Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be voting in favour of the motion. That is something that my constituency and residents of my constituency have always said, is that when they go to apply for NWT Housing Corporation programming, often they are saying they are making too much. This frustrates Nahendeh residents to no end, because the reality is that there are dual income households out there. There is a good reason for that, Mr. Chairman. It is only because they are trying to address their high cost of living and they are working hard to achieve those ends. A lot of them, too, are not only...Well, the majority of the workforce in my riding is, of course, government, but a lot of them are in the private sector. A lot of them are business owners. For them, too, the guidelines kind of discourage them from using our program.

We just had a discussion earlier with this department about the ability to recover rent and revenue from Housing Corporation clients. If we are looking for new clients, Mr. Chairman, and looking for stable revenue, then who better to approve for our programming than somebody that does have a steady income, maybe dual income? These are the people that want help and we should be helping but our current policy dictates that our community income thresholds are a certain range. I cannot believe that range is so small. I know that people are being turned away or denied. In some cases they know they make too much so they don’t even bother taking an application. That frustrates me too, Mr. Chairman, because everybody is entitled to due diligence. I believe that applications should be taken.

I would like us to have a good look at it. In fact, I am expecting that this motion will pass, Mr. Chairman. I would like to see it effective April 1st . We have a

new cycle of programming that is going to happen come April 1st , new people applying. Many of them

are actually the same people but at the same time there are dual income families out there, and they could be single as well but they are exceeding the threshold. This gives them the ability for us to deliver our housing programs right now. That is a fact that we are building houses but nobody is qualifying for them, Mr. Chairman. This is one of the reasons; you either make too much or else you make too little. We have to expand and increase the range of the income threshold and allow more of our people to access these programs.

I think one of the frustrating things is in the communities, people walking by empty units. They have been empty for about a year and knowing that they almost qualified or else they didn’t qualify

because they made too much but they are staying in overcrowded situations and their own homes. Maybe it is their children or cousins that may now be allowed to qualify, thereby increasing or lowering our frustration about overcrowded homes. That is why I will be voting in favour of this motion.

I would just like to say to the Minister and to the government that, look at implementation date of April 1, 2009. It is a policy change. It can be done. That is something we really should look at doing immediately and I sure hate to have government just take it under advisement, Mr. Chairman. That is something that is important. It needs action. I believe that we should get action on it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Next on my list is Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be supporting this motion. As I have come to be aware over the last few years of the government here, it is not unusual for the department to put houses in communities that we can’t put anybody in and so these houses sit empty. It becomes a real eyesore to the community. It bothers them that they are sitting there and nobody is in there. If this adjustment by playing with the threshold we can get one more family into a safe and secure household, then I certainly think it is certainly worth looking at. It is a noble effort. Mr. Chairman, that is all I will be saying.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to focus in on the last phrase of this motion and highlight that and my support for it. I think we had a number of discussions in the House and in committee on what the opportunities are for encouraging self-reliance in housing programs and to meet housing needs. I think there really is a huge opportunity here and that can address our costs as well as our broader goals of bumping up skills development and self-esteem and so on; the things that go along with developing self-reliance and additional skills. I hope that that would be a prominent aspect of this program review.

There are a lot of people in our communities in social housing that are not employed and yet they are physically and mentally quite capable. This is an opportunity to, rather than just throw money at it, throw some innovation, some well-designed programs that capture that resource and put them to work in ways that benefit both our housing needs and our broader goals. I will be supporting the motion and appreciate the Member from Tu Nedhe for bringing this forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. To the motion.

Question has been called. I will call upon Mr. Beaulieu to conclude debate on the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I don’t have a whole lot to add to it. I think the majority of what had to be said here has been said. I think this will also help the government, because allowing more people into homeownership does create a bit of a market. A better private market we have in all of our communities, the better off we all are.

As people know in the Housing Corporation, communities with markets have much lower needs, on a percentage basis, than non-market communities. Some of the communities where there is absolutely no market, the needs are very high to extremely high. If this could work towards creating more homeownership in the communities and works towards building a little bit of a market, then we will have achieved our goal. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Question has already been called.

---Carried

We are on page 5-55, information item, programs and district operations, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am wondering where we are at in the energy evaluations of the 100 homes, and if there is anything the Minister can report on what the results are to date, and if there is an estimate of what the renovation costs will be on average to get those homes up to EGH 80 standard. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, we will have Mr. Anderson respond to that question.

Thank you. Mr. Anderson.

Thank you to Mr. Anderson for those comments. Do we know how many units have been completed to date? Thank you.

Thank you for that response. On the adequacy of housing, has this now been built in as a criteria in the measurement of housing adequacy where it is a sort of thing in energy efficiency terms? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chairman, just on the adequacy, suitability and affordability problems in our regions, I know that Nahendeh and the Sahtu have pretty high core need numbers percentage-wise. I guess what I want to ask the Minister in terms of bringing down these numbers in these two different regions under these programs and district operations, is this the goal of this corporation to look at where there are high needs? They continue to be high until we have adequate funding to build in these regions because there are very unique challenges in the regions in terms of delivery, isolation and also there are, as the Minister indicated, some land tenure issues. Is this a goal of this Minister? The numbers seem to be yet quite astonishing in Colville Lake where there is the definition of suitability, affordability and adequacy. According to your definition, this is horrible for this 76 percent. I just want to see if it is the goal of the corporation to look at these significant numbers and add some resources where it would be satisfactory to the Members.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, that is our goal, to reduce the need in all the different areas. The numbers the Member is referring to, the 76 percent and the core need rating was from four years ago. We have, since then, put a lot of units on the ground in the last three years. We put close to 500 units in the communities. We expect the 2009 core need rating to be significantly different.

We still will set our budgets according to the core need based on unit costs and the different construction needs in the area.

Mr. Chairman, I should have made a clarification. The numbers I am using are 2004. We had a discussion yesterday with the Minister and we look forward to the 2009 core needs report.

I also know that, through the Affordable Housing Initiative, they target Sahtu for 94 houses or units. I’m not too sure if they met that target yet. I think it is pretty close to it. I understand that there are some units that couldn’t be built in Colville Lake and some of the communities because of challenges that the corporation couldn’t resolve in time, so they had to make some decisions. I also understand that the increase in construction in some of our isolated communities causes some problems in terms of construction in the communities, so other units are being transferred from some agreements to other communities. That is why I am asking, because we have certain challenges in the Sahtu in terms of the ice road, the isolation, the barging.

Sometimes these packages don’t come fully equipped with the right window or door or something is missing. There are other stories that I think the Minister will be aware of. That is why I am asking with these high core needs in our communities. I could be proven wrong in a couple of months by the 2009 survey, but I don’t think I am not too far off in terms of our core needs. We have not come along that far. We are still along with Nahendeh to be the highest regions in terms of dollars being spent on housing as when I read the housing report that other regions seem to be receiving more dollars in terms of funding for units that are well below the core needs percentage in the Sahtu. That also contributes the number of those factors in terms of how this is spread out there. I would like to ask the Minister again, would he make a concerted effort to put dollars where there is most need under the definition of the Housing Corporation’s suitability, affordability and the adequacy of homes? Would the Minister give some consideration to go the extra mile to make sure that these numbers do come down and stay down?