Sergeant-at-Arms, could you please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Can I please get you to introduce your witnesses for the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m joined today by, to my right, Mr. Jeff Polakoff, president and CEO of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, and to my left I have Mr. Jeff Anderson, vice-president of finance with the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. As with previous departments, we had allowed all Members to make general comments and have the Minister respond at the end. Is committee agreed that we proceed with this same process?

Okay. We’ll now go with general comments. Is committee agreed?

First on my list is Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In regard to this department and its portfolio, yes, we have challenges, but I think also we have to work together to find solutions to some of our challenges. I think that in regard to the area of finding revenues in regard to CMHC, again, that’s a national problem. I think it’s a $3 billion problem across Canada, and I think we’re all in the same boat on that one, and I think it’s just going to take a national outcry to get the federal government to admit that they have made a mistake.

Again, I think we do have to be cognizant in the North that we have to find offsetting revenues, and I think one of the areas that we have to look at is that we do have rent subs with the private sector. I think, whenever possible, those dollars should be expended first with the Housing Corporation assets before we allow those rent subs to be spent in the private sector. I think we generate $5 million by way of what we collect by way of rent, but I think we also have to look at how much money the government spends in other agencies in regard to rent subs, regardless if it’s the Department of Health and Social Services or even through income support, that we have to be able to use other government agencies to provide that investment in the Housing Corporation before you go to the private sector.

I think that in most cases what you usually find are people do get evicted from housing and they’ll end up going to one of the agencies, and in most cases it’s income support or social services in which they’ll find them an alternative place to stay. But again, I think that whenever possible we have to work with the clients and work out payment plans

and try to find a way that we’re able to recoup those dollars in most cases, that people do have hardships or people do lose their jobs, they do get laid off, and because in most of our small and isolated communities we do have a seasonal economy and right now the economy is down in most regions throughout the Northwest Territories.

But again, I think it’s fundamental to look at a holistic approach to housing and not just look at housing as a place that you rent houses, but look at it as a place that residents, children, parents, grandparents grow up, grow old, and eventually pass on. We have to look at housing in the lifecycle of the people we serve, from single individuals to married couples, to couples with families to the transitional process as we go through life, and we have to be aware that at some point we’re going to have to look at the possibility of investing more money into either social care or secondary or seniors’ care, and we have to be able to work with those different components.

I think that’s one thing that we’ve sort of slipped here in the North. Looking at other jurisdictions in the country, they do have plans in place where they look at the holistic approach of housing from hard to house people to homeless people to seniors facilities to transitional housing. So when you look at the whole gamut of housing right from the time someone gets into the market to actually when you exit out of the market and in most cases you end up going into a long-term care facility and that’s part of that. I think it’s something that we have to look at in the North with the amount of challenges we’re seeing with homelessness. But in most cases those are people problems and people issues and program issues that we have to work on and working with other government agencies and ourselves to work around that. I think it’s important that we look at that but, I think, also, we have to work with families and individuals to make the transition from the public housing dependency to eventually home ownership to eventually being able to maintain their own needs.

That’s an area that I’d like to focus on, because I know that in my riding there have been issues that I’ve raised with the Minister and the department on individuals who have tried to transition into home ownership but because of one reason or another, basically because most of the clients that have got into home ownership work in a seasonal economy but at least they’re making their payments, they’re maintaining their commitment, but yet, in some cases, they were told that they had to vacate the premises because they didn’t have full employment.

In most of our communities you might have 13 percent or even 15 percent of the people that are fully employed in our communities. The other 80-something percent depend on seasonal work. I think we have to be realistic to the economic times

of our communities and the realities people face. But people still, at the end of the day, make ends meet. They are able to maintain their facility. They’re making their payments. They’re not in arrears. I think that, if anything, we should credit them for trying whichever way they can to bring in whatever revenues they need from trapping or fishing or subsidizing their wages somehow other than having a full-time job, because we can’t discriminate individuals based on the employment levels that they’re at. I think that’s something we have to be realistic about when we’re talking about communities and community services.

I think the other area that we have to really look at is the whole independency side of elder care and the elders care programs and sustaining them as long as we can in their own homes and working with themselves, their families. Because as they age, their requirements change also from being mobile individuals who were basically self-sufficient, they’re able to cut their own wood, pack their own wood, but as you age it gets a little harder as you progress in life. I think we have to be realistic that those people are going to need some assistance by way of changing their heating systems or looking at some sort of equipment to assist with their disabilities, regardless if it’s ramps on their facility or, basically, having better access to their showers and their washrooms so that, basically, they’re able to sustain that independence as long as possible. Again, I think we have to work with the private sector in regard to groups that do provide different types of housing, regardless if it’s the private sector.

