Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to continue consideration of Tabled Document 107-17(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2014-15. We’d like to start with the NWT Housing Corporation and, time permitting, Municipal and Community Affairs, Public Works and Services, and Health and Social Services. Thank you.

Agreed. We’ll commence with that after a brief break.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. The next item we have before us is consideration of the capital budget for the NWT Housing Corporation. Let me repeat myself. I call Committee of the Whole back to order. The first item we have before us this afternoon is the NWT Housing Corporation. It is here as an information item. I would like ask the

Minister of Housing if he would like to make opening remarks.

I have no opening remarks, Madam Chair, but I will bring in witnesses.

Does committee agree?

Thank you. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses in.

I would like to ask Minister McLeod if he would please introduce his witnesses for the record.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right I have Mr. David Stewart, president and CEO of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. To my left I have Mr. Jeff Anderson, vice-president of finance and infrastructure, NWT Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. General comments. Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a few comments I’d like to make. I’m very glad to see the seniors’ complex that’s planned for Aklavik. It’s much needed in the community and it’s good to see that in the budget.

I’d just like to also emphasize that there are a lot of people moving back to the communities of Aklavik, Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic over the last couple of years here and a housing shortage has come underway. I strongly believe we’re in need of single unit multiplex units in the communities. I think that would free up a lot of room for my constituents. Also in our plan, as of now there are no plans for new units in the communities of Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic, and I just wanted to stress that it is much needed as a lot of people have moved back.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We look forward to getting the project underway in Aklavik for the seniors. We also have, as the Member knows, earmarked seniors for Fort McPherson.

As far as the public housing portfolio goes, I mean, we’re always looking at our communities with the most need, and when we do our allocation of public housing replacement units we tend to target those that are in most need. Right now, the two communities, I mean, there is a need in every community and we have to weigh that against the other communities, and that will help us determine where some of our replacement units go. But if there is a shortage in the community, I mean, we would be well aware of it and we’ll target some of our initiatives towards those communities.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next for general comments, I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have one topic I would like to bring up and that’s the energy initiatives. I know the Housing Corporation has been looking into biomass initiatives and they have other energy projects. We will talk about that under detail, but just in terms of the biomass initiatives, I’m aware that the corporation is facing ever-increasing pressures, as every resident and business is in the Northwest Territories, of heating and power, but on the heating front, I’m just wondering if I can get an idea of where we’re at. I think we’re looking into feasibility studies and I was hoping to see some comprehensive multi-dwelling biomass projects. Could I get an update on where we’re at with that generally? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Madam Chair, we have a couple that are underway right now. One is in Detah. It is a stand-alone system that is connected to the seniors five-plex. The other is in Ndilo. That is a stand-alone system connected to a seniors five-plex. We do have some money identified for some more initiatives across the Northwest Territories. I think we are early in the stages, or we are in the feasibility study part of it right now. We do have a couple that are on the go. We look forward to getting more on the ground here within the next couple of years. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, thanks to the Minister for those remarks. It is great to hear about the Ndilo/Detah projects. Those are this fiscal year rather than next. I look forward maybe to getting an update a year after they get operational so we can hear what lessons are being learned and applied. It sounds like there are not any more new ones being proposed for this coming fiscal year, but maybe the following fiscal year. Thank you. That is all I have.

Madam Chair, as far as biomass goes for this coming fiscal year, we don’t have it identified anywhere but we do have… It’s in the notes that we provided. There are some solar panel initiatives that are being undertaken this year that identifies a location. That could take place during 2014-15. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. General comments. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First and foremost, I think it is important to give credit where credit is due. After going through the old Hansards and going through some of the opportunities that this area had, has been definitely noted in the scriptures of the very four walls of this

institution. I have to commend the hard work that has gone in during the life of the 17th Assembly.

Again, I don’t want to earmark any one particular individual. I know it is a team effort here, but there has been an enormous amount of cleaning up and putting back on target what is one of our largest expenses. It is hard to get compliments out of Range Lake office, so take them when you can. This is a good job, Madam Chair.

That said, I think it is also prudent for me to talk about where we are spending our money and opportunities where I see that I have to ask the appropriate questions.

We know that all communities are in need of new infrastructure, large and small. I know full well that we have a certain amount of money. I know that we have money that is sunsetting from the Government of Canada and that we are going to have to be very creative over the next 20 to 30 years in terms of how we distribute these monies and look after the needs of all Northerners. But all Northerners includes the city of Yellowknife. I for one don’t want to take money away from communities. That is not the intent of my question. My intent is always fairness.

