Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we do try to work with communities and especially with our LHOs. We do find that we're trying to give more responsibility for the local housing authorities to build capacity, but also take on more housing responsibilities such as the seniors' maintenance repair program. We're asking the LHOs to do the work in house so they can hire another person on staff so that they have someone in the community that has a ticket and are able to build up their capacity in communities. But I think also the majority of our contracts that go to communities are tendered. I think because of that, sometimes you have negotiated contracts where there's only one business there that does it. We've heard over the years in my travels that there's a lot of frustration. The people that have got work done by contracts which they'll never allow them to do work on their house or whatnot again because of bad experiences people have had in regards to contracts that have been done. So again, yes, there are people that are basically not used because of not having the certification or not being registered and also registered under the BIP, and also not having tradespeople on their workforce to do a lot of this work where you have to have electricians or plumbers or whatnot. Again, we have to ensure that whoever does the work has the capacity to do it. I think that in order to allow for that capacity to go, I think we do support community initiatives through negotiated contracts, along with the local municipality or local housing authority, to take these on. But I think at the end of the day, the solution to our problems in our communities is to have people local doing this work and not have people coming in. But again, in most cases we can't find those people who have the tickets that are required to do the work. Thank you.
David Krutko on Item 17: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
In the Legislative Assembly on February 6th, 2006. See this statement in context.
Introduction
Item 17: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Item 17: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
February 5th, 2006
Page 771
See context to find out what was said next.