Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you. There's one other aspect of this discussion, Mr. Chairman, that is more of an opinion or an observation, and that is the numerous visits and tours that have been conducted of the factory floor. Mr. Chairman, for me, the proof of the pudding is going to be when these units are actually delivered and on site in any one of these given communities after they've been picked up and moved probably several times, after they've already survived four or five or six winters in the NWT, after they've survived three or four seasons of hard use by pipeline construction crews, after they've been refurbished. Mr. Chairman, of course I'm going to be dazzled when I get down to Calgary and have a look at a huge, state-of-the-art factory, a spotless, brand new, sparkling clean, never-been-used house. Of course it's going to be impressive, but we should not think that this is all we need to see to judge and get approval of these. What we're basically buying here is used houses that have to go through numerous steps before they actually arrive in the hands of their new and permanent tenants. So I discount very heavily the accolades that have come forward so far because that is not what we're buying on the factory floor in Calgary. What we're buying is going to be six years from now, after many different stages and steps, eyes open, ears open, let's not get carried away with looking at shiny new things because that's not what we're buying. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I definitely would like for Mr. Braden to go to Calgary, see for himself exactly what the product is, but we have already thought of exactly dealing with this matter by way of putting show homes in Inuvik, Norman Wells, Fort Simpson. We're already in the process of working with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation of using these camps during the construction of the Deh Cho Bridge and converting them into housing and moving those units into Fort Providence long before this project is even going to be concluded. So we're already in the process of doing that, so that we can see exactly how this product will stand up to our northern climate and exactly how the individuals who will be occupying each unit feel about the unit and identify logistical issues that we're going to have problems with or what works or what doesn't work. So we are doing that well before we even make a decision on a major purchase. So we're already in the process of doing that through these different scenarios. So we already have these plans in place, we are working on them. So it's not as if we're not moving on that. We are in the process of doing exactly what the Member is asking for. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I've got Mrs. Groenewegen on the list next. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I know you don't want us to talk about Novel anymore, but just to the point that Mr. Braden raised about the shiny, new, glamorous looking housing, they're not that glamorous. They sort of look like any other kind of prefabricated home that you'd see, but what I want to tell you is what I was impressed with, okay, when I was there and I saw them, it was that this utility room becomes the stairwell to the basement, this wall, although it's a dividing and separating partition now gets knocked down and it has no structural bearing on the unit after the fact. You pull this panel off and behind this panel is all your plumbing for your kitchen units. I mean, it was the ingenuity that struck me of the concepts and the idea of building it in upfront. I mean, anybody that's ever done a renovation you know what a pain it is to try and put things in the wall after the fact. Here it's all there. It's like a kit and it's like it does a complete double duty thing. Anyway, I just wanted to say that. As to how they had them decorated and things like that, they just kind of look like any other kind of prefabricated type home. It would take a lot to impress me in that area; but on the conversion piece, it was ingenious, I thought.

Okay, onto something other than Novel, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to talk about the NWT Housing Corporation's business type programs. I'd like to know what they still have in place in terms of bridge financing, loan guarantees, support to developers who want to get a project off the ground, and I guess the reason why I'm asking that is I have to ask why it is that somebody that is resident with the NWT Housing Corporation, versus somebody like BDIC that's already got a team of people in place who do business plan analysis and assessments and that kind of function when it comes to exposing GNWT money to some risk? Why is that a separate thing in-house in the NWT Housing Corporation? First of all, what programs do you have and, secondly, why do you have them? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we do have the Corporate Loan Guarantee Program in place right now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, we presently have some 278 units, and out of that, the project value is $39.914 million. Right now we have a current balance of $11.344 million outstanding on those loan guarantees.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was actually asking for just a kind of a description of the type of programs that I listed. Do you offer bridge or interim financing, temporary loan guarantees, or is this financing that you need in place for units? I was kind of looking for a bit of an overview on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'll allow Mr. Anderson to respond to that question.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Anderson.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. So in terms of the Housing Corporation's mandate then, how does corporate loan guarantees fit in with what you're trying to achieve? I would assume these proponents are building multi-residential complexes. How long do the loan guarantees stay in place, and how does that tie in with your mandate? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Anderson.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So these loan guarantees then are offered in all communities in the Northwest Territories, market and non-market communities, and again, what is the advantage? I mean, I suppose the economics in market would dictate in the market communities whether or not a project will be viable. So what gap, or what role do you see your particular program filling? What's missing in terms of commercial banking that you need to be involved in that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Anderson.