Earlier today one of the other Members talked about population moving back into the communities. I can assure you that statistics are showing quite the opposite. There has been a migration from the communities to the urban centres. The last 10 years or so, it has been an 8 percent-plus in-migration. The urban centres, including Yellowknife, are becoming larger. With that, a lot of the community patrons and residents are moving into a more regional base.

Given that statistic, right now in the city of Yellowknife, there are 168 people currently on a waiting list for housing needs. When you look at that number, it’s pretty daunting, it’s a big number, it’s a large number. If you had to put that number up against any other communities, it would probably represent a large number of our communities out there. The interesting thing is that of the 168, and I don’t have the full statistics on it, but I can assure you that a lot of them are from the communities that are now here in Yellowknife.

When I look at some of the breakdown that we have here in the activity summaries as we are going to go through here, I notice that there is a good distribution. I think there is some stewardship behind this, but again, with that number I indicated earlier from Yellowknife, there isn’t very much happening to address that large number. I will start that first part of my general comment in that breath.

The second part of my general comment has more to do with we know that there have been a lot of initiatives that the Housing Corporation has undertaken to reduce or mitigate costs of energy. We know that. We know there are retrofits. We

know there are biomass programs. We are looking at cells, photo PV systems. I encourage the housing authority to come up with more and more of these initiatives.

That said, we have not really heard the statistics yet in terms of what has been some of the bigger savings in a general sense. Has there been an overall 7, 8, 9 percent savings in energy costs overall?

I am just clarifying some of the generalities. If we can get those two things on the opening comments agenda from Range Lake, that would be appreciated. Then again, I want to thank the hardworking crew down there. I want to make sure that it is resonated loud and clear with all members of the Housing Corporation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister McLeod.

Madam Chair, first of all, we appreciate the Member’s comments. I think the good work that is being done at the Housing Corporation is reflected in the budgets that we bring forward and how our funding is spread evenly across the Northwest Territories. Yellowknife, being one of the largest centres, in the last couple of years we have a few major projects here in Yellowknife. In the last seven years, I believe it is, we spent approximately $28 million in the capital. We spent $167 million in the smaller communities and about $66 million in some of the large communities, Inuvik, Hay River, Fort Smith, Fort Simpson, Norman Wells. We make a real effort to allocate our funds fairly and equally.

Part of the problem in the smaller communities is Housing might be their only option to getting a place to stay, whereas some of the larger communities, you are able to get some other types of accommodation. That’s why we introduced the Rent Supplement Program. I think it goes a long way in helping some of the residents in some of the larger communities get a place to stay at a fairly reasonable cost. We try and distribute our funding equally across the Northwest Territories, again, recognizing that Yellowknife is one of the larger centres and there are many more options here.

As we go forward, you talk about the 168 people on the waiting list. If you looked across the Northwest Territories, the waiting list in a lot of our communities are not as large but if you go percentage-wise, based on population, it’s almost equal, if not more. Their options in the small communities are limited. In the next couple of years we are targeting a lot of the smaller communities, but we’re not ever going to overlook some of the large communities and the needs they have there. As we come forward with future budgets, I think you will see that we’ve made an effort to respond to all the needs across the Northwest Territories, be it large or small communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, Mr. McLeod.

I’m sorry. I apologize. I was so concentrating on the first point the Member made, I forgot about the second.

We are monitoring the one unit that we have up in Inuvik. We are able to monitor the use there as far as utilities go. I am committing to providing data to all the Members on some of the savings that we are seeing because of using a few more energy-efficient systems plus the work that we have done on the units themselves.

Right now it is fairly early in the game. We do have a new system where we are able to monitor the utility costs for pretty well every unit in the NWT Housing Corporation portfolio. Once we start doing that, we will be able to identify which of our communities and which of our units have a lot higher energy costs. We have a unit in one of the small communities where we are seeing that their utility bills are quite high. We would use that information to possibly do an energy retrofit on that unit with the hopes of bringing the costs down. So we will be able to monitor all our units closely and, again, I will be more than willing to provide information to the Members as to some of the savings we’re seeing because of all the work that we’re doing. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate the Minister’s response to that. I encourage the Housing Corp to look at all the different pilots that are out there. The one in Inuvik that a number of Members here had the opportunity to go visit was quite impressive and one in which will probably set the gold bar standard what we’re going for and trying to achieve. That said, we need to create an environment where we’re doing more than just a pilot. We need to be looking at all our rollouts, looking at all energy efficiencies out there. So I encourage the Housing Corp to come up with more ingenuity. I know there are great ideas out there and I’m really trying to foster an environment that the Members on this side of the House are more than willing to hear those innovations. We want to see those innovations. Don’t be scared to bring those innovations forward. You will probably get a lot of support if you do so. Let’s not rest on our laurels, Madam Chair. Let’s take a look at every opportunity, every unique building type. I’ve heard so many great ideas on this side of the House in terms of model, design and opportunity for employment for construction.

