Thank you. Just a couple more, Madam Chair. I'm going to go to page 7 of the opening remarks by the Minister in regard to income support. I know I talked to the Minister about this sometime back in regard to some of the programs, and that's the local appeals committees. I understand that they're going to go regional now, so is there a cost figuring into how much it's going to cost to actually go through a regional committee? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, we're not expecting there would be any increase in cost at all to do this. Madam Chair, we've had problems across the North finding people to sit on these local committees. It's been a difficult time getting a quorum often with community committees. So we've decided to try a regional approach in order to try and speed up the time at which appeals can be heard. We're going to be seeking nominations from Members and are hoping to have them set up fairly quickly. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in that regard, I'm just wondering if some of the communities want to hold onto their local appeals committee, will they continue to do that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We really haven't had any local committees operating in the last while, so there aren't any committees that we could say the community could hang onto because there haven't been, they haven't been in operation. So our intention is to move across the North to a regional approach in order to ensure, like, for instance, what's happening in a lot of communities now, because we haven't got a local committee, the decisions are being made here in headquarters on appeals and we think that it would be preferable that we at least have a regional committee with regional people involved to make decisions. So we're going to try to move to that approach consistently across the Territories. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Pokiak.

Yes, one final follow-up. Thanks, Madam Chair. No.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Next on the list I have Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to, first of all, thank the Minister and his staff for being with us again this afternoon. One of the questions I have, it gets back to the social housing policy and the $1.3 million that was liberated from the Housing Corporation. I just want the Minister, and it might even involve the Minister of the Housing Corporation answering this question for me, but by taking the $1.3 million from the Housing Corporation, how does that parlay into administrative savings for the Housing Corporation? It's not very evident to me how that happens. I don't know if the Minister of Education can answer that question, or the Minister of Housing Corporation can answer that question. But could someone explain to me how exactly the administrative savings are going to take place by this $1.3 million being taken? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Madam Chair, I can certainly outline the reasons why the extra funding was necessary for the delivery of the program by Education, Culture and Employment. I can't answer the specific question about the impact on the Housing Corporation of the loss of the money. But basically, the biggest parts of the money, or the biggest parts for the requirement of the money, were around regional staff to be able to deliver the program. There are some 1,300 cases now that income support people will be talking to about social housing that they are not seeing already through income support. That drives up the workload. Because of that, we're increasing not in one or two or three discrete positions in most places; for the most part we're increasing where we have a part-time worker who may now be working half-time, we may be trying to get them to bump up their day to three-quarters time. Or we may have situations where we can increase by half a position. Not so much by adding a person, but it's mostly going to be through increasing the hours of work for people who are already working for us. That's where the majority of the money goes, is increasing the regional allocation of people at the community level for staffing.

But in terms of the impact on the Housing Corporation, Madam Chair, I am not able to answer that question, no.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps with committee's indulgence, we could ask the Minister of Housing Corporation how the $1.3 million that was taken from his budget to facilitate the Public Housing Subsidy Program within ECE, how that...What I'm trying to get at, Madam Chair, is where's the correlation between the additional people that are going to be needed. I know the Minister of Education said that the majority of the funding, the $1.3 million, is earmarked for regional staff to carry out a policy that was already being carried out by the government under the mandate of the Housing Corporation. I'd like to see the evidence that the $1.3 million that's been taken from the Housing Corporation will, indeed, show administrative savings. Because I haven't, the last I heard, Madam Chair, was the Housing Corporation was looking at an additional 20 bodies. I don't understand how this all takes place. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Ramsay, it would be the prerogative of the Minister of Education if he wants to refer any questions to the Housing Minister. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure that we can point to administrative savings with this transfer. I think that it's important to understand that because we were working to effect the transfer of administration without there being any impact on the recipients of social housing, it has required us to increase the administrative burden. That's the only way that we could accomplish it. So there is no savings in administration for the delivery of this program off the bat.

The purpose, though, is to start the process of consolidating all of our income security programs in one area. As Members of this House are aware, we're in the process of reviewing our income security programs and we will, at some point, be examining whether or not there should be changes to our programs. At that point, that may lead to the administrative savings that Mr. Ramsay is questioning. But in order to meet the requirement that there be no net impact on social housing recipients as of April 1st, it required an administrative work around that has actually increased the number of people working.

I have no problem with the Minister of the Housing Corporation responding to Mr. Ramsay's question about administrative staff, if that would help the House.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we realized there was going to be an overlap, but I think the overlap has been sort of resolved where as a tenant who comes to the Housing Corporation to be able to rent a unit off us, we do an assessment at the front end, based on their income and how much of a subsidy they're going to receive. But what's happening now is that those, that responsibility will now be transferred to the Department of Education and we will just solely deal with a tenant by way of working out an arrangement with them so that once they say they need a

unit, we'll identify there's a unit available, we'll tell them the amount of rent, and then from there they go to the Department of Education to receive the subsidy that we have transferred over to them and which then they determine exactly how much rent they will have to pay. They'll pay a portion of the rent or they will have a full subsidy. So that will be now the responsibility of Education. So will just solely be a tenant in which we'll be renting our units to whoever comes forward wanting a social housing unit to rent or who's already there instead of now filling out this application with us and us doing the assessment of how much of a subsidy you'll be covered for. That now will be the responsibility of Education, Culture and Employment.

With regards to the 20 positions we are looking at, we are looking at areas with regard to improving our responsibility on the maintenance side of our social housing and also looking at the land development side to get more houses on the ground, so we can assist social clients and also being able to have the ability to deal with the core issue problems, as everybody mentioned here; the condition and rating of our units. We have to either replace those units or make major improvements by way of renovations. I think now that's where a majority of where our focus will be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister of the Housing Corporation and the Minister of ECE for that.

What I want to try to get across -- and I have said this before and I will say it again today -- is that the $1.3 million, it was quite some time ago we turned down a request for money through supplementary appropriation that would have done this. Now the funding is coming from the Housing Corporation. I can understand and appreciate why that is happening but, Madam Chair, I think the bigger question is how is this going to be funded on an ongoing basis? How are these ongoing positions going to be funded on an ongoing basis? You go to the Housing Corporation this year, take the money from the Housing Corporation. What about next year and the year after?

That gets back, Madam Chair, to the feeling that I have that this hasn't been thought through, or hasn't been planned or coordinated enough to use the resources that the government has to the best of their ability. This is just an example of a duplication, I believe, of money and of time and of effort. I can't really see it any other way; aside from the fact that it is $1.3 million to get something done that was already being done. Yes, we have a lot of needs in our communities, housing being a particular real need in many of our communities. Here we are, as a government, spending another $1.3 million when I don't really believe we need to be doing that. How are we going to fund this on an ongoing basis? Where are we going to get the money? Next year we are going to go back to the Housing Corporation and take $1.3 million; actually, it will be three percent more, $1.4 million, $1.5 million. How is this going to be funded on an ongoing basis, Madam Chair? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This was an ongoing transfer with the function. So our targets for our budget have been changed on an ongoing basis. So it won't be going back to anybody for the money. It is a permanent transfer.

As I said, our plan is to review the Income Security Program and then come forward to the Legislature with some proposals for how we might adjust those programs and that's where, in the long run, we will see the economies of scale that we can achieve. The first step was to put the programs into the same department. In the long run, we will have to take a look at how we deliver our programs and see, with the Members of this Assembly, what sorts of changes we can make. I am confident there will be savings in terms of program delivery in the future. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Next on the list for general comments...This is the order of what I have. I have Braden, Lafferty, Lee on the list right now. Mr. Braden.