Agreed. Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses in, please.

For the record, Mr. Minister, can you introduce your witnesses?

Mr. Chairman, with me I have Jeff Anderson, deputy minister or the acting president of the Housing Corporation; and Revi Lau-a, vice-president of finance and infrastructure services.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. General comments. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank the Minister for his opening remarks. I do have a few comments to make. I would like to say that I certainly look forward to the $50 million that the federal government made available to the Northwest Territories to look at housing investments. It will be very interesting to see the game plan how we expend it, how we expend $50 million to put houses on the ground in our communities. Mr. Chair, I look forward and I am very anxious to see what type of plans will be coming forward from the department to let the people know what is possible out there.

Mr. Chairman, the issues on matching funds, again, I will wait until the Minister gives some kind of signal as to whether we can do matching funds and proceed with that type of commitment to know that we are comfortable to go ahead and match funds to build infrastructure.

Mr. Chairman, the other comment I have is on asking for some of the rental stock and where the priorities will be allocated in terms of funding for public rental housing units, how much is going to go into these units, if our core needs are being looked at and some of the core needs that need to be brought down. I know there are some pretty staggering numbers, but I also want to say that some of these numbers have decreased over the years compared to what they were at one time. They have made some improvements. So you can see some significant decreases in these numbers. The government now has extra dollars to put into these units in our communities.

Mr. Chairman, I did want to commend, let the Minister know that he has heard the Members in providing incentives to communities for staff housing for people in our communities. I am very interested to see how this program will roll out, to see how this program would be a benefit to some of the communities that want to take advantage of it and to see how the regional district offices will play a role in terms of this type of initiative brought about by this government.

Mr. Chairman, the other issue I have is with regard to the overstock of housing units, either private or

public, and the energy efficiency support that is going to be given to communities. I am not sure how much each unit will receive based on application, based on assessments being done in our communities. I know when we had these assessments coming through our communities, they were only there for a short period of time and they are fully booked. They are doing good work, but they are fully booked. I think there is not enough time for them to stay in the community to do all the people who want to have their units assessed and to make sure that they fall into our criteria for funding for upgrading their houses. I just wanted to say to the department if there is any way that you could have some communique over to the Arctic Alliance, I think it does it make sense stay a little longer because they are pretty well crammed when it comes to the communities. They are pretty well jam crammed until they leave. Sometimes it is done because there is a real need for it. But also when I went to Tulita, some people didn’t know they were in town because they were already booked up and didn’t have time. Some people will lose out on this process here, so I would ask if they would give that some consideration.

Mr. Chairman, there are other issues here that could be looked at but I want to tell the Minister that, in terms of the two issues that popped out of my head here in terms of the seniors maintenance program that now is on a regional allocation basis. I believe the application is first-come, first-served. Some of the communities that really need these services here, sometimes the money is already depleted. I am hoping to have discussions with the Minister in terms of if there is any thought, if this program can be relocated back to the community and possibly if this could be a private enterprise business opportunity. I know the staff members in the community are pretty well busy in terms of doing other jobs that is required by them. Sometimes it is the elders that are not quite receiving the care that they would like to receive. I get a lot of complaints in terms of having a special maintenance program done by one or two people for the community. That is their whole focus. The elders could get a hold of them quite easily. Right now they have to go to the local housing authority which, in fact, has to fill out an application which goes to the regional district office which reviews the proposals and requests. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like they are responding quick enough to settle the needs of the elders. That is quite a bureaucratic process. Some of the people were asking, Mr. Chairman, if the Minister would consider something in terms of a seniors maintenance program in the community if there are qualified people that could do the job to fill the bill that could look after elders and maintenance needs in the community. That is a request that has been asked to me by my people.

Another one I want to ask the Minister later on in terms of the housing need is the Colville Lake situation. The Minister had some discussions with me and I had some discussions with the district office in terms of how do we deal with Colville Lake. Colville Lake is a very unique situation in terms of the status within the Government of the Northwest Territories and I know they do want some homes. There are other issues at play here that I won’t take up the time right now to discuss with the Minister. I have some of my notes upstairs, so I can speak to the Minister when we get through that chapter in the budget here.