So keep up the good work and thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to do general comments.

I will assure the Member that we won’t rest on our laurels. We’ll continue to explore all new types of technology out there and see how we can incorporate that into the design of our units. Then we will realize quite a

savings because the costs of utilities aren’t going down. I think we see that every year. I think last year we had to come to the Assembly for an additional $1.2 million to help our LHOs with utility costs. We have, through our Modernization and Improvement Program, been able to identify some of the units and do some major energy retrofits on those, and I think in the long run we’ll realize more savings. Once that data becomes available, we’d be more than willing to share it with the Members so we can see the results of some of the initiatives that we’ve undertaken. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of points I want to relay to the Minister. I do appreciate the need and the foresight to look at the seniors needs in Fort Good Hope. The Minister has responded by putting a seniors unit there for the people. I understand from the elders in Fort Good Hope that they appreciate they’re going to get a seniors duplex. They’re looking forward to working with the Housing Corporation.

I do want to say, in the seniors duplex, if there is a possibility of looking at an alternative to the heating facility, I know you have a solar panel in the numbers here, Madam Chair. I am looking at alternatives like biomass or wood pellets.

I was in Norman Wells over the last month and there was an agent in Norman Wells that has the bins, the wood pellets, wood pellet boilers and smaller units for facilities such as this one for residential home units. That’s something I want to ask the Minister about. Not being aware why the Housing Corp is going with the solar system, it may have its valid points, but I just wanted to ask about wood pellet units. That might be useful and more of an advantage for the people and support the local economy in the Sahtu. I wanted to raise that, Madam Chair.

I am also very pleased that the people in Colville Lake, I believe when the Minister was there, spoke about a unit for the seniors or having a seniors place there. I know there’s a discussion going on with the department right now. It was a good surprise when the Minister said they were looking at Colville Lake. That means the Minister is responding to some of the requests from Colville Lake. They are looking at this duplex to help them out. Usually you don’t have any type of rental units in Colville Lake. I want to tell the Minister that the people in Colville Lake are quite happy.

The last point I want to raise, while I have the time, is the issue of affordable housing. It’s critical to us in our smaller communities. I see the Minister has committed to $875,000 in the budget. That might be construction up to five units. In small communities, we need this type of support for critical staff in our small communities. That’s been a big issue of

having qualified staff, either nurses, social workers, educators or one of the land corporations or one of the municipal council governments. They need to have these essential people in our communities. I’m not sure how we are going to do the selection of which communities are going to be chosen. I don’t know what the ratings are going to be, drawing straws or criteria as to which region is going to be looked at as having the most pressing needs. I am going to throw in my pitch for the Sahtu for one of the communities. That would be appreciated. I am reminded of a staff person in Norman Wells that has taken on the job within our government but finds it very difficult to have a house in Norman Wells. I can also say that for all the other communities. I thank the Minister for responding to that new initiative for critical staff members in our communities.

Last, Madam Chair, I also want to make a pitch for the Homelessness Assistance Fund. The Minister has committed some money for this in our communities, the hard to house clientele. This initiative shows there’s going to be some movement in our small, remote, rural communities. This money will go to renovating some houses to support this initiative in our communities. I want to ask, again, that one of the communities that I visited and I was quite shocked to see that a lot of people were living in tents, in makeshift warehouses and some of them in pretty bad shape. For whatever reason, some families were in there with young children without any type of electricity, fuel or sewer. These kids were being sent to school. I don’t want to go into how they got themselves into that situation. It was dire straits for them. So there are some people who are homeless in the small communities. A lot of them are still going house to house. Some of them are being put out into situations where they have to go into a neighbour’s warehouse or in a tent. Those ones are very difficult to work with because they seem to have other issues that they need to deal with and they aren’t dealing with them. So what do we do? They’re homeless and not going anywhere. The alternative is you see them coming to places like Yellowknife, you see them in the city of Yellowknife and they’re not doing too well in Yellowknife either. It’s really a difficult situation for MLAs to say how we help them. How do we really help them? How do we help the communities? We see a lot of them also in Yellowknife and when they go back home, they’re okay. So I guess it must be a never ending issue or problem for us as MLAs from the small communities, and the MLAs from larger centres that have attracted the people from the small communities to live here. So I’m hoping that one of the initiatives for the homelessness initiative would be looked at in the Sahtu and possibly one of the communities. Again, I’m not sure of the criteria;

however, I’m going to make a pitch for the Sahtu to be considered as one of them to look at.

