Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I am very pleased to see this motion come forward. I am in full support of it. Due to the housing situations in my riding of Nunakput, we have a serious problem with the disconnect with ECE and the Housing Corporation. Some of my constituents tell me when I go home -- on the average day I take 60 to 70 calls in my residence -- about being evicted. Since ECE took over this year, Mr. Speaker, there have been evictions in the communities; four or five people. It is the middle of winter, 30 to 40 below outside. Where are you going to go? You are going to go to your cousin’s place. Hopefully they will put you up. For myself, the disconnect between the two not having the Housing Corporation run itself as a stand-alone corporation and cut out the middle man, which is ECE, and then we are not going to have the blame game when it is time to…They are not going to be saying you have to go to ECE or Housing. It is not going to be like that. Hopefully we can get it put back into Housing where it is going to be…I think that the Minister, speaking of the Minister today, I have issues up in my riding today that made the news. There are people being evicted and put out in the cold and finding a place to stay. It is not right.
The biggest thing is the evictions, the disconnect between ECE and that is most important, the one-stop shopping in regards to going and paying your
rent and getting it all sorted out with Housing and then you get to go home. See you in a month. Here you have to go and run-around, like Mrs. Groenewegen said, to ECE and see if you are going to be supplied to get help to top up your rent. If you don’t get it, what are you going to do? Automatically you don’t show up, you are going to get charged economic rent. That is not right. Everybody is going to have a chance to speak to it.
Today, Mr. Krutko and myself, living up in the communities, people don’t see the most important thing in my riding is housing. It is the most important thing. People need places to live. You have houses in the communities that are boarded up because of people being evicted. We have to give them the opportunity to work this off through the Housing Corporation. They had a program a few years back in regards to paying off your arrears. Work in the summertime or at part-time jobs to get it paid off. That is having the Housing Corporation and the LHOs managing it themselves and not having ECE as a middle man.
I fully support this motion. Thank you.