Mr. Chair, I guess, in closing, I want to say I look forward to seeing what kind of numbers that the Minister had in terms of affordability of homes in our community, the adequacy of issues, where do we determine what is adequate and what is not adequate and what is going to be available in our regions with the housing. But I want to also congratulate the Minister for working with the federal government to get that for us in the Northwest Territories. I know it is a tough job. There are certainly lots of needs out there that are going to be talked about in the next couple of days here. I want to say to the Minister and staff that it is nice to know that we do have some dollars. I guess the trouble might be can we spend $50 million in those years? I think we could, but that will be up to the Minister and his staff to work with the community vendors. In closing, I want to say thank you to the Minister for bringing $50 million to the North for housing.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I have four people on my list, so maybe we will just get general comments from each of the Members and then we will allow that Minister to respond after we have general comments. Next on the list I have Mr. Bromley, Mr. Jacobson and Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the Minister for his opening comments. I see we are committing fewer funds this year. I am wondering about additional revenues. I guess it is called other revenues of $69 million. I will be asking questions about what exactly the source of those dollars is. It is probably in here somewhere. We may be getting an additional $55 million in new federal investments over the next two years, some which must be cost-matched. I am wondering if, when we do firm that up, there will be additional opportunities for review and input of how those dollars will be allocated in this program.

I will also be interested in asking questions on energy efficiency, whether all the new houses now will match the EGH 80 guidelines. I am interested in modernization and improvement projects to the existing stock, what exactly that might mean,

whether energy efficiency would be part of that. I think it is great that we are dedicating some funds to helping provide incentive to communities who need to develop housing for their service providers. The Minister has touched on that in his remarks. I will be interested in how that is going to be administered to ensure the most effective benefits from those dollars.

I note $1 million for upgrading energy retrofits on 100 public housing units that went through home energy evaluation. That is only $10,000 per home and I am wondering what can be achieved with that. Will these homes be upgraded to EGH 80? The $2 million dedicated to the CARE program I will have some comments on that. Later in his remarks, he mentioned $3 million additional to that program but didn’t mention energy efficiency in context to the $3 million. I am curious about that.

Increasingly, and I suppose in a way a feather in our Housing Program cap, I am hearing about communities that have a surplus of housing and the Minister highlighted the ongoing and high needs for housing. I will be asking questions as we go along in the budget to help flush out some details on that and get some insights like what our housing stock is by community in relation to need. Thank you for this opportunity.

Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Minister, Mr. Polakoff and Mr. Lau-a.

Oh, sorry. I apologize. Okay. Let’s get started here. Good job in regards to getting the monies from the federal department or federal $50 million. I think it shouldn’t be too hard to spend that $50 million. I can’t wait to get my new housing units, hopefully get a four-plex in Sachs Harbour and my new eight-plex in Ulukhaktok for my elders facility that is going to be coming forward in a motion and a petition as well. I am working on that. I will help you spend those new monies.

Regarding Sachs Harbour, on the infrastructure acquisition plan, I see three of my communities that I represent on the infrastructure acquisition plan in regards to either retrofits or new units. All but one is Sachs Harbour. I have young families wanting to have their own housing unit. There is none available either, due to there is none in the community. I think that has to be looked at. It is a real serious matter because people want to live in Sachs but there is no housing, none whatsoever. It has to be dealt with this year. I look forward to

seeing the new monies, if we could put that in the budget.

The elders facility in Ulukhaktok, I have been working with the community. They would like to see if we can put one up similar to Tuk, an eight-plex or a four-plex, in the community where they have to send their elders to Inuvik and family members not being able to see them. I want to see if we can put that with the new monies that we got from the federal government.

Another big concern I do have is the Inuvik office running the office out of Paulatuk running the corporation in Inuvik. I am finding more and more of my constituents getting these eviction notices from the LHO due to non-payment. If there was somebody in the community, I think it would make a difference if it is run out of the community. I really would like to see that put back into the community -- the office, the staff, everybody -- to run that housing office in Paulatuk. That is needed badly. I am getting people evicted in the communities. It is the middle of the winter. Corporations evicting people, that is not right. We have to work with the corporation to try to work something out for that.

Going back to the acquisition plan, I see some major retrofits. I look at the whole acquisition plan as a whole. I see a lot like in the South here, units being built in a couple of communities that got seven new units. Maybe the corporation is planning enough to give us one or two for Sachs. I would appreciate that.

My biggest concern right now is for the people in Paulatuk in regards to getting the office put back in the community and getting these rental arrears done, having somebody going into the community, visiting adults, sorting out, trying to work with the people and another unit in Sachs Harbour or two four-plexes. But other than that, the federal investment. I think you could put that money into good use in regards to our elders for persons with disabilities. In the communities, I have people that have wheelchairs. They have a tough time getting into their units because there is no ramp...and low income for seniors. Being the most northerly riding, I think a lot of that retrofit money should be coming to the communities. I went to Paulatuk about three weeks ago. One of my elderly ladies came to me and told me that, you know, any time you have a west wind, you have snow blowing in the house. It is more than one unit that is doing that. I know the maintenance is doing the best job they can, but I really think that, given new windows, doors, I think we could help out with elders not having to worry about just trying to stay warm in the winter. It is the last thing they should be worrying about.

