Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to also speak in favour of this motion and just offer brief comments. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that, in this House, the housing issue has been a topic of priority and a topic of discussion for the last three years, but it is one that I think, looking back, if we don't do something urgently with the remaining time of our Assembly, it will turn out to be a real big failure on the part of this Assembly, Mr. Speaker.
Lately, on CNN, in anticipation of the U.S. mid-term election next Tuesday, they want a program called broken government. It is a series of why things are not working or how things are not working. When I look at our various issues that Members, our colleagues from communities, bring to this floor about the housing issue, I think we are really looking at a broken housing system. I believe, Mr. Speaker, this motion speaks to one little aspect of that. We hear over and over again about how in communities families are living in these houses that are in very poor condition and they are paying a rent of upward of $2,500, Mr. Speaker. My riding of Range Lake has lots of nice, fancy houses. Twenty-five hundred dollars in a mortgage will get you a really nice house. That is about twice as much as I would pay in my mortgage. Maybe I shouldn't be revealing all my secrets.
---Laughter
Mr. Speaker, there is something wrong with our system when we have a situation where people are living in these houses that are in terrible conditions paying this enormous amount of rent that most people in Yellowknife would not even...People don't think of that when people living in public housing will pay that much money. The government has no plan as to what they are going to do with accumulating arrears on the part of our residents. They are just going to jack up the numbers. We are all going to have residents owing $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, because the government hasn't figured out how to address the implication and impact of the policy that it has.
I think this motion speaks to the government and asking the government to look at this thing and change it and asking, through this motion, to decrease the rate from 32 percent to 18 percent or 25 percent. It is just a one small measure on the part of this side of the floor to say you have to do something about that.
Mr. Speaker, on a positive note, though, I want to say that we recently had a briefing with the NWT Housing Corporation under its...We have a new Minister, the Premier, and also a new president of the Housing Corporation. I have to tell you, as chair of the committee and a Member sitting in this House, I was very impressed with that presentation and a level of willingness that the new president was showing in tackling some of these issues and that the corporation is working on some innovative ways to refine and streamline the programs that they have. I would like to send this motion as a challenge to the new president that this is an issue that the corporation really has to tackle with.
I sometimes wonder, Mr. Speaker, in our pre-budget tour to communities, there is not one place where obviously the housing issue has not come out. I can't help but think that so many of the Housing Corporation policies are so blunt and is so all-sweeping and not dealing with the small issues, like the corporation is taken over by all these huge projects whether it is Novel or market housing initiative or affordable housing. You can't fix the smallest little things. Why is it that Members have to bring up issues over and over again and nothing gets done?
We have a situation in Wekweeti. It was like two hours of what is wrong with the housing, how people get into their housing. They can't call anybody to fix it because the Housing Corporation doesn't allow them to fix it, and yet the Housing Corporation is not going to provide repair programs to these houses. What is the plan of the Housing Corporation in terms of making housing available to these people? If we have a situation where we have multi families living in a house, what is the plan of the Housing Corporation to introduce some kind of private market so that there could be some choices for people? I don't see any of those visions. In the absence of a clear plan and clear vision on the part of the Housing Corporation to address these issues, we are going to keep
on giving them these motions that are going to be a little push on the side of the Housing Corporation to have them visit and look at the situation in a more in-depth way. So, Mr. Speaker, in that vein, I am going to be voting in favour of this motion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause