Mr. Chair, in light of what we’ve just been reading now, the survey of the NWT community housing components and the old 2004 survey with the acquisition for the infrastructure, I’m going to have to look at it. I’m just asking the Minister, does that match with our needs in the Nahendeh, the Sahtu and the Beaufort-Delta in terms of the dollars that we’re spending to bring down the core needs, the percentages? I haven’t done my own analysis so I want to ask the Minister that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, our plan is to proceed with this year’s infrastructure acquisition plan, and then when we do the budget for next year, the community needs survey is going to go a long way in determining how we allocate the money. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Next on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, in regard to the infrastructure acquisition plan, these units are allocated or were approved in the budget on the basis of these units being approved. Because something that frustrates me is when you have regional staff telling people in the communities

you may not be getting those units. I don’t think it’s up to those people at the regional level to make that decision. The decision is made here in this Legislature. We’re the ones that are approving this budget. I think it’s frustrating for myself to get phone calls from local people saying, sorry, those contracts might not be let in your communities where they may reallocate. There’s a process for that. It’s called the Financial Administration Act. If you’re going to move any money around in any person’s riding, you have to inform them ahead of time. Not have some bureaucrat at the regional office trying to dictate something that the budget hasn’t even approved yet. I think that, for myself, that frustrates me that I have to deal with those types of phone calls from someone that basically does not have the final authority on making that decision and yet they’re going ahead and making those comments. So I’d just like to know from the Minister, is this department going to be moving units around out of this budget to other locations before we approve this budget item or has that decision already been made?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, for the 2010-11 infrastructure budget there has been no decision as to… The Member is right; this is a budget that’s approved here in the Legislative Assembly. So there’s been no decision as to moving any of the projects around. If there is, once the budget is approved, if we have issues where there might be some projects moved around, then, obviously, the Member is correct, we’d let the Members know.

We’ll have to follow up on the Member’s concern about people in the communities getting phone calls. If the Member will allow us to follow up with that and see what we could find out and then we’ll get back to the Member or I’ll get back to the Member personally and let him know what I found out. So without knowing the details of that, I can’t really comment on it, but we will follow up on it very rigorously. Thank you.

Another question I have in regard to this page is the majority of the projects are in regard to retrofits. I know that the local housing authorities, in most cases, do most of the retrofits on their own. I’m just wondering, is there extra money available for a community housing authority to take on more capacity by hiring more people when they have to basically do these major retrofits. So I think that, if anything, this is a perfect opportunity, especially for our communities who are struggling economically.

There’s not much happening, especially in the Beaufort-Delta region and people are looking for work. This is probably something that they can look forward to. I’d just like to ask the Minister, is there

going to be any resources given to either local housing authorities or those community organizations to take on this work and they can do it in house, do it in their home communities and build the capacity there to do a lot of this work in our communities than having to tender it outside of our of communities. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, there’s always an opportunity there for LHOs that want to take this work on themselves. You’ll find in most communities this is a source of summer employment for a lot of people. There are people that have been working on M and I projects for the last 16, 17 years and it’s basically their employment for the year. What they would do, as far as extra money goes, the budget that’s budgeted here, I mean, they’d fit that into their budget. Their money would probably go a lot further than if they were to bring a contractor in, and I think some of the LHOs are recognizing that. So taking on some of the M and I projects themselves. There’s always going to be projects out there that are going to need a little more specialized trade and those ones they’ll bring in, but communities are very good at identifying what work that they’re able to do and what their capacity is. I know communities that have 16, 17 guys working for the summer doing these M and I projects. So the opportunity is always there for the communities to take this work on themselves. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, we’re on page 5-63, information item, NWT Housing Corporation, infrastructure acquisition plan. Questions? Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chair, just more of a comment here in terms of the programs that are under this budget here in terms of the homeownership entry level program. I just like to give a comment to the Housing here in terms of these programs. The STEP program, the HELP program and the other programs, they offer the PATH program, the CARE program. I think that’s probably one of the best written up programs I’ve read. I had the opportunity to read the STEP program. It’s dynamite stuff that’s there that should be going to the communities. Hopefully, it will be somehow, when we have aboriginal peoples taking these programs, there’s translators and that there that provides that. I think the Minister made a comment to that before, so I’ll take up on his comments here and I’ll review it. So I just wanted to give kudos to the department for some good work being done there. Too bad that the STEP program -- and I might be off topic, Mr. Chair -- but the STEP program is to offered in the communities. Even people who have housing from the HAP units or the SHAG units that could take this program without… Because I understand there’s a requirement to take some of these programs that some people may not

qualify for. So more of a comment to them. That’s it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Thank you. We appreciate those comments. I just wanted to respond saying that we are looking at that right now, is having folks that are looking after their own houses as part of this program. Also, I think that there was a concern with elders and people that didn’t understand that were applying for a program, but there’s an opportunity there for somebody to attend the program on their behalf.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, page 5-63, information item, NWT Housing Corporation, infrastructure acquisition plan.

Page 5-64, information item, infrastructure acquisition plan.

Page 5-65, information item, infrastructure acquisition plan. Questions?

No questions. Committee, I’ll have you turn to page 5-41. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I note that there’s the Education, Culture and Employment public housing rent supp. I’m just wondering if that would be changed to simply refer to the public housing rent supp and remove the wording “Education, Culture and Employment” and how soon are we going to see that change.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Krutko, just for confirmation, are you on page 5-41?

Yes.

Thank you. On page 5-41. Mr. McLeod.