Like I said, I am happy to see three of my communities on the list for retrofits and I just need

Sachs Harbour to be put on for my four-plex, and my elders facility in Ulukhaktok. Thank you, Minister and staff. I look forward to going page by page with the Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Next on the list I have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I wasn’t sure if the $55 million was incorporated into the main estimates. I am looking forward to that being incorporated into the budget. I am assuming that money is going to be incorporated into 2009-10 and 2010-11. That is excellent.

In addition to that, I am confident that the NWT Housing Corporation would be able to expend the money, Mr. Chairman, that was given to them by the federal government. I don’t have the same type of confidence levels with other jurisdictions. I suspect that the NWT Housing Corporation is going to be getting an opportunity to get more money offered to them. I hope that the NWT Housing Corporation not only puts a project plan together to address the $55 million but also to anticipate that other monies will probably be offered by the federal government. History tells us that some other jurisdictions don’t expend their money and it goes back to the federal government. I do believe the federal government has already indicated they would be prepared to reallocate.

I have, in Tu Nedhe, specific to that and the Housing Corporation, I feel that both communities will benefit from some projects that would be offered under the Housing Corporation’s various programs like CARE and so on. I know that I have talked to one of the governing bodies in the organization. They are prepared to sit down and try to put their own community plan together as far as delivery of homeownership programs, like, talk to them about staying under certain thresholds as far as money goes, Mr. Chairman, in order to allow the flow of money without the issue of having to deal with the status of the land and so on, because land status is a big issue in Tu Nedhe.

Many of the community members in Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e are not able to access large amounts of money from the Housing Corporation for repairs to their units because of tax arrears. That has become a real issue. It is something that I am hoping to address with the Minister of MACA and, as the Minister of that department speaks to the local governing bodies, I think some of those things, hopefully, will be ironed out, making it easier for the Housing Corporation to deliver programs in Tu Nedhe communities. Also, as I indicated, I am hoping to get an opportunity to meet with the governing bodies in Fort Resolution and discuss the possibility of how they could be active participants

in making sure that this money gets delivered. I feel that, together, the communities and some of the resources that are available to me, we are able to put some good projects together for the community that will assist the corporation in spending the money, opening the door for more funding from...that may fall free from other jurisdictions. I’m very interested in the corporation working hard on the housing for staff budget. I think that’s a very important part of this budget. I think the two communities that I represent, Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e, both have different plans on how to address housing for staff. I know that in Lutselk’e they have some units that could be available for renovations through some of these monies that are available for housing for staff. They actually already have staff housing but they’re just dilapidated and would need not a full $250,000 to build a full-blown three-bedroom unit, but I’m talking around the $100,000 mark in order to get these units back up to a livable standard for staff that the community needs to bring into the community and for professional staff that come to the community to teach and do nursing and so on.

In Fort Resolution the issue is a little bit different. There is some surplus housing there; however, there are a couple of local businesses that may, with the right deal, take advantage of some of these programs that make it feasible for them to provide housing for staff in the community. Under obtaining some leases through the various other departments, they should be able to address that important issue.

I, too, look forward to completing the detail on the Housing Corporation budget so that the corporation staff can start the process of getting the work on the ground as quickly as possible since there’s a relatively quick time frame with the federal dollars. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Chair, I, too, would like to congratulate the Minister and his staff for acquiring the $50 million from the feds. I know the last time around it took a little arm-twisting of other jurisdictions and other authorities where we’re one of the few jurisdictions where we actually matched the funding that we got from the feds. When we did that, we also came forward with a housing needs survey or study that we identified core needs. We identified areas where we have overcrowding in the communities, where we have conditional rating of the different units we had in regard to having to replace some or because they’re in such poor shape that we were better off just building new.

I noted that you are going back to the feds. In your comments you made reference that you’re

presently developing a proposal to complete the detail of the project plan to take forward, but it would be good if we can have some input into that if it’s possible during this process. For me, there are areas that I think we still haven’t really done that great a job on in regard to the people in our communities with disabilities and seniors’ housing in our communities; more in regard to seniors and care type of housing units where they’re going to age in these facilities or these housing units and you have the capacity that when they do age, it’s designed for that and that you do have some sort of a preventative care program for our aging population.