I know one of the issues that has come to light is the whole area of professional housing. I know that the Minister made a statement in the House yesterday in which they’re allocating a bunch of the vacant units for professional housing, but I think we have to be aware that you’re dealing with a segment of our workforce that’s transient. They come and go. You don’t know how long they’re going to be there for. But again, those units at some point will eventually be empty again. I think you have to be realistic of how those units will be required over a period of time and making sure that you identify the occupants so that when you basically have those transitional periods of cycles where, in most cases, the RCMP, for instance, most of them do a two-year turnaround in most of our communities, and then basically they have to go out and rehire or refocus their efforts to get other people in there. Sometimes that takes a little bit of time, so those units, again, will be sitting empty for some period of time and, again, we have to be aware of that.

But again, we also have to ensure that’s there’s fairness in the process. That we don’t provide a subsidy to one group and yet people are basically paying $1,500 or in some cases $1,800 a month in

regard to maintaining a home ownership program but yet we’re allowing the professional housing to be subsidized. I think that that’s a concern from residents in our communities, is how come they’re subsidized and I have to pay, you know, 30 percent or 25 percent of my income based on income testing. So is there going to be income testing also provided by way of the rent that’s being charged to the professional staff in our communities? In most cases the teachers and other people, they try to get it as cheap as they can and they don’t want to pay $1,500 a month. If they can get it for $600, they’ll try to get it for $600. I think we have to be fair to all the residents in our communities when it comes to providing these different types of services.

The other area I would like to talk about is the whole area of capacity building, especially in the area of tradespeople in our community. This department has an important role to provide that opening for a lot of young people to get into the trades. I know we are looking at that in the Housing Corporation and local housing authorities are taking on more people. I think we also have to develop that into the actual construction and the maintenance and repairs that are going to take place so that you offer the student, especially summer students, that opportunity. For most of them, that is their first job that they will receive, so they are able to do that.

I think also we have to be aware of community unemployment rates where we have high unemployment rates. We have to allow for some of this work to remain in our communities. I know that this department used to be wide open to negotiated contracts with bands and development corporations in trying to find that opportunity and keeping those resources and job opportunities in our communities. Again, I think we have to be open to that and ensure that the policies and procedures this government has to offer are being used, especially in departments such as Housing Corporation, which is a very important infrastructure department in the government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Are there any other Members who would like to make general comments? Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think my biggest concern now for the future of social housing is the CMHC declining fund. To me, it doesn’t appear as though the federal government... Basically from their position on their stance seems to be that they are into providing short-term stimulus-type money or short-term affordable housing strategy types of money because they seem to get a better bang for that buck than they would to continue long-term investment in housing. It is long-term investment in housing, I think, is something that has been in place. It was agreed to some time ago that the federal government would

be withdrawing from that type of housing, essentially public housing program under a couple of CMHC sections. That is something that is worrisome for me, not because I am afraid that the public housing will be sitting there and we would not be able to operate public housing, but because I am afraid that if we don’t have a good strategy to address the public housing that we have on inventory, that it would take all of our money out of other essential areas, specifically maybe in housing but could possibly be in other areas to backfill what is needed to continue to operate all of the public housing units.

There is a slight growth in public housing announced by the Minister yesterday. Again, it is only about $15,000 per year to operate a unit, maybe $20,000 a year to operate a unit. That is the additional 50 units is not that significant that it would have an impact, but the withdrawal fund is what I find very significant. I think lobbying Canada to ask them to stay in is something that we should continue to do, as all provinces are doing, but I don’t think it is going to be an effective strategy. I think what we need to do is actually develop a strategy to reduce the amount of public housing we have on inventory. If the Housing Corporation, from one end of selling a house that is worth $300,000 to $400,000 on the market in the city of Yellowknife for $300,000 to $400,000, not to disrupt the market, but to get the capital out of it and to reduce the amount of public housing in market communities where public housing really doesn’t add to the market is essential. I recognize that, but there are other ways of providing public housing. I am saying that public housing can be provided on a short-term basis in the market communities by renting or leasing. You could sell 20 houses in market communities at an average of $300,000 per unit and I think that adds up to $6 million or something like that. That could be then, in turn, put back into the home ownership side of things or being put back into leasing public housing in market communities and reduce our inventory so we don’t have long-term commitments by virtue of ownership.

Right now, if we don’t reduce the amount of public housing we have, we are going to be in it for the long term, and as the money from the federal government dries up, we will have to backfill with GNWT dollars. I am a bit afraid of that. That kind of leads me to where...

