Mr. Chairman, obviously it would be our preference to use as much local labour as possible. Some contracts have been negotiated in the past. In some cases it may have been a project management issue where the project wasn’t done on a timely manner. Unfortunately, that hurts the local development corporation that they may have partnered up with. We continue to look on a case-by-case basis. They come forward, the good case where they may have different project management teams in place, then we would obviously have a look at it.

For those that want training, like the young person that you are speaking of, if they prove that they are quite capable workers, then it would be to the benefit of the general contractor who wins the contract to use local sub-trades where we can, and

that would cut his costs down and would give people in the community an opportunity to work.

I say again, and I have said this publicly a few times, I am really encouraged by the capacity of a lot of our small town contractors to start bidding on some of the work. In one particular case, a gentleman asked for a negotiated contract, but they had the capacity to compete in an open market. For that reason we turned it down. The contract came out. This particular person won it and he won it for more than it would have been negotiated, so he obviously benefited from it.

We will still continue to try working as best we can with communities to try to utilize as much local as possible. There are some contractors from some of the larger centres that win some of these contracts, but the local contractors would have a preference to 5 percent or something like that. There is some built in, we call them, incentives but there are some built-in margins for local contractors that are bidding on work in the community. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. We are on page 5-47, executive. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I refer to the activity description for the executive. The executive office works collaboratively with GNWT departments and agencies on government-wide strategies and numerous joint initiatives to further advance policies and programs to meet the needs of NWT residents. It also collaborates with community and government partners in addressing housing needs across the NWT.

Mr. Chair, the Centre for Northern Families houses some of the most desperate clients we have from across the NWT, yet they find themselves in a very dire financial situation threatening their viability. They provide a critical service, yet the Housing Corporation is charging them $54,000 per year and they have had to pay market rent for over a decade. There’s a severe disconnect here in the executive, Mr. Chair, a key NGO providing critical services that the Housing Corp is charging big money to for their basic space needs.

I’d like to know from the Minister -- and I note that this is not a mortgage that they’re paying, this is just a monthly lease payment -- given that they’ve already probably paid for the building at least once, and given the clear responsibility, can the Minister identify an opportunity to either offer this NGO a considerably reduced rent or simply sign the building over to them to help with their services and sustainability? Does this budget provide that flexibility? Mahsi.

Minister of Housing.

Mr. Chairman, the building which the Member speaks of, the folks that are leasing the building do have quite a good rate

right now. They’re about $7.45 a square foot where the market is around $23. There’s still a fair amount of money that’s owing on the actual mortgage itself. This is one of the first times that I’ve had the opportunity to review this. I’ve just been getting an update on my briefing and my briefing notes. So it’s something that I’ll commit to the Member that I’ll have a discussion with my senior officials about. We’re looking at probably a half a million yet left owing on the building. So that would be quite a substantial sign over, if we were to consider it. But I will commit to the Member that I’ll have a sit down with the senior officials and discuss any ways possible that we can maybe help the group out.

I will point out there that they are, and always have been, very current with their lease obligations and understanding that they have some other expenses on top of that, but I’ve made the commitment to the Member, and I will have a discussion with senior officials and I’ll keep the Member up to date and seek his input. Thank you.

I appreciate the Minister’s commitment there very much. I’d like to again stress I read the department’s words, the Housing Corporation’s words that they’re going to work interdepartmentally. This is clearly an interdepartmental issue and I don’t think the Housing Corp should be expected to do this on their own. This should be a government-wide approach to resolve this situation and this would be a great way to do it. The Housing Corporation could provide the leadership. Mahsi.

I have committed to the Member that we’ll have the discussion and I’ll follow up with the officials on a number of other situations like this that we have out there. There’s opportunity to maybe have some discussions with my Cabinet colleagues and see if there are ways we can be a little more accommodating. I will commit to the Member that I’ll undertake that. Thank you.

Okay, we’re on page 5-47, executive, information item, operations expenditure summary. Agreed?

Moving on to page 5-49, information item, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one question on this page. I note the mortgage principal and interest payments are $9.065 million and I understand from the previous page, middle of the page, that this is on a mortgage of $56.3 million. Is that correct? Am I reading that correct? Thank you.

Mr. Anderson.

I’m rather startled by that. Does the government get a very penalizing interest rate compared to any corporation or individual that I know of in Canada? I would say at a 6 percent interest rate we’d be looking at over $5 million per year on the principal. What could the interest rate possibly be to result in this situation, which means by 2038 we will have paid four times the value of the loan? Could I at least start with the interest rate? Thank you.

That resolves any concerns I had. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we’re on page 5-49, information item, finance and infrastructure services, operations expenditure summary. Agreed?

Moving on to 5-50, information item, finance and infrastructure services, grants and contributions. Agreed?

Moving on to page 5-52, again, information item, 5-53, information item, programs and district operations, operations expenditure summary, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the Minister’s opening comments he talked about a lot of the good things that the Housing Corp were doing and clearly a lot of good work is being done there and a lot of progress in the last couple of years. The Regular Members had a lot of concerns from the beginning, but I think a lot of progress has been made. One of the areas that I’ve been asking about is flexibility in our programs, things like PATH and CARE and whatnot. In the Minister’s opening comments he did indicate that there is some flexibility and some alternate intake dates for some of these programs. I was wondering if he could give us a bit of information on that. Like, for instance, is PATH going to have more than one intake or is it limited to one intake? Which programs are going to have more than one intake compared to the ones as compared to how they exist now or previously?

Minister of Housing.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have targeted secondary intakes in a few of the communities where we didn’t get as many applicants as we wanted to for some of the units that we have on the ground. So with some of the

vacant HELP units, for example, if we had one community where there may be four or five left even after the first intake, we’re trying to have a secondary intake for those particular communities so we can allocate those houses and then, failing that, we go into converting them into public housing units. Thank you.