So, overall, I want to thank the Minister. I understand that the money from Ottawa is slowly being turned off and then we’re opening up other internal funding to meet the needs of the people in the North, and the Minister is dealing with it the best he can with the resources they have, and at the same time follow through on our vision for the North and the funding that we get. So I’m fairly pleased with what I see in front of me and I have no major issues with Housing at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member raised a lot of interesting points. Again, we appreciate the support of the Member. The $835,000 he spoke of was an internal allocation to try and address some of the housing issues for professionals in the community. However, we’re looking forward to bringing forward initiatives to this Assembly, with the support of this Assembly, and we’re looking forward to bringing some initiatives forward that would help try and address some of the issues in a lot of the small communities that have challenges with housing for staff. So we’re looking at updating committee soon on this initiative.

The other initiative, while we do have four pilot projects this year, we haven’t determined which communities they’re going into yet to have some of these hard-to-house units in the community. We’ll take an existing unit, do a little bit of work to it, and it will be a place where folks that are homeless can go and lay their heads down. So it will hopefully address some of the issues that they’re facing in some of the smaller communities and see how this works. We’ll go forward from there. We haven’t determined the location of these yet.

We had originally thought in the seniors that were going into Good Hope of going biomass, but one of the challenges we’re facing right now is the fact that the supply is not where it should be right now for some of the other communities. Once supply improves, I think we should see more and more of the biomass. So right now we’re sticking to the solar panels for that particular unit in Good Hope.

As I’ve said a couple of times before, we’re always exploring ways that we can improve our use of fossil fuels in some of our communities, and as pellets become more easily available to a lot of the outlying communities, I think you’ll start seeing the Housing Corporation taking initiative and start going that direction.

So, again, I appreciate the Member’s comments and support, and we look forward to working with committee as we work on the next few initiatives that we have on the go. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. General comments. Next on my list I have Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a few comments and questions and I’d like to reiterate Mr. Dolynny’s comments about the work that the department has been doing. I should say the corporation. The corporation has been doing a very good job of staying ahead of many of the problems that have existed for quite some time and they’re working very hard at trying to solve them. So it’s nice to see. Of course, I do have some concerns.

Mr. Dolynny mentioned the 168-people-long waiting list. My concern, and I’ve expressed it to the Minister many times before, is with transition housing, particularly in the city of Yellowknife, but elsewhere in the Territories as well. I don’t see anything in the information that we’re presented within the budget here that is going to address transition housing, and I appreciate that we have funding that has come from the Housing Corp for Betty House and that is going to be under construction soon. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to what we need. We also need transition housing elsewhere across the Territories and it’s not something which I see addressed. So I have to highlight that as a concern for me.

There’s no information here, so I would like to ask the question to the Minister of the number of vacant units that we have right now. I know the department has been working at bringing that number down and it’s been a couple of years, but I would like to know where we’re at. I won’t even guess at what number we were at a while ago, but I’d like to know how many vacant units we have. Of those units, I’d like to know which ones are scheduled for demolition, because there are vacant units that we can put people in, but there are vacant units which are unable to be used. How many do we have to still get rid of completely and get them off the books? How many are vacant and what are we doing to fill them with actual people?

Lastly, a concern specific to my community, specific to Yellowknife, and it probably applies to many other communities, as well, but there is a dire need in Yellowknife for more public housing units, particularly for single individuals, people who are living on their own. The Minister knows how expensive it is to rent here. It’s pretty much impossible for a person who is in a lower wage job as a single person to be able to afford housing, and many, many people in that category simply don’t get access to public housing because they’re last on the list. Families certainly come first and a single individual is basically not a priority with the housing authorities. I have a problem with that and I understand why that is, but I think we have to do something to address that problem.

In terms of other units, I know that the corporation is replacing old units here in Yellowknife and getting new ones, but I understood a while ago we had this cap on the number of housing units we can have. That’s a concern for me. We need to be able to add to our public housing stock. I appreciate it’s an expense, but we can’t simply be getting rid of old units and adding new ones to replace them and keeping the same number of units available at the same number forever.

So I’d appreciate some comments on some of those and that’s all I have, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As far as the vacant units go, we’ve got 75 public housing units that are vacant and I think we’ve got a number of them that are under repair in addition to the 75. So those are ready to be allocated.