I am trying to get the Housing Corporation to see if they would consider... I would ask the Minister if they would consider developing a housing plan in each community; maybe a housing plan that considers all of the factors. I use the term today: a 360 evaluation. I would still use that term to have the corporation look at the communities from a community-to-community perspective and have a plan that says our public housing situation in Fort

Resolution is this. The home ownership situation for Fort Resolution is this. This is what we have on the market. This is the total value of what we have on the market and the total value of what is on the market in that community and, in essence, move away from having a lot of public housing to maybe creating some sort of a quasi-housing market in these smaller communities that allows individuals in that community to have equity. So you would essentially work towards accumulating some sort of market so that individuals have equity.

We all know that there is a significant difference between putting money into a house in Inuvik and Fort Smith and Yellowknife than there is putting money into places like Lutselk’e, Nahanni Butte and even in Tulita or Fort Resolution, for that matter, because those communities don’t have a market. That is why I think the houses there are essentially lifelong houses. If you have a community where you have a market, then a lot of people will invest in the market then upgrade, sell their unit and upgrade and so on. In a sense, it kinds of creates a little market in itself in the communities. I think the Housing Corporation needs to look at that in part with their programs and make sure that they are trying to move forward and achieve that objective, and that is an area that should cover the effects of what is happening with the CMHC withdrawal.

The other area that I am very interested in is the home ownership units in the communities. Really, I am looking at units now that are older units. The Housing Corporation built several hundred HAP units across the Territory and many of those units are now getting to a stage where they are moving to a state where they could be getting close to being beyond economic repair. I would like to see the corporation... I think it would be positive if we could repair those units and save them from going to a dilapidated state where they cannot be fixed. Then I think we really have a big price tag, government period would have a big price tag.

Those individuals have to live somewhere, they’re going to either go into new houses built by the corporation or go into residential care, which is very expensive, I suppose. Most people know that.

I think the one big factor in the Public Housing Program is that the corporation should develop some sort of a maximum rent. I recognize the fact that the Housing Corporation, under the program, has an obligation to recover at least the economic cost of that unit if that person is working, but that’s not working in the small communities, that type of program. So I’m suggesting that the corporation develop some sort of maximum rent. I really do think that there are long-term benefits to that as well. People may work if their rent maxes out at $700, they may work, even though maybe the cost to operate that unit is more, but it’s better than them only paying $32. So I’m on time, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Are there any more general comments? Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chair, I wanted to say to the Minister here and the staff here that the housing units that we have in our communities, I certainly look forward to the Minister’s suggestions in his opening statements in further detail as to how we’re going to help people in those units, help people get into those units. We were in Deline and a statement was made at a leadership meeting with the Premier. Again, there are 100 units, I think, and there were 50 percent that were vacant. A lot of people were out of those units. That was just a statement in the meeting. I just want to clarify that and close that number. So I want to see how we can get people into those units.

I read with interest the Minister’s statement yesterday on a strategy to fill those units up. There are 82 units that are vacant in the Northwest Territories. On average you can put four to a family, that’s 82 units. That’s about over 300 people that the Minister wants to put into public housing. So I’m very interested to see how we could help the Minister put people into these vacant units. It means doing some creative policy writing and some support. I look forward to working with the Minister on that.

The public housing in our communities, as Mr. Beaulieu had alluded to, is something that needs to be looked at. I made earlier comments in my Member’s statements about a young man that is doing his best to make it in life and he’s working hard. However, because of the current policies right now, he’s paying $1,800 a month for a one-bedroom unit and it’s very stressful for him because he’s working to try to make it. He doesn’t have much furniture in his house; groceries are very high in Tulita. So if we can help these young people a little bit, as you know the unemployment is very high in some of our smaller communities and if we could somehow manage to make it worthwhile for these young fellows to work and stay in a job, I think we’d be doing a lot of them a lot of good.

I also wanted to let the Minister know that I talked to another constituent of mine in the small communities. This constituent is a long-term employee of the Department of Education through the Sahtu educational board. Actually, she’s a cultural teacher. This person has lived in the housing units for a bit. It’s one of those old units that were built in the late ‘70s and because of that, he’s paying the maximum rent of $2,400 and at the same time is looking after her mother who is in her 90s. She’s doing her best to keep up with the rent. However, it’s costing her quite a bit and she’s putting just about half of her rent payment down and Housing is causing her a lot of stress by telling her that she needs to pay up or she’s going to be

asked to move out or be evicted. Her mother is in her 90s and she doesn’t know if her mother will be around today or tomorrow or next month. She doesn’t know. That’s a lot of stress on her. She’s one of these long-term employees with education. She’s not going anywhere. She said if it wasn’t for my mom, I would have told housing, yes, I’ll be out of there and find something, but she says her mom is bedridden just about. She says where would I go and it’s causing me a lot of stress with Housing calling me. She says I’m doing the best I can, and she doesn’t drink. This lady has almost 20 years with education. She comes from a generation of when you have a job, you keep a job and you go to work and you have to go to work. So she’s saying why is Housing doing this to me. I’ve been living in this unit for a long time. You know, she’s one of these tenants that lived in these houses and raised her family. Now all of her children are gone. So I think we need to look at some of these situations with some tender loving care for some of these people in our houses.