We also have to look at the area of programs and services for the core programs and where we put caps on it. I know we implemented new programs that are out there in regard to aftercare and other programs, but I think what we’re seeing is that the cost of constructing these units and what we were...I know a number of years ago we were constructing units somewhere around the area of $185 a square foot. Now we’re constructing units in our communities at $300 a square foot and these units are coming in at over $300,000. I think that people, to go to the bank in a small community who don’t really have the full paying job, are struggling just to get a mortgage and pay for that large a mortgage. I think we have to increase those thresholds that we had. I noticed $90,000 but I think you’ve got to look at something that’s more practical and realize that there is no real residual value for a lot of these houses in our small communities. Once you’ve got a mortgage on it, you aren’t going to sell it for what you bought it for. I think that those types of things have to be considered either through a program review or assessment in regard to the program that’s there. I feel strongly that we know that there are people there who can operate a home. It’s either that they’re falling between the lines and they either don’t make enough to show that they can actually operate a home or they make too much where we can’t help them out.

Again, you know we put a lot of houses on the ground, the 500-something units we put on the ground. The majority of those were basically family-type dwellings. I think we have to look at more apartment units so that singles and people who are in their middle age, basically all they need is something small. I think that the big challenge we had last time was just trying to find the land that we need to build these things on in a lot of our communities. Even in Yellowknife here just to try to acquire land for the last round of negotiations, trying to get land, I know it’s an issue with Dettah and Ndilo saying how come we don’t get housing. I don’t think it’s that the government not trying to get them houses, but it’s that you can’t find land to build

them on because of IAB lands or because of the unavailability of land in Yellowknife and communities around Yellowknife. It is an issue.

Also, we do have to look at the seniors facilities. I’m very serious when I say that that $50 million, you should allocate a good portion of that to seniors’ housing, either a seniors six-plex, or a five or four for small communities so that the seniors can all live in one area, they’re all close together. They’re a closely knit community to begin with and the families can come and go. They have those units already in several communities. We built one in McPherson. We picked up the design from Dettah where they had a similar design. The elders came down here, we went down and took a look at it and they were very impressed with that facility and how it was set up and designed. You could come in from the outside and you could come in through the front door. Everybody had a shared area, they have all their shared laundry space and they also have someone, basically a caretaker, who lives right in the facility with them to take care of them. I think that’s the type of housing that can really make a difference in our smaller communities. I heard Mr. Jacobson talking about the situation of a lot of elders being stuck in their units because when there’s a blizzard in the Arctic communities, that those units aren’t designed, especially when you have a wind shift in those communities.

The other area I think where we have to do a better job is working with aboriginal housing cooperatives. I mean, you can talk about North Slave housing here in Yellowknife or Tepee Housing in Inuvik; I think those were classified as urban housing projects that were designed through the federal government, and they were designed in the larger centres. I know there’s housing in Fort Smith. Also, you’ve got the Kotaneelee Housing Association in Fort Liard. I think that’s another area you could possibly expand programs. Just looking at those initiatives and seeing if they’re interested in expanding their housing stock so that they can also be able to provide housing like any housing cooperative in the Northwest Territories. You have different housing authorities from Kitikmeot Housing to YK Housing to North Slave Housing here in Yellowknife. I think that we’ve got to work closely with those agencies.

The issue that I’m probably going to talk about later is in regard to the Joe Greenland Centre in Aklavik. There were renovations that were supposed to take place last year, and again it’s a level 3, level 4 facility in Aklavik. It’s one of those seniors homes that’s been designated by the Department of Health and maintained by the NWT Housing Authority. Again, that unit is almost 35 years old and getting up there in age. It has to either be replaced or you’re looking at a major cost to renovate. Again,

that’s something I feel that you have to really seriously look at doing some work there.

Just on that, I think there have been studies done. Sandy Lee’s favourite subject here is NOVEL housing. I know she just loved that project. I think workforce housing is something that there’s a lot of study and work that was done there. A number of units could go into communities. We’re looking at land development for these units. There’s a lot of baseline work that we need that is already there. I think we should seriously look at that, because we only have two years to spend this $50 million and I think that’s something we should consider.

With regard to the housing needs survey, I don’t know if we were able to meet the needs of all the communities, but again maybe go back and take a look at that needs survey and see if we did deliver the units we said we were going to. Did we really make a difference on those needs in those communities?

