Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will have to get that information and relay it on to the Member. Thank you.

Okay we are on page 5-43, corporate summary, agreed?

Information item. Moving on to page 5-44, information item, active positions by region.

Moving on to page 5-47, information item, executive, operations summary, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A quick question here, I am just wondering what all is being covered under contract services here. I see it is 70 percent up from last year and I wonder if perhaps that has something to do with the shelter policy or something, but I would like to find out. Thank you.

Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct; that is the money for the shelter policy. Thank you.

Given all the homegrown experts on the Standing Committee on Social Programs, I don’t understand why EDI would want to contract anything out, Mr. Minister. But seriously, though, the Minister has a lot of in-house expertise. What is contemplated here that is extra in terms of contracting out?

Mr. Polakoff.

Can I get confirmation that those agencies are charging the NWT Housing Corporation for their contributions to the work?

I was just under the illusion that we were all sort of one, so why would they be charging the Housing Corporation?

I will leave it at that but if the Minister has anything he can provide, I would appreciate it, just for my understanding. But that is all I have on this page. Thank you.

Mr. Minister, if you have any materials that could be provided to the Member in regards to his questioning.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are actually looking at trying to nail down a date where we can provide the committee with an update with the work that is going on and some of the issues that Member Bromley had spoken of. Thank you.

Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to ask the Minister, in terms of the federal, provincial and territorial levels, are the Ministers coordinating a strong strategic position to continue hammering the federal government on the other ways that they can support them with their housing declining dollars that they need to keep the federal government on those? Right now it seems like they are offloading the social housing to the communities, or to the Territories, and for us it is going to be hundreds of millions of dollars if we take on this role here.

Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member is correct; if we were to

take this all on, it would cost the Government of the Northwest Territories a lot of money and obviously we are concerned with the declining funding. We have been trying to engage the federal government in sitting down with all jurisdictions in Canada to find ways where we could convince them that this is a program, the CMHC funding obviously is something that we seriously need otherwise all jurisdictions are going to have to start dipping into their own funds. This is one that I think that we need to continue to be very aggressive in trying to engage the federal government and I have invited them up here. I have invited the Minister up here, I have invited the president of CMHC up here to show them firsthand some of the issues that we are challenged with, so it is an ongoing battle. It is an ongoing struggle, but we need to keep pushing them to realize that they need to keep this funding flowing. At the same time, we can’t just sit on our hands and wait for them to give us an answer. We have to find ways, as a corporation, of trying to be proactive in dealing with what we obviously know is coming, unless they change their minds, and that is a decline in funding, so we have to try and cut back on our operations and maintenance, design and build newer, more energy-efficient houses, which would then cut back on all the expenses. So we continue to do what we can to alleviate some of the pressures that we are going to face, but at the same time we continue to try to be fairly aggressive with the federal government to get them to see the light. Thank you.

Certainly if there is anything that you can do with your counterparts, Mr. Minister, to let the federal government know the importance of their support. You talked about the energy-efficient homes that we want in the Northwest Territories. That means working with your other colleagues in government here to put these types of houses in our communities. I hope you have luck with the president coming to the North. Certainly we welcome him to look at some of the homes that we have in our communities, in Colville Lake to look at some of the situations that people have to live there. He may have a little more sympathetic heart there to look at ways they could support us.

At the same time, we are educating our people, the true meaning of home ownership in terms of taking care of their homes. We really are in a trap to not depend on the government so much to change a light bulb for us or have things done for us if we are in homes. There is a lot of work to do. I hope we will work with the other departments and that there is a new program that comes out on being truly self-reliant. That is one of our goals. People who do own their own homes know that it costs a lot of money to maintain it, to fix the pipes or fix the washroom facilities or the furnace. They are unable to pick up the phone to call Housing. You have to call the contractor. Sometimes the contractor is

another community away, or the parts, materials and supplies are here in Yellowknife or Inuvik or the Wells. It costs a lot of money. It really makes you think about how easy it is for people who live in some of these housing units to operate. I am going to leave it at that and let the Minister respond briefly.