Then you swing to the other end of the spectrum where people are living in these units and they’re not taking care of them. You see them in our communities. So how do we deal with that too? People are telling me that some of the young people are ruining these units and we’re paying for them and we’re not penalizing strong enough or we’re not doing them any favours. How are these young people getting into these units? You know, someone told me that they can’t even fix the doorknob. They had to call Housing to come over and fix a doorknob for them. Now that is really, really sad when we’re teaching young people not to take care of themselves or help themselves.

I hope with the Minister, we can work on some of these things. Housing is very important to us. You have an important job for us in our community. So how do we do things to help these young people and let them know that other people need these units? If I was to wreck my house, I would have to pay out of my own pocket, but somehow we tell them is it okay to kick the doors or smash the windows because we’ll come by and we’ll fix it for you. Maybe not today, but maybe in six months. We need to change that and Housing I think is in the position to do that.

It may seem hard and it may seem harsh for us as leaders and it might even cost some votes if we’re looking at an election, but let’s not worry about that. Let’s worry about our assets, let’s worry about what kind of houses we have and take pride in them. Like you said, it costs $41 million and we are paying for it as taxpayers. Society at large is paying for it. We have to look at that too.

The last part is to help some of these older seniors that are in their 90s and 70s and 80s because in the 60s and 50s they talked about units, in the 70s

they should be in public housing. They have a different recollection of houses as compared to 2011. We have a wide range of interpretation of housing. We’re doing our best to help them.

I want to say to the Minister that I look forward to working with you. I look forward to how you deal with the vacant units in my region, how you deal with the public and home ownership units, how we get these people back into these units and work with them to look after their place. We need to do that. That may require more and more meetings face to face. I look forward to the Minister coming to the Sahtu to talk to the Sahtu people and sitting down and putting some solutions together. He’s got a big job ahead of him. I look forward to going through the budget detail by detail.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on my list is Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I named a number of suggestions and highlights of issues and frustrations in my Member’s statements and I just want to go through the Minister’s opening remarks here and point them out, and there are a good number of areas where I think things are going in the right direction or at least good now. We’re starting to take some good steps.

I want to acknowledge that in the past, prior to this year, we did get the 600 new units on the ground with some major completion of repairs. That’s a huge piece of work and curiously enough it’s presented some challenges that are unique and I’m glad to see that those are being addressed. I’ll mix that in in a bit here.

I am in concurrence that the primary focus for this fiscal year, this coming fiscal year, should be on improving existing social housing. To that end, I support the intent to deal with a number of replacements of public housing units, but especially modernizing and improving existing units. I think 126 was mentioned with the perspective that these investments are critical to enhance the long-term sustainability and energy efficiency of existing social housing which will, in turn, lower operating costs and so on. Lessen the impact of the CMHC funding and there’s no end to that drought in sight so I think we have to face the realities there. I’m glad to see this focus.

I also appreciate that the corporation has identified this new category of people who have income marginally exceeding the threshold and have come up with a plan to take advantage of the potential for home ownership there. That’s good work. They went out and found this category and they’re putting policies in place to address that.

The vacant strategy was obviously needed. This is getting back to my earlier comment about really having an unusual situation where we have some problems because of the rapid provision of these

units. This strategy has been needed. We’ll now see how well that’s carried out. I have to say that I’m absolutely stunned, to coin a phrase used by an apparently unknown colleague of mine, that we haven’t had any new inventory to our public housing since the early ‘90s. This to me is absolutely astounding. I think it is indeed appropriate that some of these vacant units be rolled over into that and start addressing that gap. I realize we have operational costs associated as well.

The next point I want to talk about here is the apprentices. This is a key program with relatively modest funding, but a key program. I think the Minister’s got that message that we’re very supportive, I’m certainly supportive of this. My understanding was there were about 11 established I think this fiscal year, ten or 11. Some adjustments and the intent is for another... Is that 2011-2012 or is that this fiscal year? Anyway, we can get into that in details. I’m very supportive of that.