The other area that I think the Housing Corporation has to do a better job on is expanding your workforce in your communities by way of your maintenance people; looking at putting more money into the local authorities and giving them more money for maintenance people. Give them an extra carpenter. In some cases you probably need an electrician in some of the larger centres. I think you should look at expanding your apprenticeship programs in those communities throughout the Northwest Territories. For most communities that’s a big challenge. If you have home-grown talent in those communities it really helps with the other seniors and people like that, that we’re trying to help by maintenance programs.

The other area I was just wondering if it’s possible that you look at your program staff with regard to the delivery of programs and services for care and aftercare. Is there a possibility that those people could be working in the larger centres and communities where there are enough people to actually make sense to have somebody there serving those larger communities than having them at the regional levels? Either Behchoko or Fort McPherson or communities that can sustain those type of people as program officers in those authorities or whatnot to deliver our programs. Hopefully that’s a bit of food for thought. I think it’s something that we have to think about because we only have two years to act on this.

I’d like to thank the Minister and his staff for the work they’ve been doing. I look forward to going through detail.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Like other Members are saying, the number one issue as an MLA and as I tour my communities and speak to residents, they are concerned about their housing needs and their ability to access programming. I think, indeed, I did mention earlier in the House that I believe the corporation staff is doing their job well. But I think the issue that is facing most of the constituents is not so much the staff as the guidelines and policies of the corporation that are excluding and making it difficult for people to access programming again. I know that many of my constituents have previously accessed programming and, I don’t know, it’s probably true in some cases that they’re not understanding the full implications of previous programs and now it limits their ability to access existing programs. That’s causing me concern because now a lot of people want to upgrade their houses. They want retrofits, they want renovations, and even the ability to enter the Homeownership Program as well. But because of their previous activity and their previous past, they’re actually denied access to previous programming. I think in some cases, probably because the staff know the file so well, they just tell people that they’re denied without even taking an application. In terms of due diligence and due process, I don’t think that should happen. I think that people should have the ability to fill out the application, at least. Some circumstances do change and there are life circumstances that change. In some cases there’s improved income. Maybe they’re dual household earners now. So just to be denied before we even open the door to them is not right. I don’t believe it’s the kind of service that our people expect from our Housing Corporation. At least they should take their application in and base their assessment on information that’s there. It’s just getting through the door that’s frustrating them to no end. I know, because we have changed our programming, that people have to apply annually.

Just in terms of guidelines and procedures, I still believe that we have to change the parameters of the community income threshold limit. There are lots of good couples out there and hardworking individuals who make enough money that can make these mortgage payments. I believe that those are the people we want. The ones who can afford to make the mortgage payments are the clients we want. I think we should really look at changing some parameters about eligibility for these people. They do want mortgages and so they need our assistance in that. In order to achieve our goal of more homeownership clients I believe that we should make this small change.

Another area of great importance is the ones in the lower limit and middle category have an affordability problem. I believe in the Minister’s opening remarks

he does mention a move towards social housing. I support that. And public housing. I believe we have to do more of that. One of my communities, Fort Liard, identified it. I’ve advised the Minister’s office that this is something that they want more of, because Fort Liard, like many communities, has four or five houses that ...Actually, we have three houses there that are unoccupied because clients are having difficulty finding clients for these homes. I don’t know if we have to convert these to social housing or public housing, but the key thing is that it frustrates the constituents to no end to see empty homes there when Fort Liard has huge overcrowding issues. There are two or three families to each home, in many cases. So there are 10 or 12 individuals in a two or three-bedroom house. It’s a huge issue. These people aren’t qualifying for our programs maybe because of previous programs or because of other guideline issues. If there was public housing, if there was social housing available, I believe they would certainly qualify. Many of them are low to no income and that’s what this type of house is certainly designed for. I’m certainly in support of it.

Some other communities, we have one guideline that if you have an existing house in the corporation and you want to upgrade or access another program, you cannot. I think we really should have a look at that policy, because what you’re doing is you’re helping one family perhaps move to a larger unit that’s more accommodating to their needs. They’ve got no problem making the mortgage payments. It’s not that they’re getting two houses. They’ve let me know and in many cases people say I’ll gladly return that to the Housing Corporation’s stock. With a little bit of renovation we can free that up for other individuals. It will probably be lower-cost housing. Probably a chance the mortgage won’t be that high. Or we can turn it into social or public housing stock. But the whole key here is that we’re taking the ability of moving a family to a larger, newer home that’s more accommodating to their larger, bigger families, to their needs. In some cases it’s being disabled too. Just another strategy that I think the corporation should look at, because it does free up another home. That’s what that does. In many cases there’s no one else eligible to access our housing programs for homeownership programs as well. So I believe that if we look at that and try to accommodate those special needs we can make better use of our dollars and we’ll get better return on our investment and just a better fit. These clients are a better fit for us.

