and they have no place to put these professionals, what do they do? They can't bring them in. They aren't going to want to go there. They can say we can earn the same kind of money somewhere else. This is not an experience where we want to live who knows where at who knows what price.

However, I would certainly like to hear a few lessons learned on how we are going to support this. What are we going to do when it comes to BIP? What are we going to do in the area of timelines? Are we going to rush this one through again? I would like to hear a few words of confidence on how we are going to do this one better with some assurity on this side of the House that I am supporting this for the right reasons and I want to see that the Minister is moving forward with the right confidence to do this job properly. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are going to proceed similar to the first phase, which will include the BIP for the setup and also the site work such as septic tanks, fuel tanks, local labour and also try to keep that portion of the project because last time it is was about 50 percent of the project, which was kept here in the North. Again, we are looking at redesigning these units. After we did our interviews with tenants and clients on what people are looking for, it seemed like this time around most people are looking for one-bedroom setups or have a combination of a duplex structure. Also we are trying to look at reduced costs and one of the ways we're looking at that is by having these duplexes that will cut the transportation in half where you don't have to haul two trailers now, you'll be able to haul them in one configuration. Also with our site development costs, we won't have to develop two sites for two units. We'll be able to put them all on one site. So we have cut our costs almost 50 percent from phase one with regard to that, but also by doing this, we'll also decrease the costs with regard to our utility costs, which will cost less to the tenant to operate. Again, we can deliver these things 38 percent below the original cost. So we can take it from $1,300 to $1,500 to $951 a month, which includes utilities, which is affordable.

Also, one of the things that we're looking at is we resigned the capital costs over from 20 years to 25 years so that you can spread out that cost over a longer time, which again will drop that payment about $90 a month. So we're doing these different things to bring our costs down. With these changes, I feel it's definitely an improvement from last time and also it has met the objective for affordable housing in communities and also being able to be accessible to our tenants. Thank you.