On the affordable housing side, we’ve got 58 units that are ready to be occupied and we have a number that are under repair in addition to the 58. So as you can recall, from a number of years ago, we were up to, like, 135 vacant units. So the number has gone down quite a bit.

I share the Member’s concern. We’re challenged with adding on to our public housing stock because of declining CMHC funding. So that’s why, if you look at our notes we always say replacement of public housing, because as we put a new unit into the system, we’re going to have to take another one out. We have 89 units right now that are ready for disposal. These are surplus units or ones that, with the new standards nowadays, we’ve got to do the hazardous assessment on them and then that adds quite a cost on to them. So we’ve got 89 that are scheduled to be disposed of.

The public housing in Yellowknife, again, we just completed I think it was a 19-unit apartment building here in the capital. We recognize that there’s a need here, too, and the Rent Supplement Program I think was taken advantage of. I think the Territorial Rent Supplement Program, I think the bulk of our clients were from the capital, which, as the Member has said and I totally agree with her, is that the rent here is quite high. So that’s been taken up by some of the larger communities where there is a bit of a challenge. Again, it’s a fine balancing we have to do. I mean, we want to be able to meet the needs of all across the Northwest Territories. The Member mentioned the money we put into the Betty House and I think it was $2.3 million. A little more fortunate here in the capital that they do have a few places they’re able to go. Again, the challenge is in the smaller communities. I think the Member mentioned that too.

It’s a start, but the hard to house pilot program I just spoke about is a start. We have a new homelessness coordinator hired who started in August, very enthusiastic, and part of her duties are to try and gather all the information from across the Northwest Territories on what some of our challenges are, so we’re looking forward to seeing the results of her good work in the near future.

Again, it’s a fine balancing act. We have to make sure we meet the needs of the capital, the larger communities and the smaller communities, and we think over the next couple of years with some of the investments that we’re making, I think we’ll be able to address some of those needs. I mean, it’s an ongoing process and will there ever come a day where we’re able to meet all. I wish we’re around to see it, Ms. Bisaro, but it’s a start, and I think there’s been a huge improvement.

Again, I appreciate the comments of the Member on the work that folks at the NWT Housing Corporation are doing. A lot of that work, I think, would go by the wayside if it wasn’t for the political support that we receive from committee and from this Assembly, so we appreciate that. I think that goes a long way to us advancing some of the initiatives that we have on the go.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next for general comments I have Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, would like to express and acknowledge the efforts of the Housing Corporation and the staff in terms of a lot of the fundamental challenges that we face up here in the Northwest Territories, particularly more so in the riding that I represent. It has always been a challenge just trying to meet the people in the homeless shelters interests and concerns. I think the Housing Corporation has come a long way and I look forward to at least the continued relationship with the management and the staff, so kudos to the corporation.

At the same time, there are two parts to at least my general comments. I’m interested in terms of the status in terms of the efforts towards trying to be energy efficient, in terms of the projects related to converting the fuel-fired water tanks and where that’s at. I’m curious as to whether we’ve made any progress on that front.

The other things I wanted to concentrate on, or at least highlight, is there are always challenges for the local small communities. There are a few jobs. I know, fortunately, there are a few people that work for government, and those are not devolution jobs, by the way, in the small communities. A lot of them are seasonal jobs, as well, and part-time jobs. Of course, the cost of living is pretty high in small communities and there are some young families that aspire to try to gain independence and create a healthy climate for their children, so they aspire to

own their own homes and get out of public housing. I know there was mention made of efforts to try and create programs that could meet this certain sector of the population that are young, aspiring to own their own homes, and whether there are programs out there that could meet their interests.

In that regard, there are also some fundamental challenges that remain, particularly on the K’atlodeeche Reserve. There are jurisdictional matters. But at the same time, I understand that there are some efforts to try and do some retrofits on the reserve. Just recently we had an effort by this government of opening up a wellness centre and I understand it’s been in the making for a long time. It’s been achieved, and it serves as the model, in terms of an iconic achievement of having multi-level governments cooperate and collaborate and ensuring the interests of the public are met in terms of their needs. So I’m hoping to hear perhaps some positive updates as to what kind of efforts have been made to try and at least sort out those jurisdictional matters on that front.