There’s one thing that I’ve been quite passionate about over the years as an MLA and that is that we have to do this appeal system. I don’t see the Minister mentioning it in his opening remarks. Maybe he can comment on it if he’s got a moment. But that’s something I believe is necessary for our

Public Housing Program with the NWT Housing Corporation. I believe it will be beneficial not only to the Housing Corporation, but to the people, our clients, as well, and those applying. It gives them an avenue to appeal and I’ve always said that they’re often...Currently they’re often appealing to the people that denied them in the first place, which is front-line managers and maybe regional headquarters or district headquarters as well. That’s the only person they have to appeal to and they say, look, you forgot this information. But their minds are already made up. I believe an independent process is something that we need. Another way that they do appeal, too, is they appeal through their MLA or directly to the Minister’s office. That’s not really a fair way to treat our people. I believe that they do need an outlet in which to appeal; an independent process, knowing it will be treated with the diligence it deserves and the attention it deserves as opposed to I already said no and we’re going to stay at no. In some cases information really does get missed or lost or special circumstances are not taken into consideration, and that’s the value of an appeal system. I believe we should work towards it. Previous Ministers of Housing have indicated to me it would take place April 1st of this year, but I would

sure like to see something running in this new fiscal year.

With that, I’ll conclude my statements. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on that.

With that, maybe we’ll just take a short break at this time and then we’ll resume with your responses.

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I call Committee of the Whole back to order. I’ve got no other Members on my list for general comments, so is committee agreed that we have no more general comments?

Alright. I’d like to allow the Minister the opportunity to respond to the general comments. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I’d like to say thank you for the comments Members have made, the suggestions, observations. Certainly I think everybody is very interested in the new federal funding that was highlighted in the budget. We still have to firm that up. We have a number that has been given to us as an indication of what the dollars are going to be flowing to the NWT. We expect to have those signed off in a couple of weeks and have that presentation to the standing committee, along with

a number of other initiatives that were raised today that we are looking at making some changes, enhancements or introducing.

A number of questions were raised regarding the new money around how we would match the funding. We already have the dollars in our funding that we would utilize as matching funds. This would give us roughly a $52 million per year investment that we would be moving forward on. Right now, the general idea and our thinking, after listening to the Members over the last while, is to start doing some upgrades in the area of public housing stock, upgrades in the area of energy efficiency and also allow people to access dollars for private home repairs. Of course, we would try to continue with the Homeownership Program, but I think there is a little bit of a shift. I mean, all this will be presented to committee for discussion and we are expecting that as we move forward, that our core need will be done sometime early this summer for 2009 and that will indicate, after spending the last investment by the federal government into housing of the Northern Trust that we will see a decrease in our core need. There are still many areas where we need investment.

I mentioned in the House the other day that public housing is still an issue. We have money for infrastructure and there has been no real investment for some time in the area of operation and maintenance for these units. That is a challenge that we have to deal with the federal government on, along with other jurisdictions.

The other issue that was raised today was housing for staff. That’s something that we have put in our budget, $1.5 million, as a place marker to try to deal with the communities that are really struggling to find accommodations for people that are in the communities working as teachers, nurses and other areas. That is something we are working with the Executive on and the Refocusing Government committee and we’ll be bringing those results forward.

There was also a mention regarding the ability or inability of getting people in the communities to do evaluations in the area of energy. Arctic Energy Alliance does a lot of that work right now for us and for people in the communities. We’d like to see our staff start taking on some of that, playing some of that role, staff that are in the communities more and be able to advise people and do some of the testing that is currently being done by other organizations. That might help alleviate some challenges.

That is the same with the mould issues, Mr. Chairman. We are training all of our staff to be able to provide advice, to do the testing, and also advise how to remedy the situation where there is mould in some of the units. The seniors maintenance

program was raised by several of the Members here. We have changed our seniors program somewhat so that seniors can qualify just the same as any individual that is applying for assistance. We have removed any of the caps on home repair so that seniors can come and do more than just the $8,000 that we had budgeted historically. They can now qualify for up to $90,000 to do home repairs. We have also carved off some dollars to introduce a seniors maintenance program. We are going to be looking at putting $2,000 or budgeting $2,000 per community so that we can have some mechanism for communities to help their seniors, whether it is furnace cleaning or repair, or water tanks, things of that nature that is really challenging our seniors right now. It will be a general maintenance, and we expect a lot of communities will be hiring private companies or being delivered through the band councils or things of that nature.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Yakeleya raised an issue that has been challenging us for some time. That is the potential to put homeownership units in the community of Colville Lake. This is a small community, an isolated community and doesn’t have any roads and up until lately, didn’t have any running water. It has really been a challenge to find people that would fit the program design of how we bring forward homeownership units. They are a unique community, as the Member has raised, and we expect that we would have to find private, or a special design to accommodate them. We would also have to look at how we could set up a unit that would fit in a budget that they could afford.

