Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that response. I wonder if the Minister would commit to giving committee a briefing on that and the contributions from the various measures we have been taking and a real look at… If our hopes are denied by the federal government, what are the realities and what progress are we making on our own at addressing those?

At the same time, I would just like to ask, the last couple of fiscal years, $14 million, almost $15 million each year, a little bit more last year than in this current fiscal year, and this year $31.4 million, a doubling. I’d like a quick explanation of this doubling of the budget for this year and how that’s come about. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will commit to the Member and all Members that we will provide them with a briefing as to some of the steps that we’re taking.

The president said that I am the chair of the P/T Ministers of Housing. We had a quick meeting in the spring and there was a concern from all the Ministers from across the country on the declining CMHC funding. What happened is we are losing. Last year I think we lost close to $1 million. They weren’t feeling it as much down south as we were up here because it’s a big portion of ours, but they’re starting to feel it now, so you’re getting the Ministers from the larger jurisdictions saying, hey, hold on a second here, we need to talk. We’ve

been saying that from day one because we feel the effects a lot quicker. We have a commitment I think through the Premiers conference in Niagara on the Lake that the new federal Minister of Housing has made a commitment to meet with the provincial/territorial Ministers, which is a huge first step, and then we can make our case to them. We had hoped to have that meeting here in the capital this fall, but unfortunately, with the elections and everybody sitting, we weren’t able to pull that together. So we’re going to try to pull that together quite soon.

Again, I will commit to providing Members with a briefing on some of the steps that were taken. If you look at all the little steps we’re taking, even the biomass and the energy efficiency, that’s all geared towards saving us some money that we can put back. Our rent collections are actually improving quite a bit. We have one community that went from 26 percent to 86 percent, which is huge. That goes a long way in helping us to reinvest some of that money.

I will have Mr. Stewart touch on the second part of Member Bromley’s question. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Anything further, Mr. Bromley?

It just seems that we are more than doubling our budget here and where is that money coming from?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Stewart.

Thank you. Members, NWT Housing Corporation, information item, finance and infrastructure services, infrastructure investment summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a couple of things I wanted to follow up on. The Minister mentioned we passed up on investing in biomass for some housing we are developing in Fort Good Hope because of the lack of supply. Unfortunately, I heard the same thing from Education, or it might have been Public Works and Services in the same community just a year or two ago for their new school. This is a problem when we consider these things independently, ignoring other government facilities, and since the school project turned down biomass, we know we have a supply in Norman Wells, an adjacent community.

There is a cost to conversion if a supply comes over later, and it’s much cheaper if we design the facility from the beginning to use biomass. Maybe I will leave it as a comment. I would welcome any comments from the Minister, but just as a comment, we need to get together. We can’t be doing these things independently when, if we got together, our utility rates would be going down. We’ve heard this is an issue for the Housing Corporation, a significant issue. We need to get together across departments. This government needs to play a role, albeit temporarily, in supply, if need be. With the school and housing and other government facilities, we could have an economic supply there, but dealing with them independently, we lose the opportunity to bring a supply of energy to the community that’s cheaper for residents, as well, and would benefit them. Just a comment there. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We work with the Arctic Energy Alliance and they’ve done an assessment and even go into feasibility, and if there are opportunities, and once the supply increased, we have to play a role in that, then that’s something we would have to consider. We can convert these over to biomass quite easily. We thought with the solar panels it would be a bit of a start and then as supply improves, they can be converted over. So we haven’t ruled out all our options. We are still looking at the feasibility right now. We have until next summer. Construction will start in the next fiscal year, so we have a bit of time to do a bit more research, and if there’s opportunity there to incorporate this in, by all means that would be the wise decision to make. Thank you.

Thanks for that from the Minister. A couple of other things, there’s been a lot of interest expressed on small houses, especially for seniors. Where are we at on that, Madam Chair? Are some of the units being proposed here small houses for seniors, or small units? Thank you.

Not in this present budget. There’s none of the small units the Member is talking about for seniors.

Are we thinking of that? I mean, are we preparing to respond to that interest in smaller units?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My last one. I see 159, according to my math, major retrofits proposed in this draft budget. First of all, I’m assuming these will include the attempt to bring our standards up to AEDG or as close as we can get. What proportion would this put us at now for all our units, given all the other renos we’ve done AEDG? If that’s not handy, maybe the Minister could provide that at some point in time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is correct; these 159, we call them modernization and improvement projects, they are to upgrade our energy in a lot of these units because a lot of them are older units, so there’s a lot of good work done on them there.

As far as the number, we will have to pull that information together for committee and then I will make a commitment here that we will provide them with that information as to the number of units that we’ve had over the last few years that we’ve gone

through the NMI process. So we’ll provide that to the Members. Thank you, Madam Chair.