Also, at the same time, I know there are smaller communities that I represent that aspire to trying to at least manage the housing initiatives in their community, and whether they could aspire to perhaps have their local associations established in those communities. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member’s first point there on the hot water tanks, I think we’ve got about 1,234 units in the thermal communities and about 90 of them are still on electric hot water, so we’re looking at opportunities to convert the rest of those. That’s 7.3 percent of the ones in the thermal communities. In the hydro communities we have 22 percent of our units that are still on electric. For the number of units we have, I think the fact that we have quite a number of them on oil fired and, again, always looking forward for opportunities to improve that.

The Member spoke on the K’atlodeeche Reserve. I mean, we’ve been working with them for a number of years now since I’ve taken over the portfolio. We had a number of vacant units there. I think we still have a number of vacant units there, but there’s an issue, again, of jurisdiction. I think the band had recently passed a band council resolution so that they’re able to give title to some of the land to their beneficiaries, I think, through a lease arrangement or something. They had to go through Canada for that, and I think they’ve got a band council resolution, is my understanding. Once they have that, there is opportunity for us to identify some homeownership clients, because as the Member knows, land tenure is one that’s part of the agreement, and if they’re able to get land tenure then we’re able to see those units be allocated if

there are eligible clients. If not, again, we’ll have to look at the fact that we may have to turn some of these over to public housing like we’ve done with a lot of other units across the Northwest Territories.

As far as local housing authorities go, some of the Member’s communities, I think, don’t have public housing units in the communities. I mean, we’re always willing to sit down with the community. I think the one community in particular, they’ve got three vacant units there. I’ve been to the community and I’ve heard their concerns with those three units. We are looking at turning those into a public housing unit so we can allocate them, because it’s not doing us any good and not doing the community any good to see all those vacant units. Again, I point out the fact we had 135 vacant units a couple years ago, some that were vacant for a number of years. We’ve managed to get that number down, and we’re still working on getting the number down even further.

There is opportunity there to enter into some kind of an agreement with the local government where they might be able to administer, or if they have the capacity they could even do the maintenance on these units because it saves us from having to send somebody into the community to provide maintenance. We’ve got a couple of agreements like that already in place with a couple more remote communities, which works well for them and works well for us.

We’re looking at ways we can work with the community to try and get those three units allocated and off the books.

As far as homeownership goes, ideally we’d like to see as many people in our homeownership programs as possible. We’ve tried every which way to get people into homeownership. We’ve expanded the criteria. We’ve expanded the income threshold so people that are making a little bit more can get into homeownership. What we’re very careful in doing now, and I think we’ve been guilty of this in the past, in our eagerness to try to get everybody into homeownership, we put some into homeownership that actually didn’t belong there and we set them up for failure. Many of them have quit claim to their units and they’ve gone back into public housing. That’s why with the HELP Program, it was supposed to be a bit of a transition from public housing into homeownership. You were given two years to see if you qualified or if you could make it as a homeowner.

Ideally, we’d like to see as many people as we can in homeownership but we have to do our due diligence to make sure that we’re not setting a lot of our people up for failure. We have been guilty of doing that in the past. We want to learn from those mistakes and make sure that we don’t do them again in the future. We’re starting to see that, as this next generation comes along, there is a lot

more work. We would like to see them get into homeownership. We will work with them any way we can. We have expanded the criteria on our programs quite a bit in the last couple of years to try to accommodate as many people as was possible. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Anything further, Mr. Nadli? Next I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am pleased to see a lot of these expenditures in all the communities and most particularly the seniors centre in Fort Liard, much needed and much overdue. I am most particularly interested in the Homelessness Initiative and some of their plans, and certainly Fort Liard has one of the worst core needs in my riding. There is lots of overcrowding. I don’t know what criteria would be used to identify the communities that fit the program guidelines of the Homelessness Initiative. I’d just like to ask the Minister what kind of criteria they will be using for this particular program.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ll be sending a letter out here to all the communities soon. What we would like to do is we would like to work with the community organizations, because we need to have somebody in the communities to oversee the operation of the pilot projects in the community. We will be sending a letter out soon, explaining some of the criteria. As long as we’re able to find a partner in the community, I think that improves their chances.

I know with only four, the need is high across the Northwest Territories with only four. We’ll have to spread those out quite evenly all across the Northwest Territories, possibly one in each region. We’ll see how those work and if we have success with that, then we will look at probably adding more on in the future. Again, I can’t make that guarantee right now. We have to see how these four projects work. We wanted to find a partner in the communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. When I first heard about this Homelessness Initiative program, I was quite excited. I certainly would like to see it as ongoing in future years for sure. I would like to know some of the definitions like small communities, because an initiative or program like this will certainly suit the needs of Fort Simpson. Many, many residents have approached me and said, lots of people come in from the small communities, they’re stuck there for weather. Often sometimes they actually stay in Fort Simpson, and the same thing that Mr. Yakeleya talked about, culture, faith, staying at cousins, et cetera. I’m not too sure the intent of this, but I certainly can see an application in the community of Fort Simpson and

utilizing this for the benefits of the homeless people that live in Fort Simpson. As well, there is a large population of young people that are living with cousins and they are conserving as well.

