Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Minister. The shelter enhancement is $50,000. Is that for the whole Northwest Territories or is that for a specific location or program? I would like to know more about that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Handley.

Madam Chair, the amount of $50,000 that we have here is for the whole territory and we have the regional breakdown if Members want to have that. Madam Chair, the Member is indicating he does, so I will just go through it. The North and South Slave regions is...Sorry, North is $30,000 and South is $20,000. The other regions have not proposed to spend money in this area.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Minister. These programs that the department is rolling out, given notice to the people of the Northwest Territories, I think the key person in that whole process would be the community liaison people in your region. I commend the Minister, the staff and previous people who implemented that program, that position in their communities, especially when we have these programs that we can read and understand the English version; however, it has to be translated into an aboriginal language and that is going to require some time and effort. I would like to ask the Minister, this position, it seems on the budget line, has dropped from $370,000 to $336,000. Is that due to phasing out that community liaison person or due to other expenditures that you just don't have? I would really like to see these positions maintained in the communities. This is one of the good things you have done for the Housing Corporation. I am not sure what is going to happen to this position, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Handley.

Madam Chair, no, we are not phasing this one out at all. In fact, we've made it available to all the communities. Right now, there are only 14 communities that have indicated an interest in continuing this and we provide each of them with a $20,000 grant for liaison. It works very well in some regions like the Sahtu, the Beaufort. Others regions haven't bought into it yet. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My last question to the Minister is regarding the district operations. It's more of a comment to the Minister and his staff. I know you've done some work in terms of getting the technicians out into our communities and staying longer in the communities and to listen to the community liaison people and to have the district people really spend some quality time with the homeowners and working with the community leaders at different levels of the government and having the district people stay. People at the district office can encourage the technicians to stay longer. This is more of a comment to the Minister in terms of some of the needs that need to be looked at in our region. I am going to leave it at that, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr .Yakeleya. Mr. Handley.

Our objective is to have the communities make the decisions whenever possible, develop that self-reliance. Yes, our technical people will help, but again we want them to be supportive. Anything we can do on liaison or working with the local government is beneficial. Some of the changes we've made here in simplifying programs and putting in technical people will make a big difference.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Page 2-166, district operations, grants and contributions, contributions, $23.494 million.

Thank you. Page 2-169, Public Housing Program funding, operations expenditure summary, $36.895 million.

Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As a policy, ECE will cover the unit for three months, but if there is a waiting list for clients to get into public housing, then the other demand would kick in and the person would have to vacate the unit. If there are empty units in the community, though, then ECE and ourselves would consider letting that person continue in that unit for a longer period of time than three months.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My understanding, specially in Tuk anyway, they did get a letter from the housing board that they can go up to one year while they finish off their program, but they were very disappointed when they went home over the Christmas holidays that they get economic rent. They owe as much as $5,000, so they are struggling right now. What they have done is they are continuing their schooling in Inuvik, but hopefully they can come back to Tuk and find their unit available. Do they have to get permission from the Housing Corporation to pass the three months? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Madam Chair, yes, there would have to be communication between ECE and Housing Corporation particularly where there's a waiting list to make sure the units are available. We can't hold several units vacant with nobody in them for a year or longer because someone is at school and have other people be homeless. Again, we've tried to take as practical approach as possible to this so it works out to everybody's benefit.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.