Thank you, Mr. Chair. We wish to consider Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?

Okay. Committee, we’ll commence after a short break.

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Thank you, committee. I will call Committee of the Whole back to order. We’ve agreed to continue with the NWT Housing Corporation. I will ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation if he has any witnesses to bring into the House.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do.

Thank you. Committee agreed?

Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort our guests into the House.

Thank you. Minister McLeod, could you please introduce your guests for us?

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

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Is it agreed that we will proceed with general comments for the NWT Housing Corporation? Agreed? First I have on my list Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have two comments. There’s a huge demand in smaller communities. I represent Fort McPherson, Aklavik and Tsiigehtchic. First off I’d like to commend the department, which has done a pretty good job over the years replacing a lot of the older units. As I go through the communities I represent, there are new places, up and coming new places. In Aklavik at the moment, we have a new Joe Greenland Centre going up and plans next year for a similar type unit in FortMcPherson. The community is very excited for this.

The big demand here is new units. As the community members are moving back from going

to school or working in other communities, there’s a big shortage of housing units, especially in Aklavik. We have a waiting list of up to two years that some people have been waiting and some even longer. So there’s a big demand for multiplex units and duplex units that’s needed in the community. I would like to ask the Minister what the plans are moving forward to fill this demand.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We try to ensure that all our communities are adequately housed. I think if you look in the business plans that we’re debating today, you’ll see for 2015-16, we’ve got two replacement public housing units for Aklavik as well as we have some major M and I’s. Part of the reason for the waiting list in the community – and I’m not sure about the exact waiting list in Aklavik, I think it’s about 22 people who are on the waiting list – we recognize that the demand is out there for more multiplex units and more units for singles. That’s the direction I think we’re starting to go in. We have a lot of older detached units that are costing us a lot to maintain and they are not as in demand as they used to be. With replacement units, I think you’ll find we are replacing a lot of the older five-bedroom units that there really is no more demand for. Thank you.

As I mentioned earlier, there are plans for an elders complex in Fort McPherson. I know they are planning on setting up a solar panel unit for this building. I wonder if there’s any other plan to tie in biomass as well.

We appreciate the Member’s comments before about noticing a lot of the newer units going up in the communities. We appreciate that and it’s a good idea for some of the work that we’re trying to do in addressing some of the issues with housing.

The solar panels, we’re looking forward to seeing how they work. Biomass is not one that is slated for these particular projects, but it is something that we are exploring when we are putting up our other infrastructure. We’ll be looking at that. Of course, with the declining CMHC funding, we’ll have to find ways to try and cut back on our expenses and this seems to be the way to go. We are excited about the possibility of solar panels in Aklavik and I think in Fort McPherson that’s the plan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just one more question. In Tsiigehtchic we have a unit that caught on fire I believe almost a year ago now. What are the plans for the department moving forward? Are they going to retrofit it or are they going to tear it down and build a new one? What are the plans moving forward? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe that was a HELP unit. I don’t think it was a public housing unit. So we’ll have to go in there and if it’s one of our units, we’ll have to take the steps we need to retrofit the unit. I’ll follow up on that and share the information I gather with the Member.

Just to clarify, that was a housing unit, single dwelling, two single dwelling units, and a duplex. That’s good news. I’ll wait to hear for an update. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. That was more of a comment, so I’ll go to my next individual. I have Mr. Yakeleya, followed by Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, along with Mr. Blake, have a great need for units in our communities. I have had conversations earlier with the Housing Minister in the House and in meetings about the empty units in Fort Good Hope. I know Mr. McLeod talked about the liabilities and the assessments of these empty units and if they could be either turned over to the community or looked at to see if they could be released to the community because there are a lot of houses in Fort Good Hope boarded up with plywood on the windows and doors. I know the community has a great demand for these units that are needed for the people who need housing in that community.

Also, just recently an elder’s house burned just a couple of days ago, yesterday I believe, and now the community is trying to find a unit for him. This particular elder is very independent, very proud, and it would be nice to look at some of these types of units that can be made available for that elderly person in Fort Good Hope and also for that young man and his wife in Colville Lake. Now they have to go look at other places to bunk up for this fall and winter. Could they not have a place for these types of situations that are unforeseen and unexpected?

I want to ask the Minister how far he has gone in regard to looking at these empty units in Fort Good Hope. I know the land corporation is anxiously waiting to see if these units can be turned over to them so that they can do some of their own work and get some of the units open for their membership and also for that young couple in Colville Lake to be on the priority list.

At the same time, I’m looking forward to seeing the winter road so supplies can be driven into Fort Good Hope for their multiplex unit, I think it’s a seniors unit that for some reason was delayed, and hopefully this year it can be built this summer in Fort Good Hope. I do want to say that I look forward to the releasing and the discussion of the upcoming 2014 Community Survey Report and some changes that may be coming because of the report. I hope it’s good news from the 2009 Community Survey Report.

The Minister has done quite well, I’ve got to say to the staff, because of the declining of the federal funding. That means that we as government have to take on some of these additional responsibilities because of the cutbacks the federal government is giving to us.

I’m looking for some ways that we can have some of these units coming to our community. They will still be stick built. Some of the units that we’re now getting are prefab and they’re quicker units coming into our communities for housing for our people, especially in Tulita. I know in Deline they are looking forward to their units being built and retrofitted there.

I want to ask the Minister to reply on some of the points that I’ve just outlined here as to the housing situation and if there is any type of plans to look at apprenticeships within the housing association with our local staff, people in the communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments about the Housing Corp has done quite well. We always look for some positive feedback and we appreciate that.

As far as the empty units in Fort Good Hope, we have had some preliminary discussions with the community and private individuals on those units. The one thing we want to make sure of is that we do our assessments to make sure they’re free from any hazardous type of material before we put them out, and when we do put them out, our preference would be to go to a full public process where everybody has an opportunity to access these units. So I think we’ve done our assessments, and again, once we put these units out we’ll make sure that everybody has equal access to putting a bid in on them and we’re open to selling some of these units. We want to make sure that we’re not selling units that may have potential liabilities. So, that work is just being completed and then we look to have them out soon.

The apprentices, we have 10 apprentices right now and we’re looking at options of maybe adding more in the future because we’ve been encouraged by the results of the apprentices that we have had in the communities. Again, I think it’s through the support of the committee that we report to that we’ve been able to undertake a lot of these initiatives.

I think the Member was speaking to the folks in Colville Lake. I’m not sure what their options are in Colville Lake, if it was a homeownership unit that they were staying in, then that may change the dynamics. I’m not sure if we have any units in the community that are readily available. So we have to look at, you know, it’s unfortunate that when these

situations happen where someone’s private house burns down and without the proper coverage it makes it difficult on them and then Housing is asked to step in and provide accommodations. I’m sure we would consider assisting where we can. Again, we have to ensure that, you know, we have a number of people that are waiting for units, and we have to look at every situation on a case-by-case basis.

I believe I touched on most of the Member’s points, and if I didn’t, I apologize and I’m sure he’ll remind me. Thank you.

I want to ask the Minister, given the move to more ownership with the homeowners and purchasing a home, has the corporation looked at one- or two-bedroom units that are simple, that are very small? There’s an advertisement in the Edmonton Sun, a full-page ad on a development called Knotty Pine, I believe. They offer so much for a unit, there’s a couple of units. We thought that would be something that for the homeowners themselves to purchase through a housing program or pilot program.

There are a lot of individuals that are bachelors and a lot of individuals are also staying with their family members. There are also young families just wanting to get their own places. Is this something that the Housing Corp has looked at? Is it something that is feasible in the North or is it something we could look at that would build skill and provide some value to the homeowners to know what it’s like to have a house and have these units in our community, or just a pilot project? I’m looking at this concept. That’s just a discussion that we can float around to look at.

I’m a very big advocate for Housing to get more apprenticeships into the communities. The economy doesn’t really quite call for having contractors readily available, and if they are they’re quite busy. If they are there they also have other jobs, so a lot of people have to wait. Sometimes the materials and supplies are not always readily available and I know that the Housing Corporation, the housing associations, they do the best that they can to make sure that their supplies are in stock for their own public housing units, and if they have other additional surplus parts in supply, they could sell them to the homeowners for repairs. It becomes very challenging sometimes because the cost of bringing in some of these household supplies, it’s just out of this world. I say that personally because I bought something for the washrooms and paid double the price to install and had to pay a plumber to bring it in and install it for me, so it was close to $1,000. If you look at Yellowknife, it’s one-third of that cost. So those are some of the simple things that could help private homeowners. I ask the Minister if he could continue

to research and see if this is something that we could see in the 17th . Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thirty-seven thousand five hundred dollars is what those packages cost, I’ve seen the ad. We’re open to just about anything as long as they meet our standards, and you know, we’ll consider just about any option that’s out there. I think, if anything, the corporation has proven in the last little while that they’re fairly flexible and everything’s not written in stone as it was in the past. So, we’re fairly flexible and we want to work with homeowners. Again, there are options for them to purchase existing homes if they’re approved for our homeownership program. So we want to work with them. We’ve had some discussions as to if someone is paying for their own home, we may give them more options that they can choose from, kind of like a catalogue of different options. If they’re paying for it, then they should have that option.

One of the challenges we face in the North, especially in a lot of the smaller communities where materials aren’t readily available, and I used to think that we were never set up to account for the sale of material to individuals in the community; however, that’s something that we can have a look at to try to make some material available. Of course, we don’t want it affecting our ability of our LHO to do their work, but if there are opportunities there to make some small stuff available, then I think we would have to have a look at that because, as you said, Mr. Yakeleya, some small communities are challenged to get in particular parts and they are very costly. So if we can assist that way, then we’ll look at maybe setting something up to do that.

I can warn everybody, let everybody know right now, there’s going to be no charge account set up. It’s got to be cash on delivery. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next I have on the list for general comments is Mr. Menicoche, followed by Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We plan on having a briefing with committee, I think next week, on the latest findings and Community Needs Survey. So we are looking forward to having that discussion with them that I think is taking place next week. Again, we appreciate the Member’s comments on commending the corporation on the work that they are doing.

As far as the income threshold, when they are applying for the PATH program, the pathway to homeownership, we increased the threshold because we heard the concern that there were a lot of people that were just over SNIP and not being able to qualify for any more programs. It makes sense that if you are in a smaller community and if you have a couple of empty units there, you have somebody that might be just over SNIP. The pieces should fit and, of course, they should have the ability to maintain the unit, and that is one of the big things that we look at, is their ability to maintain the unit. We have run into too many cases in the past where we have put people in units that were just below SNIP and then they find out that they couldn’t afford it. That is something that we’re changing.

On the CARE side of it, the homeownership repair, if you have high income earners that are living in their own house, and we really haven’t raised the core need income threshold for that because it is a repair program. If they are higher income earners, then they should have the ability to do some of the work. You know, if you do it in stages and that, then it doesn’t get to a point where they have to apply for housing for a $92,000 CARE package to fix up their house. We have had pretty good success with that. Our CARE numbers are actually going down. The

people who are subscribing to CARE are actually going down.

But on the homeownership side, that is one that we want to concentrate on and ensure that we have folks that are just getting started and maybe making a little bit more. Those are the people that we would like to target and get them into homeownership because we feel that they will be successful clients. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to welcome the Minister of the Department here today. As I said in some of my past comments when we have been doing either operational budgets or now capital budgets, and it’s hard sometimes to get these types of comments out of the Member for Range Lake, but I do appreciate where this department has been going. There has been a progression of success. There has been a transparency of information to the committee, which on all accounts, when we ask, is delivered on time and with the proper detail. So I applaud the Minister, I applaud the Housing Corp for really moving up, I believe, true to their word in wanting to do a very collaborative and consensus style approach. First and foremost I was going to make sure I echo those words.

I am very pleased to see that the current budget for capital has a number of new units in the seniors and caretaker area. It is important to me because I have been trying to raise the awareness. We have a number of new reports out there, you know, Our Elders: Our Communities, Aging in Place, the Continuing Care. We all know that we are going to be faced, in the very near future, with areas of concern with enough facilities for our seniors and our elders.

My first general question, seeing the fact that I know Fort McPherson here seems to be a benefactor as well as Whati, and I think there is another small unit in Tuktoyaktuk, how does the department come up with their strategy and framework for dealing with literally the large investment that will probably be required to deal with our aging senior population when it comes to infrastructure of facilities? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will speak to the first part of the Member’s comments and then I am going to turn it over to Mr. Stewart to speak about this strategy that they use to come up with the allocation.