We have other communities that have a number of people that are being challenged with some of our programs as some of the people in the Northwest Territories don’t have a credit rating, so we need to be able to accommodate that. We think by designing a fairly basic unit that would fall under the grant that we would provide or forgivable mortgage that we would provide will be able to assist them.

Mr. Bromley asked about the investment in energy upgrade and he pointed out the million dollars that we have in revenue, which is correct. That is the revenue that will be coming into the revenue pot. However, we have earmarked $8 million in MNI expenditures that will be focussed on energy. We have committed that we will follow the EnerGuide 80 and that will go to all our units, whether they are new or they are being retrofitted. That is a standard we have set and we will be incorporating that in our program.

The $69 million is all the revenues that are identified in this budget as other revenue. There was a question about cost-matching and that has already been accommodated. Mr. Jacobson raised the question and the concern about -- you know it is in his riding -- the condition of some of the public

housing units, and we certainly recognize and have heard from them, and we still expect that we will be seeing a petition from those communities regarding the status and the situation with our public housing units in those communities and the number of new units that are going in there. As we go forward, we will be doubling our budget in renovations in that area. So with actual change, we will certainly be interested to see and hear specifically what Mr. Jacobson has raised.

Our budgets are based and allocated on core need and in this case, because we don’t have our new budget or our new core need analysis done yet, we are still working on the 2004 assessment. Next year I expect we will use this new assessment as it comes forward early this summer.

We share Mr. Jacobson’s concern regarding the office in Paulatuk. We have been looking for someone there and we would really like to staff that position. Capacity is always an issue when it comes to the smaller communities. We hope that is going to happen fairly soon.

Mr. Chairman, the other issue regarding expending all of our dollars that we have earmarked, what is in this budget and what is coming forward from the federal government, we expect will be done within two years. We plan to have it done in two years. We will, as I said, bring a plan forward for investment. Mr. Beaulieu is quite correct in saying that if we spend all the money and we get the units on the ground and do all the retrofits in two years, we would be eligible for any other jurisdiction’s dollars that have lapsed. Up to now we are the only jurisdiction that did match the federal investment and we are, I think, the only jurisdiction that is able, once we do this last year in our housing trust money, we will be the only jurisdiction that has been able to do that. We hope that in year three we will be able to trap any of the surplus money that is lapsing in other jurisdictions.

I am really quite excited to hear that there is some discussion about community planning around housing. That is something that we really need to encourage. We think dollars could flow better. We think people would understand better what the strategy is and information could get out there better if more people were involved and more people were sharing the management decisions.

The issue of thresholds is another that we have, over the last while, heard many Members raise. We plan to look at that when we do our housing choices evaluation. We will be doing that shortly and we hope that will result in changing the thresholds. We recognize that it has been challenging over the last couple of years as we introduce our programs, for some people to fit in the window that we have identified and the criteria that we have set. We

would like to be able to open that up. We do have, still, a number of vacant units and I think the number is at 21 units right now across the Northwest Territories. We are hoping that by opening up the thresholds, changing the thresholds, opening them up and changing the criteria, we will attract more people. We are certainly getting that indication from a lot of the Members in this House.

We have heard that also from the Small Communities committee when we talked about housing. We are also looking at the amount that is given as a contribution or forgivable mortgage, which is a maximum $90,000 and given some of the costs of construction in the more northern part of the NWT, where common three-bedroom houses are up to $300,000 dollars, we may have to look at seeing if we can find a number there that is a better fit.

We do still provide contributions of up to $25,000 for some of the people that are on IAB lands and people that don’t or can’t attain land tenure, so land is still an issue. We are working on resolving some of these with the band governance and especially issues on IAB land. Mr. Chairman, I think everybody is aware now that the Housing Corporation is not allowed to move forward and build, provide mortgage or any type of assistance unless we have land tenure, and the Auditor General had raised this.