I mentioned earlier to the Minister of ECE that there’s a huge need for apprentices in our communities -- no news there -- especially for oil burner mechanics. This would be a real service to communities which would help save on fuel bills and so on and also have some environmental benefits. Mostly it’s just practical, easy with the available skills thing that could be done with some real focus. I’m hoping to see that focus brought through the Housing Corporation’s Apprenticeship Program.

I guess the biggest thing in the association with the next item is the shelter policy review. The Minister I’m sure is aware that we fought hard to keep this fully funded because we see a real priority for this. We see a huge need to get it done. I guess, getting into my next point related to that, I support the department’s interdepartmental approach and collaboration of policy, planning and coordination. These are good words. We want to actually see this in a practical sense on the ground and reflected through the shelter policy review product.

The other thing we really want to see, and I should speak for myself here, is we want to be involved. We have made many suggestions that we think would fall into this and I think the Minister would recall that we had a good discussion of that in committee.

Throughout our term we have made quite a number of suggestions that have been either simply ignored or with very little follow-up or uptake. Surely we understand that we do need to do things a little differently given the realities that we’re facing here, and if we’re going to have a sustainable housing program, we need to do some things differently. I think the biggest thing is the strength of partnerships that mention need to be extended to the strength of partnerships with our clients. We

have a number of red-blooded, able-bodied people out there who do not have jobs that are in public housing and we need to do the job of figuring out how we can put those people to work in a way that addresses some of our costs. I have mentioned this before, but distributed energy systems where tenants are expected to provide a cord of wood a week or something like that for six weeks a year or whatever it might be, you know, a simple chainsaw and some training programs would take care of energy costs, a huge part of the energy costs of our housing programs. We know the forced policies are being worked on to allow this sort of thing and there are sustainable potentials here. These are where the potentials for gain are and they require a cross-departmental approach as the Housing Corporation is committing to follow. They’re not easy and I don’t have a lot of examples of them being done successfully yet in this government, despite the Premier’s pointing at these committees that he’s organized.

I’ll be looking for how this turns out at a practical level, but in the meantime I’m looking forward to discussing some of the detail and bringing out some examples here. Just by way of that, if I can offer the Minister this little tobacco for his pipe until we get around to the detail, the $925,000 small community dollars for hiring people, that in my mind should be directed through the Housing Corporation to hire public housing tenants and put them to work and develop their housing maintenance skills, wood cutting skills, whatever might be there. Where are our costs and where can we put the sort of skills that we can expect to be available with a minimal amount of training perhaps to address some of our costs here and get a long-term program going that builds on the savings and those sorts of things. Anyway. Enjoy your smoke. That’s all I have.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Next on my list is Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Today I speak on housing. I’d like to see if we could get a rent scale. We’ve been bringing this up steady. I know that the Minister and the department have been looking into a three-tier system of dropping our rents down. We own these units outright by now. They’re very old units but well maintained. Most of them. If we could put a three-tiered system in from, say, your max rent would be $1,200, your minimum would be $800, and your low would be $600, and then not penalizing people who go and get part-time work. In the smaller communities people don’t want to go out and work because you’re being penalized for working and when the cheque comes in, a percentage goes to the corporation. I think if we worked at that I think we’d do a lot better for our people if we could put that into place.

The arrears, I know that meeting with the Minister numerous times with regard to moving in and talking with the communities, I know the Minister was working hard towards getting the arrears sorted out. He always says sort equity, people got to pay. And it’s true, but at the end of the day if they’re over a certain amount in so many years, the arrears for people who passed away, people and family members are being penalized for that. They’re still having to pay that and I think we should really look at that as well.

The people that are being evicted and are hard to house I think we should really look into and get that looked after. Some people in the communities are having 10 to 15 people in a four or five-bedroom house. That’s not right. I know it’s the client’s responsibility to pay, but I think if we could work with them with a little bit more open-handed approach and not make our guidelines ‘because the Minister is the boss and we could do that’ and work together with the people to keep their units and make minimal payments, for example, work with the Housing Corporation clearing steps over the minimum wage or something like that. Like I said, if the units are in not bad shape, but the windows and stuff, we could work towards that too.

Sachs Harbour, again I’d like to let the Minister know that we do need units in Sachs. We have young families coming back home that are trying to get into the community. I wish we could get one or two units in there for private home ownership. If it’s possible to look at getting a pilings and fuel tank program for private homeowners across the Territory, because in the smaller communities the pilings are rotting and the fuel tanks are leaking, which is causing people a lot of money to clean up, between $140,000, I heard, on the high end, and smaller at the lower end. It’s costing people a lot money if they don’t have home insurance.