Again, we appreciate the Member’s comment on the direction this department has been going and his applause for this department. Part of the reason that we’re able to do a lot of the initiatives that we

have is because of our relationship with committee. We try to keep them up to date on a lot of the initiatives that we are bringing forward; we seek their support and their input. I think it goes a long way into a smooth transition into some of the work that we’re doing. So we appreciate the comments from the Member.

I will turn it over to Mr. Stewart to speak on the strategy we use to come up with the allocations of seniors units.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the information, and of course, Members will continuously have those high level discussions with the department on that. I believe that this is a growing issue that will plague not only Members, we know that there is a decrease in CMHC funding that will also have an impact on decision-making.

Mr. Chair, if I could, I would like to just change my direction a bit about vacancy. It seems to be a bit of a hot topic where as Members we continuously hear the following units have been vacant, are always vacant and yet we are either building a new facility or we are doing a retrofit. I know this has a bit of an operational overtone, but the issue of where do we make those decisions from a capital perspective knowing full well that we are dealing with vacancy. Again, I will let the department talk about what their vacancy is currently. But I believe

it is a concern and an optical concern for a lot of residents, seeing our inventory maybe not being used and yet we are seeing overcrowding in many of our units in other situations. Again, more of a broader question, Mr. Chair.

How are we dealing with vacancy and how does that vacancy reflect the decision-making on where we are doing our retrofits or where we are putting our new units? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Vacancies play a large role in how we determine where we allocate our capital dollars. Obviously, you have got one community that has more vacancies and they can be vacant for a number of different reasons. I’m just trying to find the numbers here as to our vacancies across the Northwest Territories. Fifty public housing units that are vacant and available for occupancy, and again the local housing organization could be in the process of allocating them right now. We have approximately 135 units that are under repair, and once those are done they will be allocated.

The concern we get in a lot of the communities, and I have touched on it when I spoke to Mr. Yakeleya’s question before, was we have a lot of units that have outlived their usefulness. They are boarded up and we really don’t have any use for them. We try to work something out with the communities. We have a number that are slated for demolition, but then now with the HAZMAT requirements, that has added extra costs on. We had a fairly aggressive plan a few years ago, but we’re having to deal with the HAZMAT material. That has slowed us down a bit, but we still want to get that work done and have a lot of these units written off, demolished and removed, and then we can move forward from there. There are a number of different vacancies.

A few years ago we had 135 vacant HELP units, I think, across the Northwest Territories, but that was because the corporation had access to all that federal money. We were the only jurisdiction that matched it in the country and we put a number of units on the ground anticipating that we were going to get clients for them and realized, at the end of the day, that we overestimated our ability to get clients. So we converted a lot of these into public housing units; we rented some out to different professionals in the community. So we found a way to deal with all those vacancies, but there’s always going to be a vacancy rate. We have 50 units that are ready for occupancy and another 135 that are under repair.

I appreciate those vacancy statistics. It’s always good to keep current and I’m sure we’ll be asking those same questions when we do the operational budget here in the spring. The only advice I can give to the Minister and the

department is to, you know, we tend to always talk about our overcrowding problems in non-market communities, but I stress that even in market communities such as Yellowknife and some of the major centres, we do have overcrowding as well, so I’m hoping we don’t lose sight of some of the needs and designs of all communities moving forward. I know you do, I just want to reiterate that.

With the time remaining, I’d like to maybe combine two types of questions I have left and the Minister can answer accordingly. I see on the project list in infrastructure a lot of portable-type solar panel systems, which I’m strongly encouraged to see that, and I know you currently started up with a utility tracking system and monitoring energy. Maybe if you can give an update how effective are we seeing some of the preliminary numbers with respect to that and how these voltaic programs are going to aid in achieving whatever goals you have.

Number two is we know that there are always a number of deferred versus carry-over projects from one year to the next, and it would be nice to see how much of the projects from last year we are still working on and how much of that was carried forward into this fiscal budget.

Deferred and carried over, it’s about $8 million, and we do have a chart with all of the projects that are on the ground right now. I think we’re at about 85 percent for this fiscal year. I saw the figure 85 percent. If it’s more, I’ll get the right number and remind the Member about it later, but I’m pretty sure we’re at about 85 percent right now.

