Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The whole Income Support Program and the $30 million that was transferred from the Housing Corporation for the social housing funds was there with the intention of those funds to be used for the O and M of some 2,200 public housing units in the Northwest Territories and to cover those costs associated with social housing. Since that time we have built an additional 520 new units under the Northern Housing Trust, through which we spent $100 million, and now we have another $50 million that we have to spend in this fiscal year and next year.
The $30 million was to assist in covering the cost of O and M for those public housing units throughout the Northwest Territories. Now with the additional 500-and-something units and the $50 million, where is the money going to come from to cover off the O and M for those public housing units?
The whole intent of the Social Housing Trust was to improve the housing stock in the Northwest Territories. Yet we do have a political challenge. Where is the money going to come from to cover the costs for O and M? Those same dollars are being spent through Education, Culture and Employment by hiring more people when those dollars were supposed to be used for O and M for social housing.
Another thing is that now income support clients can go to ECE who may have been evicted from housing or are looking at approaching the private housing market to get into housing in that arrangement in which the money is covered off by ECE using the $30 million which was supposed to be earmarked for social housing in the Northwest Territories. Again, these dollars are being used to rent public housing stock in the Northwest Territories.
Those dollars were earmarked for social housing in northern Canada. Not for the private sector. Not for rent sups for private individuals. To provide the cost to operate the social housing stock in the Northwest Territories. These dollars are not being spent where they were supposed to. With the arrangement of the dollar there, I would like to ask the government to seriously consider reinstating the dollars with respect to the $30 million back to the Housing
Corporation for the reason it was supposed to be spent, which was for social housing.