Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with serious concerns regarding the Housing Corporation and how it is running its EDAP program. That is the Expanded Downpayment Assistance Program.
Mr. Speaker, first and foremost I am really glad to see that we are putting people into home ownership and I think that is the bottom line that I really like to see. However, there are serious concerns in regard to how we treat our down payment. We are now treating it as a big handout as opposed to the help-up that I have always believed it should be.
Mr. Speaker, I posed some sound questions to this Minister to get some clarification. I went to his office and I said can you help me understand why we are giving big down payments out? Can you give them to me internally? Maybe even in private? But no, I was refused answers, so I am now forced to ask them publicly for public clarification.
Mr. Speaker, to make my point clearer; one person in particular received $72,000 as a down payment in the Downpayment Assistance Program. I can't think of anything to say other than this is completely out of touch for what is considered reasonable. Is $72,000 reasonable for down payment assistance? It concerns me. I don't think that is fair. Seventy-two thousand dollars is totally out of perspective. It often reminds me of what a friend of mine says; some things just ain't right, and to me that ain't right.
The Downpayment Assistance Program to me, Mr. Speaker, means $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, maybe even $20,000 to help a person on low income to get into home ownership. Seventy-two thousand dollars, again, is completely out of touch. Mr. Speaker, I did an average of the 14 contributions in the city of Yellowknife and it was an average of $33,000. That is a lot of taxpayer money, where the lowest on the list of 14 was $6,500.
Mr. Speaker, I imagine that the person who received $6,500 was completely thankful to the government; they probably loved them. But $72,000 seems a little out of touch.
Mr. Speaker, to further emphasize this point; for new construction, someone was given $109,000 to build a house from our housing program. Doesn't that seem out of touch? As far as I am concerned, that just doesn't seem right. It took my wife and I five years to save $25,000 and we were really proud of that, so $109,000, Mr. Speaker, to work out into taxable income is a lot of money. That is all I can say. Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.