For seniors repair, the program and maintenance program that we could give them for the windows and that, checking them every year. We have a list in the community, the LHOs should have a list of who are the private homeowners. Tuk did the Arctic Alliance. They went in and the kids did the windows this year. It was really good that the kids did that, the plastic wind covering for the windows for the draft coming in. That was a really good thing that the Tuk youth did in the community. We should get our maintenance staff to go and see if we can do that and fix that up, as well, once a year. The same with checking their furnaces and stuff, because we do have the harshest weather in the Territory.

Mr. Chair, the biggest thing is just working together. I know the Minister has a tough job and just working together to provide homes for our people that we represent and to be a little bit lenient. I look forward to the page by page of this department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Next on my list is Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Let me tell you about housing in my riding. Mr. Chair, as I travel throughout my constituency I’ve heard lots of the issues repeated time and time again. I’m pleased to say that we are making steps forward; however, in some areas we just seem to be stalled. A lot of constituents come to me and they’re really upset that they’ve been refused by Housing for programming and/or trying to get into a new HELP unit or the PATH program, and it’s all about arrears, about past arrears, past issues, and even accessing programming dollars, they have arrears. A lot of them can be managed with the new program to work with the clients and come up with a different management plan. However, many of my constituents really dispute the arrears because they are very old, some of them up to 20 years old but it’s still on their file and some of them even recent, as much as five years old. They’re disputing them, saying the work was incomplete or they weren’t satisfied with the housing, just for a number of reasons. This is the reason why I continue to ask the Housing ministry to look at an independent appeal system.

Constituents are frustrated because the way the system is now, they’re actually appealing to the person that told them no in the first place. It’s just not working and that’s the reason they’re getting frustrated. However, in some of our other departments, namely Education, Culture and Employment, if someone’s not happy with the program, they got rejected or something, then they’re allowed to look at an independent appeals process to plead their case and have somebody review it. I think this will go a long way in addressing their concerns, because I really do believe that some of their concerns are real. They had a house built up to $150,000, $200,000, they’ve had it turned over to them and the corporation wants them to pay full mortgage but at the same time there are lots of deficiencies. I’m not too sure a way around it. Sometimes it could be up to looking at a forgivable loan or else say, yes, you have a deficient house, it’s not worth $200,000, it’s not worth $150,000. Let’s work around that. But as it is now, the mechanism that we have in place is it’s $200,000. It’s $200,000 on the books and perhaps the Housing Corporation is obligated to stay firm on that, but at the same time I believe in the clients, I believe in my constituents that they felt they’re wrong, so we should have a real good look at it and I believe that establishing an independent appeals system in the NWT Housing Corporation will go a long way.

Another more recent issue that came up was there was an elder in one of my communities. His furnace broke down. His hot water tank broke down. It was just last month when it was very, very cold. It just so

happened, Mr. Chair, that he had exhausted all his programming choices. He had exhausted his RRAP, his CARE, every other program that’s out there. He exhausted them all. He’s on old age security and fixing a furnace in a remote community means somebody’s got to fly in and he just doesn’t have the means to repair his house. Fortunately, there was a quick solution. I believe the Housing Corporation had actually planned to go there the next day anyway and they were able to bring in someone to repair the furnace, so they managed that, but he still has a hot water tank that needs replacing but he’s exhausted all programming areas.

I think what used to work is we used to have a seniors repair program and that’s exactly what it was used for, was to help the seniors repair their homes in emergency cases like this. He’s not asking for very much. He’s asking to repair his furnace and replace his hot water tank, up to $2,000, and if there’s a tradesperson around doing work for the Housing Corporation, there could be a further savings there. That’s a missing component. It’s not only in that community I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it in other areas. I’m advocating on behalf of our seniors and the elderly and we really don’t have a program for them. We used to have it. I really think that we should bring that back. In fact, it’s probably something I’ll be working on here next week and have a debate of that nature in the House, Mr. Chair, as I’d certainly like to see a return to that.

Something that was curious was we got a HELP program and then we got a PATH program and I had thought when we go from the HELP program to the PATH program that the client actually builds credit. You know, he’s paying for two to three years into this house and I thought he gets a credit when he actually becomes eligible for a PATH program towards the purchase of his new house, but that doesn’t seem like it’s true, because I checked it out and a couple of clients were asking me about it. I really had thought that that was the case there, Mr. Chair.

As we deliberate the budget for the next nine days there, Mr. Chair, and I don’t want to beat the Health Minister’s record, but as we deliberate the budget today and perhaps tomorrow as well, I certainly will ask the Minister... As well, he’s free to comment on this issue too. I know it’s not there, but can it be there? Can we look at ways of having it there?

