Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, will be supporting the motion. Mr. Speaker, again, I’ve indicated, I think, in terms of the way things are going it has to somewhat reflect back to the federal government’s Social Housing Agreement. In my documents, in terms of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Social Housing Agreement, the government announced in 1996 it would offer provinces and territories opportunities to manage the existing off-reserve federal social housing. This initiative streamlined administrative arrangements in social housing, provides for one-stop shopping for clients and encourages the best possible use of public funds. The provinces and territories who signed the Social Housing Agreements are subject to national principles and accountable framework that ensure the federal subsidies continue to flow to low-income residents.

Mr. Speaker, in theory, when this initiative was brought up it sounded like a very good theory. However, four years later, still what we’re hearing from last year, two years, the practicalities it’s not working in our communities. Even as of this morning when I called into the Sahtu they’re having difficulties with this one-stop concept in my community. The people who I talked to said that some of the assessments are finally getting caught up, are being done today, that are two or three months behind. It’s caused a lot of problems, a lot of frustration; a lot of frustration in my community in terms of how this is supposed to work out. I understand the implementation. There are growing pains. I certainly agree with what Mr. Miltenberger said in 2006 in terms of implementation, in terms of the Hansard, in terms of the implementation and give it time to see where changes could take place and where changes could happen. However, it’s been four years, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the people today that I spoke to haven’t seen much of a change in my community in terms of the one office, Education, Culture and Employment and Housing sitting over here. I thought the one-stop shop concept was going to actually physically put the two organizations into one building. But what we see is people being shuffled around. It’s causing a lot of frustration. People in my community are totally frustrated. People in the region are frustrated with how this process is being rolled out. I would dare to say, Mr. Speaker, that if things were changing for the good, I would say that we wouldn’t be coming forward with this motion here.

Mr. Speaker, this motion here also speaks to the decline of the federal...The federal government will be declining this type of funding in 2038. They are getting out of the social housing initiatives. They said it loud and clear. They’re downloading these programs to the Northwest Territories. In 1996-97 I think they started to reduce the federal expenditures and that’s when, at the same time, they implemented the increase in the rental scale. That was discussed with us in 2005, the increase in the rental scale, from 25 percent to the maximum to 30 percent. At the same time, we had this program being introduced to us.

Mr. Speaker, in my communities they talk about the social income programs with the housing programs. Now they talk about people who have been in the social assistance category as welfare recipients. They talk about people who have never been in arrears who are actually going into arrears. Sometimes that’s very difficult for people who move out of our community to move to another community who want to apply for housing; however, because it’s tagged as there are arrears on their application, they are rejected. People are getting rejected in terms of finding places in other

communities because the arrears are following them. I think there should be a limitation on the arrears in terms of people who have run into this problem here.

Mr. Speaker, this issue here is being questioned by my people in the region. The Housing Association has been doing a good job. They had some people there that were doing a fine job of having them done, prior to the new move to the Education, Culture and Employment taking over the program. So they’re saying, why are we changing right now. That doesn’t make sense. People are saying that no one really came into their communities and talked to the people, similar to what we had, the discussion with the board reform. People are saying that this big shift here in terms of administrating the housing with Education, Culture and Employment, it came down from the departments. People who have worked for the departments will not speak against the government. They fear that they are going to lose their job. It’s a fear in the region that if people say that Housing or Education, that they’re going to say something, they’re not going to say something that’s going to jeopardize their work, their income. So they’re going along with what the department is saying. The people in the region are saying that Housing, Education, this government should have come in to the smaller communities and really had a good discussion and talked to the people about how this program is going to be implemented in the communities and what issues it should look for. But it came down and said this is what we’re going to do. No one talked to the people. That’s my understanding today and that’s why people are frustrated with this process.

In theory, Mr. Speaker, it sounded good. We read it and it sounded good, but in practicality, you’re seeing issues like this come up. I bring it to the same type of scenario with the board reform. This has to be stopped and looked at seriously by this government. If something needed to be fixed, you should have talked to the people in the communities to say, how can we fix this. But it hasn’t been done. This is what the people are telling us.

I talked to a few of the students who are going to school at Aurora College. I asked them about the housing and how it is working out with the programs and that. Two of them responded by two letters, Mr. Speaker. Because I can’t find them, I won’t be able to table them. It is not in accordance with the rules of tabling documents. So I am going to read them, Mr. Speaker.

“I’m a student at the adult upgrading program in Tulita. I can tell you about the difficulties in living in a small, social housing in a small community because it applies to my situation.”