Mr. Chairman, we are also really having a difficult time with the number of people across the Territories that are in arrears to this government through land tax or property tax and I think it’s got to be clear that we are not allowed to make an exemption. This is an issue where there is an arrears for taxes and that has to be cleared up through a recovery plan or some type of arrangement with this government before we can do anything.

The housing for staff, as I indicated, is something we are still working on. We are hoping that will get rolled out fairly soon. Our core needs, again this is going to be summer 2009, the allocations in a couple of weeks, we’ll present that to committee along with the other initiatives that we are working on.

We are also trying to find a new design unit as a result of Colville Lake, but other communities have also indicated that they would like to see us come in with a new unit. We are not sure what it will be called yet, but we are looking at designing something that would be very basic. It might be a traditional housing package or something that is very simple, very easy to heat, maybe woodstove and electric cook stove and very little else that we can put in communities that would meet some of the needs of the singles, some of the smaller

families that just don’t fit in the category to take on a mortgage. So that’s something we will continue to work on.

We will also continue to provide programming for seniors in terms of seniors’ housing. Our focus is on independent seniors that can maintain their units. With a little bit of care, they continue to live on their own and we want to encourage that. Somebody, I believe it’s Mr. Krutko, raised the issue of trying to work better with the co-ops, now that we have some money, to help them with some of their challenges. That is certainly something we will look at.

The Joe Greenland facility was also raised and the question was asked about when we were going to do it. That was a contract that went out to bid and resulted in the bids being quite a bit higher than we had budgeted for, so we are seeing how we can accommodate the repair that needs to be done.

Mr. Chairman, somebody also raised -- I believe Mr. Krutko -- the issue of NOVEL housing and workforce housing. It’s not something that we have high on our priority list, Mr. Chairman, but the issue or idea of modular units is something we will keep an eye on especially if we get behind in investing or getting all the units we need to put up in the next couple of years. So it’s something we will put on the back burner, but it’s a consideration.

The issue of expanding the workforce is certainly something we agree with. The trades in communities are getting harder and harder to attract and having some people who are trained within communities is something we want to do. We embarked on an Apprenticeship Program and so far we’ve identified 12 positions for apprentices and we’ll try to keep that as a program ongoing and maybe even expand it.

Mr. Chairman, in Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche has highlighted the concern of many people not understanding the programs since we’ve introduced the new housing choices. Since this fall, we’ve really tried to embark on getting the information out there. We’ve launched a public campaign. We have staff from our regions going into the communities to have communications shared with the community members, public campaigns in the communities so that people know when the deadlines are, what the programs are about. We are trying to remove some of the misunderstandings. We are also putting ads in the paper so people know when the deadlines are, when they need to come forward to apply.

Mr. Chairman, there was a concern raised by Members regarding the ability of members or community members to come forward and access some of our programs because their history has continued to be a concern. We have a long list of

people that have arrears. We have a long list of people who have done damage or abandoned their units. We do try to work towards accommodating people that are willing to patch up what is not allowed in applying for a new program. Recovery plans have been put in place for a number of people who are really trying to either turn their life around or put themselves back in the good books of the Housing Corporation. We really appreciate that; however, we still have to stay firm. We have a lot of people coming and asking for exemptions. Just write off what I owed for the last 10 years and stuff of that nature. We, as a corporation, are going to stay fairly firm on that. In order to encourage everybody to pay their rents and pay their mortgages, there has to be a demonstration that we aren’t just going to open the door every time somebody complains a little bit too loud.

Mr. Chairman, there are quite a few things that we need to come forward to committee with that, as a new Minister -- I think I’ve been in this position for eight months now -- I’ve heard from Members of this House in different committees and we’re hoping that some of these things we’ll be able to share relatively quickly.

The other thing was we also wanted to have further discussion that we committed to on the appeal system. We are hoping to get our stamp of approval from committee and kick it out the door by April 1st .

So there are a number of things that we need to expand on but we are still working on. We had hoped to have everything in place by this budget session, given the sense of urgency that came on the Building Canada Fund, and the need to do the correspondence and have the discussions with the federal Ministers has kind of slowed it up, but we are still working on these issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. As there are no further general comments, is committee agreed that we proceed to detail in the tabled document?

Okay. Page 5-41. You will notice, committee, that the budget for the NWT Housing Corp actually appears in the Department of Finance where it will be approved and considered. Every item within the Housing Corp’s tabled document here is basically an information item, but we’ll go through each page as we would with the other departments and if you have questions, we’ll agree with them or not agree with them as we go forward.

We would like to defer the department summary, the financial summary information on page 5-41,

and go onto page 5-43, corporate summary, information item, operations expenditure summary.