Housing and mould is always a big issue. People are coming to me. The reason they are wanting new houses or new rental places is because the home that they exist in right now is full of mould. It’s that black mould. It causes respiratory diseases not only to the adults and many of them have children. In fact, I ran into a family from Fort Liard that actually had to travel to Yellowknife for respiratory problems with their children. That’s what they told

me. They said my house is full of black mould and the furnace just moves all those spores around and around that unit. We do have a bit of a mould program but I would urge the Housing ministry to continue to see how we can mitigate it and best manage that. I know that I think they had a pamphlet, they say just go around and splash around some solution, but at the same time I think that maybe we should have a program, maybe a summer works program and kick into employing our Small Communities Employment Program contribution to extend them for another week or something, but if you get into these homes and do some of this cleaning and help the homeowners.

I did a Member’s statement a couple of weeks ago after I was inspired by seeing Holmes on Homes. Mr. Minister can invite him up to Tuktoyaktuk again publicly. Again, I was impressed that there was mould-free construction techniques and methodologies out there that does not add to the cost of new home construction. That is something that I raised with the Minister and I still think that Housing should have a good look at that, make it policy, make lots of things policy.

I think that when we are buying wood, I think I indicated to him that it was BluWood, this is becoming the standard now, and to investigate that further and report back to the House that yes, okay, it may be feasible to have mould-free construction guidelines and policies within the NWT Housing Corporation without causing additional costs. I truly believe that the NWT Housing Corporation should at least investigate that. It would just help our people, help our communities and help our homes, making every place a better place to live.

Maybe just in closing, Mr. Chairman, I do want to say that I am happy with the working relationship with the front-line workers in my region. I want to give them a pat on the back and everybody is doing their best. We had lots of challenges out there and the constituents as well. We are working very hard and trying to do our best. I think the best example, I had one constituent, after seven years finally got the programming that they want. It takes a long time to work through the issues of arrears, et cetera. But I believe that having an independent assessment to have a good look at those hard arrears cases out there, the constituents and clients deserve that, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. I have nobody else on my list. Does committee agree that we have concluded general comments?

I will go to the Minister so that he can respond to the general comments that he has heard so far. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There were a lot of good comments around the table and I appreciate some of the extra positive comments that we heard. There was a couple of kudos to some of the work that has been going on in the NWT Housing Corporation, so that, compared to last year or maybe the year before, shows me that we are making progress.

We try and work with committee as close as we can to keep them up to date on some of the initiatives that we have. We recently had a strategy briefing with committee, so it has always been my intent to take the feedback from committee and see if we are able to try and incorporate that into some of the future decisions that we make. I think we have had a fairly good working relationship. When it comes to housing, we all have an opinion and sometimes you listen to those opinions and they make very good sense. It helps us do our job a lot better.

Mr. Krutko had raised and a few other Members had talked about the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation declining funding, and that is one we continue to have a struggle with. We have been working hard at trying to engage the federal government in coming to the table. Mr. Krutko said it was a country-wide problem and it really is. We have been trying to engage the federal government to come to the table and have a discussion on that. We have been talking to our counterparts in some of the other regions across the country and they are all feeling the pinch, too, and we try and do what we can to address some of the shortfalls. We are going to a lot of multi-unit type units that share services, so we are looking at ways that we could try and reduce some of our operating costs.

I think it was Mr. Bromley and Mr. Krutko talked about the apprentices. We are very pleased with the support that we have from Rural and Remote that identified some funds to bring on an apprentice. I think we have 15 on the books right now with an additional 10 more that we are looking at bringing on stream for this fiscal year, so we are quite pleased with that.

If you look in the communities with the folks that we have working at the LHOs and in some communities the LHOs will actually do a lot of the repairs on the units themselves, the modernization and improvements, so some communities have been able to build up a real good little base of regular people that they use every year. They may bring 17 folks on during the summer to do a lot of this work and then a lot of the LHOs will hire students for the summer. I think the Housing Corporation and the LHOs in particular contribute greatly to employment in the communities. We’d like it to be better and that is why we have 15 apprentices, we have 10 more coming on board and it is going to benefit the communities, too, because we are going to have folks in the

communities that are going to actually have the training to do furnaces and things like that, so you don’t have to have expense of flying somebody in.

Mr. Yakeleya talked about the number of vacant units that we have. We actually have 135 vacant units across the Northwest Territories right now, but I think I gave all the numbers. The 82 were those that we have identified that are potential homeowners that we can get into those units.

Speaking of the homeowners, Mr. Menicoche had raised when a client is in the HELP program and he transitions into the PATH. There is actually a $10,000 credit, so we may have to follow up on that if your client feels that they didn’t qualify or they didn’t receive the credit.

