Page 5-50, NWT Housing Corporation, information item, finance and infrastructure services. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just wondering what the term "fully targeted" means under federal and territorial funding. If I can get a brief explanation of that, that would be great.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. Anderson.

Thank you for that explanation. My last question is on the housing for staff. I know it’s been noted that we’ve knocked out that $250,000 there. What is the current strategy for providing housing for staff? Recognizing I know the Minister is familiar with the situation and that may have been explained earlier. Maybe I can just get it from Hansard if I was out of the House or somehow missed it. No further questions.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll respond to that. I was just giving the Member a hard time. We do have as part of our new strategy looking at options of how we can help the communities with addressing some of the housing for staff needs.

As far as the $250,000 goes, we were providing a $25,000 incentive per door. We had 11 communities, I think, take us up on that. I don’t think we’ve shut the $25,000 door completely on this one. We’re still willing to look at a case-by-case basis. As part of our new strategy – and I think we will be having that discussion with committee – we we are looking at ways that we can provide housing for staff in some of the communities.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Page 5-50, NWT Housing Corporation, information item, finance and infrastructure services.

Thank you. Page 5-53, NWT Housing Corporation, information item, programs and district operations. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question on the North Slave funding under program delivery detail. There’s quite a change between what was estimated and what was realized last fiscal year, and in an effort to thread the needle for this fiscal year, I’m just wondering what the challenges are there or what is the bump about there in the differences between years and estimates.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. For that we’ll go to Mr. Anderson.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think this is where this question goes, I’m not absolutely sure. It’s my understanding that the Housing Corporation has sort of indicated that one of the forced growth pressures that they have is the need to assist Inuvik and Norman Wells residents with some of the costs that will be associated with them as they change over from gas to some other heat source. I’m not sure where I read it, but I read a statement that the Housing Corporation is going to switch to oil burning, and there was no reference to any other potential method of producing heat. I just wanted to ask the Minister whether or not that’s the plan, if there is any assistance provided to either of those communities. Is it the intent that they would only switch over to oil burning equipment, and is the Housing Corp at all considering biomass instead? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In Norman Wells we are switching over to diesel because they’re obviously getting shut off. We’re not doing anything in Inuvik just yet. There is obviously going to be quite a cost to the NWT Housing Corp if we had to switch all our assets in Inuvik back to diesel. We’re waiting to see how things work out. They’ve been working awfully hard up there to try to find a solution. If that happens, then we won’t have to switch back, which will be a good thing.

As far as biomass and in my response to Mr. Bromley’s questions earlier in the day, I was talking about how we’re looking at some of our multiplex units where we can take advantage of putting biomass fixtures in there, be it a central boiler that heats a number of units, is an option we’d have to look at. As I said to Mr. Bromley, it would have to be cost competitive, obviously, because in some of the communities where it’s not readily accessible, especially a pellet boiler, for example, the cost is going to be quite high. We’re exploring those options and it is one – again, I’ve used the term quite a few times today – that is on our radar and it’s one that we’re wanting to explore further especially when it comes to the multi-unit type configurations, which is going to be the way that we go as the Housing Corporation in the future. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. My apologies for making you repeat something twice, but I was referring specifically to Norman Wells and Inuvik, and I’m glad that the door is not closed on

other options. That was the point that I was trying to get at.

My other question has to do with Northlands residents. I’m extremely optimistic at this point. They are, I think, about two-thirds of the way to getting the votes that they need to get the approval and get on with the job. I know I’ve talked to the Minister before about this possibility, but I wanted to just ask again whether or not, as long as Northlands residents qualify, whether or not they can apply to be eligible for funding under the CARE program.

My second part of that question is if circumstances require it, and I don’t really know at this point if it will, but will the Housing Corp give them an option to do an intake other than, sort of, once a year, which is what it is right now, I think. I’m looking for a little bit of flexibility for these guys. If the project requires it, and I don’t know what’s required yet, but just confirmation that this is an option for these guys. Thank you.

We’re quite pleased that there has been some progress as far as Northlands Trailer Park is concerned. We have, on the housing side of it if they do qualify, they would be eligible for some CARE money. I think we’ve discussed having a bit of a targeted intake so we can identify some of the potential clients out at Northlands, because the actual repairs, I believe, may not start until next summer or something like that. We wanted to maybe do a bit of a targeted intake just to see who we can get out there that qualifies. That’s what our plan is for now. Thank you.

Thanks to the Minister. That’s good to hear. That’s all I have.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Page 5-53, NWT Housing. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I noticed that just overall it looks like there’s an increase over last year’s mains of $2 million. But when you go down to program delivery details, you see a reduction in expenditures in the Nahendeh district. Perhaps the Minister can explain what’s going on here. Some other districts did not reduce by that much so I’d like an explanation.