Madam Chair, maybe very quickly I'll go through year one, because I almost have to go through it community by community, but in year one in Tulita, of the units there, there were three units taken into Tulita, two are occupied by teachers, one unit was sold. In Fort Good Hope, there's two units there. One is rented by a professional -- I'm not sure what the person does -- and one is rented by the Yamoga Land Corporation. In Fort Liard, one unit is rented by a health care provider and one unit is rented by a teacher. In Lutselk'e all the units are occupied. Two are rented under the Supported Lease Program; one is rented by a health care provider, one rented by a teacher. In Fort Resolution, all the units are occupied and one unit is rented by the Supported Lease Program, one unit has an offer to purchase on it through the Supported Lease Program, two units are rented by teachers and one unit is rented by some other professional, I don't know who. In Norman Wells the same thing, one unit is rented by a health care provider, one rented by policing services and three by other professionals. In Fort Good Hope there was one unit and it was sold to a community resident.

But has this achieved its purpose in terms of housing for professionals? Absolutely. Did it do it 100 percent? No, we never believed it would and we weren't going to leave units vacant because of the make-up of teachers or nurses in that year we didn't need the unit quite the way it was or people didn't want that big a house, there are other people in the communities who had needs too.

When we go into year two, it's the same sort of thing. By far the majority of these houses are being rented by professionals, teachers, nurses, whoever they may be, in a way that allows the community to provide their needs for professional services. Madam Chair, as we go through with these market units though, we're going to leave, as much as possible, latitude for the community leaders to decide how these units are going to be used. If they choose to put the band manager in one of them, that's okay. The band manager gets a house and pays market rent for it. While the original objective was to create market communities, the end effect is we need to have, when a teacher comes into the community, some choice for that teacher. If it's a single person, they don't want a four-bedroom house, they want a one-bedroom house and so on. So there has to be some flexibility built in as this program continues. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Braden.

Madam Chair, I wasn't expecting 100 percent effectiveness or uptake. From the list that I got for the first year, nine out of 22. Now maybe I wasn't hearing it correctly or maybe we need to get something on paper to look at again, but perhaps around 50 percent uptake. Still, Madam Chair, and I'm very pleased to see that these units are, for the most part, being used and occupied by people who are residents of the community and that's great, but this Assembly, and I looked at this and I voted this money at a time when there wasn't a lot of money around here to try to solve a given problem. It didn't quite work out that way and it morphed into something. Yes, it did the communities good, I'm not taking away from that, but the original intention and the purpose and the request that was put before this committee was not as worked out in the end and even a 50 percent success rate is not that great. Madam Chair, my point here is I was seeking some accountability for what the Housing Corporation put in front of us, what, four years ago, three years ago now? I'm trying to seek some results. What happened in the end and what I'm getting here is about a 50 percent success rate. It's not a great success rate. But what I have problems with is when a Minister or department brings something in front of me and then as it rolls out or as it develops or as it changes, it becomes something else and it's sold as a success story. I don't like that. I'm going to be watching very carefully for things that are put in front of me as one, and then over time might develop into another. That's why I'm seeking some information and results on this program, Madam Chair. That will do.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. One thing that, I guess, I'm not going to get over there for general comments, one thing I'd be curious about is if the government can actually market housing and then tell somebody you can't rent it because you're not a teacher or a nurse. If somebody qualifies to rent and the government is putting housing out there, I don't know. I'm curious to know what the Premier thinks. If the government is renting housing, can you restrict who can apply if they qualify and have the resources to pay the rent on who can rent and who can't? I mean if it's leased by the education or the health services and then subleased to their employees, that's one thing, but I don't know if the government can do that. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. These units were not just meant to house teachers and nurses and we'd leave it empty if there was no teacher or nurse to go into it, but they were there to enable a community to be able to attract the professional services they needed. Now when I go through it, and I went through it pretty fast, Mr. Braden, but when I count off the ones who went through here, there are, in the first year, 15 out of 22 of the units went to clearly government-type employees, professionals, teachers, nurses, police and so on. Fifteen out of 22, not nine. So somewhere, when I went through it, we missed some. Then on top of that, one was rented to the Yamoga Land Corporation; make it 16. But you're right, Madam Chair; we can't and we wouldn't want to say to somebody because they're an engineer working for somebody else in that little community that they can't rent the house because they're not a teacher. We're there to make market rented houses available for that community's purposes and that's why we want to give the communities

more flexibility. Let them decide what services they need most.

So I think 15 out of 22 is a pretty good mark, and if I got that on my university exams I was happy. So I'm happy here.

---Laughter

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Thank you, Mr. Braden. Alright, I have one last person on the list under general comments and that's Mr. Ramsay. That's going to take us almost up to winding it up here today folks, so I think that will be it. Mr. Ramsay, you're up last.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister for his indulgence on a few more questions. Last year when we had the Housing Corporation before us, I made mention of the fact that perhaps a shift in government policy towards more multi-unit, multi-dwelling units would be a better way to go. I think having travelled to a number of communities here in the Northwest Territories, one of the demographics that people often talk about is the young single professional. Oftentimes it's a teacher or a nurse or whoever is in the community who needs housing. They don't need a stand-alone house; what they need is a roof over their head and a place to sleep at night that's comfortable. I think, as a government, we have to try to move towards more of a multi-unit, multi-dwelling set-up. Gone are the days when we can afford to build a house for everybody. We need to really take a good hard look at where we're spending our money. I don't know if the Minister, in this circumstance, has the information in regards to a breakdown of what the 580 units will entail. Are they all stand-alone? What's the mix of multi-unit dwelling and single households, Madam Chair? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We heard the Members loud and clear last year and I can tell you that there are no public housing units being built as detached homes. We're not doing that anymore. They're all multi-family, multi-unit homes. Now when we look at the 530 in the affordable housing initiative, most of the units, I don't have an exact breakdown, but most of the units are part of multi-plexes of some sort. They're duplexes, they're four-plexes, they're six-plexes, there's even eight-plexes and so on, but we are going away from building just stand-alone houses. They're too expensive and often not what people want to afford or can afford to rent or to purchase.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to comment on that. I think that is the right thing to be doing, especially given the cost of fuel and utilities in the smaller communities and having more of economies of scale and all under one roof is much more advantageous to us and to the scarce resources we have to build houses in the Northwest Territories. With that, I want to say thanks to the Minister and to his staff. Again, I do applaud them on the work that's been done there. I am not a member of the Standing Committee on Social Programs, but I do watch the progress and I have been impressed with the progress. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Any closing comments, Mr. Handley?

Are we concluding the Housing Corporation now?

---Laughter

Okay. That would have been just comments, but that's okay. What is the wish of the committee now? Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. I move we report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The motion is in order. The motion is not debatable. All those in favour of the motion? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

I will now rise and report progress. Thank you, Mr. Handley. Thank you, Mr. Jeff Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Jeff Polakoff. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you.

Report of Committee of the Whole. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Do we have a seconder? The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee. The motion is in order. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

Third reading of bills. Mr. Clerk, orders of the day.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until Tuesday, February 13, 2007, at 11:00 a.m.

---ADJOURNMENT

The House adjourned at 17:55.