The rent scale we are continuing to work on as part of our Shelter Policy review and we are looking forward to having that work completed soon. We hear the argument all the time about penalizing people that go to work, and Mr. Yakeleya had mentioned a constituent of his, I am not sure if it was $1,800 he was paying or if he was assessed at $1,800, and those are the type of people. We recognize the concerns of committee and getting seasonal workers, as one Member pointed out, we recognize that and we have been looking at going at a regional type of rate. I think in one of the Members’ ridings, they talked about a community 20 minutes away from another community and the difference in the economic rent was unreal. So we feel if we go to a bit of a regional type rate, then that may bring the rates down in some of the higher communities. That is something that we are looking at rolling out and seeing how that will work.

I particularly like Mr. Yakeleya’s comments on the folks needing to look after their units. It is something that we struggle with. I have been to a few communities, I have been down the street in one community and I was disappointed at what I saw there. Every window on that street, practically, was boarded up. It is not acceptable. We had a public meeting that evening and I actually told them how disappointed I was at the number of boarded up windows that were on that street.

Part of the dollar figure that you see in the arrears amount is, a lot of it, we have over $2 million in tenant damages. We have to change that and it is an educational thing. Folks have to start looking after their units. They have to realize that there are shelter costs and looking after their shelter should be a priority. With a lot of folks out there paying mortgages, shelter is obviously your number one priority, because the banks are not as kind as the NWT Housing Corporation. If you don’t make your payment, the banks don’t care if you’re working or not. They just come and take it away.

I have really been encouraged by the number of folks that have entered into repayment plans. I have numbers. I am really encouraged. It might be $18 a

month, but that is a commitment and they are meeting it. It goes up to $400 a month. That is another commitment and they are meeting it. I find that very encouraging. Somebody said Housing is not an easy portfolio to have. I think that is very true. Every once in a while you hear a story about the lady that has been paying on her arrears for a few years, just a small amount a month, but she got it cleared off. I find stories like that encouraging.

I appreciate Mr. Menicoche’s comments about his working relationship with the front-line staff. I will be sure to pass that on. It is important to us to try and work with the MLAs and keep them up to speed on what we are doing. Even in my office, I feel that I need to consult with the MLAs on a regular basis and let them know what we are up to and seek their input.

Seniors are our priority. We continue to work very hard with the seniors and I think Mr. Menicoche talked about a senior in one of his communities. We do have a Seniors Preventative Maintenance Program where, in the fall time, the seniors get their furnaces serviced and any other minor repairs that are needed around their house. There are times where we run into situations like the one he spoke of. I was glad that it was able to be resolved, because we do what we can to help seniors.

People are refused for some of our programs because of arrears. We try very hard to fit as many people into the programs that we can. The HELP program allows you to carry up to $5,000 in arrears and you can still qualify for the HELP program. So that is good faith on the Housing Corporation’s part in trying to fit people into units.

I think Mr. Bromley had spoken to the gap in the program, trying to get more people that are just over the threshold into home ownership. This year I think so far we have identified about 20 clients that fit that category, so that is 20 more that we are able to get into home ownership because of the gap. We are quite pleased with that.

We are also quite pleased with the fact that the word is getting out there that Housing needs to work with the people in the communities but also the people in the communities need to work with the Housing Corporation. We talk about working together all the time. That is fine in theory, but we can’t always be the ones trying to initiate everything. We need folks to start buying into it. I think we are starting to see that. A lot of it is an educational thing.

As far as the evictions go, and I have said this on a number of occasions, eviction is not a one-week process. Housing didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that somebody was going to get evicted today. They start with a termination and they are given opportunity to come to the board. Actually, first they come into the LHO. They can work on a repayment plan. Some people may not honour

those. They get an opportunity to go to the board and sometimes the board will say, okay, we will give you another chance. Work out a repayment plan. As long as you honour that repayment plan, you continue to remain a tenant of the local LHO. It is just when they have exhausted all avenues, then that is when it goes to an eviction.

Going back to Mr. Menicoche’s issue on appeal, we are looking at April 1st of rolling out an appeals

board that folks across the Territories home ownership, if they feel they have been slighted, they have an opportunity to appeal it.

I will stop there, Mr. Chairman. I am sure the Members are looking forward to getting into the page by page. I appreciate all the comments that we have heard today. I appreciate some of the compliments that we got. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. What is the wish of the committee? Detail? Alright. Housing Corporation starts on page 5-41 but it is the summary page so we are going to defer that page and turn to page 5-43 for consideration of detail. Mr. Krutko.