I would like to ask about their guidelines. Is it specific to small communities? Often, small community programs, they often call Fort Simpson a regional centre, so that’s concerning. That means Fort Simpson, even though it is a small community, doesn’t benefit from some of the small community programs. I would just like to ask the Minister that.

We’ll look at all the communities that don’t have an option there right now. If there is a need in Fort Simpson, obviously, in our opinion, they would be an eligible community. Again, the major piece of this is finding a good community partner to work with. But to answer the Member’s question, Fort Simpson would be eligible. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Any further general comments?

Detail, okay. Then I will turn Members’ attention to page 3-12, NWT Housing Corporation, information item, finance and infrastructure services, infrastructure investment summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you. I just have a quick question on the general budget here. Each year our CMHC contribution has declined. It is a financial sustainability problem. We have been implementing a new strategic plan through the Housing Corporation with a lot of support from this side of the House for initiatives that have been put forward by the Minister and his staff. I’m just wondering if I can get a quick update on where we are at and how the strategic plan implementation is improving our status in terms of long-term financial sustainability. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. McLeod.

I will pass that on to Mr. Stewart.

Thank you. Mr. Stewart.

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.

I would be irresponsible not to ask about the plans for Detah and Ndilo. I don’t see any in the plans here for this coming fiscal year. I know there are needs certainly on the quality of housing, perhaps on the quantity as well. Could I get an indication from the Minister what the plan is for Weledeh?

We’ve got about $340,000 earmarked for Detah/Ndilo. That’s mostly in the homeownership side of it to help homeowners improve their programs. I think we still have some vacant units out there that we’re needing to deal with right quick here too. So $340,000 that we have earmarked for Detah/Ndilo in this upcoming year. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. NWT Housing Corporation, information item, finance and infrastructure services, infrastructure investment summary, agreed?

Agreed, thank you. Let’s turn back, then, to page 3-10, NWT Housing Corporation, information item, infrastructure investment summary. Agreed?

Agreed, thank you. Does the committee agree that this concludes consideration of the NWT Housing Corporation’s budget for capital?

Agreed, okay, thank you. Thank you, Minister McLeod, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Anderson. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms if he would please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.

Is committee agreed we’re ready to move on to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs?

Agreed, thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Minister Robert C. McLeod, if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Yes I would. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Does committee agree?

Thank you. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.

For the record please, Minister McLeod, could you introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my left I have Mr. Tom Williams, the deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. To my right I have Ms. Eleanor Young, who is the assistant deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. To start off, do we have any general comments on the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs? Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have one comment and one question, I guess. I think the Minister is well aware that as communities accept more and more responsibility for their own affairs, they are also, at the same time, gaining more and more buildings and infrastructure, therefore, more and more costs. This infrastructure budget has remained the same for quite some time, but the responsibilities of communities have grown. This infrastructure budget can’t stay the same forever. So my question to the Minister is: When are communities going to see an increase in the infrastructure budget so that they can, as we are doing as a government, they need to do some of the deferred maintenance and so on that is required? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is correct; the infrastructure budget itself hasn’t changed from the $28 million in 2000, but what we’ve done is we’ve heard from the communities and they are challenged, they are getting more and more buildings and they’re challenged with the O and M side of it. But we have made it a little more flexible with the capital budget where they’re able to use 10 percent towards their O and M.

As far as increasing the infrastructure budget, their biggest concern right now was the O and M side of it. We’re working with Canada to try to find out what our share of the new Building Canada Program is going to be. Until we hear that, we’re not anticipating any change to this particular budget. Maybe there might be some we look at next year.

I think we’re challenged for the next couple of years as far as our fiscal situation goes, but we’ve heard loud and clear from the communities that they appreciate very much the infrastructure they’ve been given over the years and the flexibility to choose their own projects, but their biggest challenge was the O and M. So we’ve put in there that they are able to use 10 percent towards their O and M. Thank you.

The earliest that there would be an increase to the budget is 2017. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Next for general comments I have Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have a comment I’d like to make on this department. The communities are very thankful for this capital funding that they got. Gone are the days when they put in a wish list of what they’d like to see in their communities. Now the communities make their plans of what they’re going to do and every year you see the communities building, building up their infrastructure and a lot of people working in the communities. I just wanted to thank the department and hope this keeps going in the future. Thank you.

