Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, it's a good suggestion and potentially if somebody out there is interested in entering into this business, wanted to provide wood pellets and could do it in a cost effective manner, obviously we'd be very interested in looking at that. I assume you're talking about the pellets as opposed to the construction of the boilers, yes. So, Mr. Speaker, if such a supply is available in the NWT, we'll certainly consider it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I followed the Department of Justice on this initiative because I think it's ground breaking, I think it's the way to go in terms of our larger institutions down the Mackenzie Valley, down the Deh Cho and right down the whole Northwest Territories that this department can be the guiding light, I guess, to the other departments, I guess, in terms of looking at large facilities that have institutions like this that could use wood pellets and get the people in the Northwest Territories to start supplying wood pellets. So I guess I wanted to ask, would the Minister given the signal to the people out there who are listening who may be interested in wood pellets and supplying wood pellets to this type of institution, what...(inaudible)...that says yes, let's approach the Minister and his department. Right now, I understand this is in the baby stages of trying it out. When can the people feel some level of comfort and come to the Minister and make some deals in terms of how to best supply the northern pellet furnaces? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The boiler will be installed and operational, we believe, by April 1st. Then we will test it and we will know much more then. Obviously there are a number of institutional around the North, not only in our departments but in others. I know the folks at Public Works are very excited about testing this technology. I think if it's successful and saves us money, it's certainly something we will consider across our other facilities.

Mr. Speaker, if there are people in any of the regions that are putting together business plans, have initiatives that would look at alternative energy or renewable energy, that's something we want to talk about. So I would certainly encourage them to approach our regional people and we will take it from there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask some questions of the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Krutko, and it's in relation to seniors' housing programs, Mr. Speaker. We've heard quite a bit in the last couple of days about a program that enables seniors who have significant personal wealth to be treated as anyone else is who has essentially no income and can have access to housing provided for almost entirely by the taxpayer.

I have heard significant objections to this here in the House. I have had calls from constituents. I have heard it on the media. To paraphrase one constituent, they do not want to see taxpayers' money to go towards people who can otherwise afford to look after themselves. That's a pretty straightforward, direct message. The Minister, yesterday and this morning, the acting president of the Housing Corporation, was on the media saying that this program very much deserves to be reviewed for this kind of potential loophole. I want to ask the Minister, Mr. Speaker, will he, until such as this policy is reviewed for this type of situation, suspend the policy, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the policy was put in place in the 12th Assembly. The 12th Assembly to where we are today in the 15th, a lot of circumstances have changed. In the 12th Assembly, we were part of Nunavut. The whole intention of this policy was to ensure that seniors in social housing were not to pay rent. The majority of our clients at that time were in the smaller communities, which made up the majority of the Members in this House. I think we also have to realize that the policy was there with good intentions, but the cause of some circumstances of the changing economy in the Northwest Territories, the problem seemed to originate out of communities where there is a market for housing. I think because of that situation, we are going to have to look at how the means tests are being done. Right now, the means test is based on income. There is nothing there that looks at an asset the individual may own. Because of the process we have in place, the Department of Education and ourselves have made a unilateral decision that we will transfer the subsidy that we provide to all of our clients, a subsidy of $30 million, to operate our social housing stock in the Northwest Territories. The Department of Education will be able to ensure that we are being fair to the people who live in those units, but, more importantly, those dollars that they receive are to pay for the operation of our units. That decision has been made.

We all know the Income Security Program we have in place; there has to be review of that in the next six months. So we are in the process of doing that and bringing forward to the Members to review that program to ensure that it's fair, it's transparent and problems like that would be caught during that review. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for repeating the oft-heard review and the chronology of this program in this House. I don't need to go over the old ground on this, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we recognize that even though a program may have been set up with good intentions 10 years ago, circumstances change and we have to be ready to address it when those things become apparent. This is all I am asking of the Minister. With the concerns of the validity of a couple of aspects of this program, it seems that we really do have something here that we need to address. In the meantime, until we've had a chance to take a good look at it, will the Minister suspend it so that we are not going to be compounding the problem by potentially enabling other people to get into something that we really don't want on our books? That's all I am asking. Let's put this thing on hold until we figure out what to do with it, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in light of the situation, we do have to look at this policy. If that's what the Member would like is for us to suspend this policy over the period of time...I think you have to realize that this is only unique to market. We are not seeing this problem in non-market communities. To be fair to those communities that are non-market communities, I will agree to suspend the policy in market communities to ensure that this practice does not go on.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, I would be very pleased to accept that offer. The thing we need to look at is, as circumstances change, our readiness to amend and affect

our policies in the meantime. The message we have heard from constituents is that there has to be a fundamental principle here that where a person can't afford to pay something toward their own welfare, that we should be in a position to work with them at that extent. That, I think, is a very worthwhile offer and I would like to ask the Minister to make a commitment to bring to the Social Programs committee the framework for how we can amend this program on a go-forward basis.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated in my commitment here today, I will have to go back to Cabinet and get direction. Once direction is given, I will take it back to the Social Programs committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Thank you, Mr. Braden. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have heard the Minister of the Housing Corporation exhaustively try to explain what this program is, where it came from and everything else. I have to say it's an admirable try, but I am going to ask my questions now to the Minister responsible for the social housing policy and that's the Minister of ECE. It was just over a year ago that they took the $30 million from the Housing Corporation. They casually liberated $1.3 million from the Housing Corporation's budget to hire new people to carry out this social housing policy. I would like to ask the Minister why his staff aren't working on rectifying this situation and continuing to pay rent for people who can afford to pay it themselves? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment , Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Because this House was assured that when the changeover took place that there would be no change in the rules that were administered by the Housing Corporation and that any change would come about as a result of the overall review of the income security programs, all of the income security programs, that process is underway with us working to go back to the standing committee, hopefully fairly shortly with some proposed changes. We have gone back to the standing committee to outline what we have heard during the consultation process and what some of the recommendations were, but we have also undertaken not to implement any changes without having that discussion with that committee and Members of this House. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I still haven't quite figured out what the folks that were delivering the social housing policy at the Housing Corporation are doing today. I know there is new staff at ECE that are looking after the social housing policy now. I am wondering is there any way, given the media attention that caused the concern that we are hearing from constituents, at all that the Minister can fast track some review of this policy, so that fair is fair, Mr. Speaker? Can he fast track it? Thank you.