Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Motion is on the floor. Do we have a seconder? Honourable Member from Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

---Carried

Item 23, third reading of bills. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 20.

Member is seeking unanimous consent to return to item 20, consideration of Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters. Are there any nays? There are no nays. We will return to item 20, consideration of Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, with Mr. Abernethy in the chair. By the authority given me as Speaker by Motion 10-16(2), I hereby authorize the House to sit beyond the daily hour of adjournment to consider the business before the House, with Mr. Abernethy in the chair.

I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. We are considering Tabled Document 7-16(3), Committee Report 2-16(3), Tabled Document 11-16(3), Bills 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7. What is the wish of committee? Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to continue with NWT Housing Corporation as well as the Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Does committee agree that we continue with Tabled Document 11-16(3) with the Housing Corp?

We left off on page 5-55, information item, programs and district operations, operations expenditure summary.

Agreed. Moving along to page 5-56, also an information item, programs and district operations, grants and contributions.

Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to confirm, are we still page 5-54?

We finished page 5-54 and 5-53, 5-55 and we are moving on to 5-56 now. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you. Could I get agreement, Mr. Chair, to go back to page 5-54?

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to go back to 5-55. Agreed?

Are there any nays? Alright. We’ll go back to 5-55. Mr. Beaulieu

Mr. Chairman, I have a motion.

Go ahead, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee strongly recommends that the Housing Corporation take immediate and comprehensive action to assess all housing association programs with a view to increasing the income thresholds that are used to determine client access to the various housing programs; and further, that the Housing Corporation establish reasonable income thresholds that better reflect the current state of the northern economy particularly the high cost of living in small communities and that the programs be designed to address affordability, suitability and adequacy of housing stock by encouraging self-reliance in meeting these housing needs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. A motion is on the floor and is being distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was not going to speak to the motion. The motion is fairly self-explanatory but just a couple of small points to make. The main issue seems to be that the Housing Corporation is able to build homes faster than they are able to find clients. So what’s happening is a lot of the clientele is unable to access the homes as the current income situation stands, core need income thresholds, I should say. With the income thresholds, they are either too low on one hand or too high at the other hand. Let me see, right; too high at the bottom end and too low at the upper end. So what this motion is trying to do is to not move the window this way, so that people on the bottom are also given opportunities that are just not making enough but with the proper counselling would be able to get into these programs and people at the upper end that are just over the current income thresholds but for that reason are not able to access and are also unable to access other types of financing at the levels of subsidy that are being offered. So we recognize that the majority of these housing programs are bank funded now, privately funded, so what is happening is the income is just not sufficient enough for the individuals to go to bank financing easily and the subsidy portions are not big enough to allow that to occur. So this is indicating that we need to look at the high cost of living again and maybe open up the window a bit more at both ends and allow people into the program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.