Thank you for that general comment, Mr. Blake. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to respond. We appreciate the Member’s comments and he’s absolutely right; the communities have taken this responsibility. There have been some challenges, but for the most part they’ve done a fantastic job at determining their projects and their priorities, and you’re absolutely right when you say gone are the days when you tried to get your project into the capital system. So it’s been working and we’re quite pleased with how the communities have responded to the challenges of administering this themselves. They’ve done a great job. In many cases they’ve done it probably cheaper than we could have done it as a government. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next for general comments I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to follow up with Ms. Bisaro’s comment about the status of this budget staying the same since 2000 at $28 million. I think operational costs have certainly become a challenge and I know the Minister was dead on with that, but unfortunately, I think the expenses, general expenses, part of that equation means that infrastructure expense costs have escalated quite considerably at the same time. For example, I think our Minister of Finance has told us that we used to spend $75 million in our capital budget and we were happy to do that when we could achieve it, and that probably was about 2000 or maybe even a few years later than the year 2000 when we set this at $28 million. As everybody knows, we’re up regularly over $150 million, typically over $200 million. So there is a disconnect here.

I have to disagree with the total perspective that the Minister presented that it’s just operational costs. I think, in fact, the cost of putting infrastructure on the ground without even operating it has escalated considerably over that period of time. Just by way of supporting Ms. Bisaro’s concern that we hear from communities that the $28 million was welcome, the new approach was welcomed, but the amount just doesn’t seem to be having the same capacity that it used to. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There is a full formula review underway right now including the infrastructure dollars, and we’re targeting ’16-17 as probably the earliest we can make the increases. Then we try and access any other monies that we’re able to through the Building Canada Plan and any other monies, the gas tax money. I mean, if there is any opportunity for us as a government – and we’re getting quite good at it – trying to access any pots of money so we can pull it into the Territories and distribute it to the communities, they’ve done a pretty good job with that. The review is underway and we’re targeting ’16-17.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. General comments. Next I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much. I raise the same concerns about getting an increment in the capital expenditures in MACA and a couple years is probably not soon enough for some of the communities out there that have growing infrastructure needs.

Aside from that, I just wanted to ask the question about the Wrigley water plant and what’s the process there. I know that’s not in this capital plan but it’s an old Build Canada funding. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I’ll refer that question to Ms. Young, please.

Okay. So just with the change in scope, is it still manageable within whatever capital they had allotted?

Thank you, Ms. Young. General comments. Next I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Just a short comment there, Madam Chair. It’s just with the increase of the infrastructure in the communities. It’s very interesting to hear the Minister talk about further discussions and the formula funding. Of interest, I want to raise the point of type of infrastructure that possibly could be needed in the town of Norman Wells with the increase of the oil and gas activity and that sort of being the regional staging area for the oil and gas companies in regard to the different activity that’s going to happen this year and next year. Is that something that the government is looking at, that type of funding to support the town of Norman Wells on their infrastructure and the use of oil companies using their additional infrastructure, which is sewer and wastage in other areas that the town may not have the dollars to support that?

Also, along with some of the infrastructure that’s going into the communities, communities are starting to prioritize their needs, because they’re only getting so much money a year and they want to do many things. However, as you go further up north, the cost of living is high and the cost of doing business is high there. Is that something that’s considered in the formula?

I know there’s a formula, I just don’t quite understand it well enough there, and you don’t need to explain it to me now. Is that something that MACA has considered? I think that’s something that the community is getting used to, and when they take over some of the infrastructure, they don’t quite yet know if that’s a good thing or until they fully understand what it means to take over some of the infrastructure. They are planning some of their work out for themselves and it’s quite costly. Those are the points I wanted to raise. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’ve worked closely with the communities, and communities have provided us with their five-year capital plan, because they realize how much they’re getting over the next number of years so they do a good job in prioritizing their investments over the next five years. I was looking at them, actually earlier this morning, and they’ve done a great job in some of their priorities and even

recognizing the fact that with development coming and that, you know, we’ve got to be ready for it. Again, it’s a decision that the community government makes.

We have assistant superintendents that we’ve hired in each of the regions and they are going to help – especially the one in Norman Wells – with identifying some of the challenges that may come as a result of resource development, so they will be in a good position to provide some advice and work with the community as to where some of their needs might be. But the community knows their needs better than we do and they do a good job in addressing it through their capital plans that they submitted to MACA.