The photovoltaic, we’re looking forward to the savings that it’s going to potentially bring the corporation. Again, we have to find innovative ways to deal with a lot of the… Ninety-six percent of our projects are out this year, so I was a little bit off by saying 85; it’s 96 percent. That was 96 percent. You know, 96 percent. We recently did a seniors home in Hay River and that was just completed, so we haven’t had any results from that.

The stats on the unit up in Inuvik, I think is what the Member was referring to. We’ll have to pull the stats out, unless Mr. Stewart knows them off hand, but we’ll have to pull the stats out and share them with committee. I know tracking it is available online, but I’ll pull the stats out and I’ll share it with the Member in committee.

Thank you, Minister. Committee, we’re doing general comments on the NWT Housing Corporation. Next I have Mr. Nadli, followed by Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of comments in terms of the Housing Corporation and affecting, of course, the whole area of housing and how it is that we meet the needs of families and individuals that aspire to either own their own

homes or else rent through the Public Housing Program initiatives.

One of the things that I see that seems to be fairly common is just the trend towards the public rental system. In some respects, the reality of living in the communities where you have a 40 to 50 percent rate of unemployment, opportunities are very few and far between, at least trying to work with people so that they can own their own homes, and it’s very challenging. I think most families that are starting out want to own their own homes but the challenges that they face in terms of employment opportunities, and unless you have major industrious sort of development projects perhaps close to the community, those opportunities will not exist.

Some other comments are there has been very little new construction of new houses, especially detached family units. It’s very clear that very few new houses are being constructed. At the same time, people in the communities, when they try to qualify for a program to get a job, they have to ensure that they don’t make too much money and at the same that they don’t make too little money. Their income has to be just right for them to qualify. One example is the homeownership program. I wanted to know if the department is looking at this reality and seeing if there’s an ongoing effort to ensure that yes, indeed, the department is trying to meet the needs of young families that want to own their own homes. They’re quite capable of working and that the Housing Corporation is providing those opportunities. I wanted to know if the department is making that extra effort to ensure that we do in fact try to meet the needs of people so that they can own their own homes.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think our track record has proven that we do try to assist people in getting into their own home, and I think it’s one of the reasons that we’re in a situation now where our focus has to be on more multi-unit type configurations for a lot of younger people. A lot of the families that are able to get into homeownership, I think in the last… Since homeownership started way back in the SHAG and HAP house days, I think we’ve got about 2,700 units that we help families get into through our homeownership program. We’ve raised our income threshold. On the access to homeownership we’ve raised our income threshold to give more people an opportunity to get in.

There’s always going to be a need for social housing. Ideally, we’d like to see someone that goes through the social housing situation because they don’t have a job or they can’t get a house and then if their financial situation improves or their prospects improve, then ideally we’d like to see

them graduate into our homeownership program. We’ve seen that a number of times in the past.

At the same time, I have to caution that we need to ensure that people we put into homeownership are able to maintain it. We’ve run into a number of cases where folks have gotten into homeownership, it was a little bit more than they had anticipated, and they’ve quit claimed the house and actually turned them back over to the corporation and moved back into public housing. We want to make sure that our clients are set up for success and we don’t set them up for failure. That’s one of the reasons we’re so concerned about the income threshold, because we want to make sure that they’re able to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of the house. That’s why we ran the Homeownership Entry Level Program, the HELP program. That gives them a window of about two years to determine whether they think that homeownership is for them, and if it’s not, then after two years they can turn it back over to the corporation and go back into public housing. Or if they determine they want to be a homeowner, then I believe there’s a $10,000 incentive that we give them. So we’re trying to set them up to take advantage of the programs that we offer.

It’s very encouraging to see that the system does indeed respond to the need of people who want to aspire to own their own homes.

My next point is this has been an ongoing matter for some time. I am hoping there would be a resolution of some sort in terms of trying to sort out through the jurisdictional issues. I’m speaking in particular to the Hay River Reserve. They are a reserve within the Northwest Territories and there are houses on the reserve that number about five and there is a real housing need. The jurisdictional issues have to be sorted out in terms of land tenure and the maintenance of those units and whether it could be financed by individuals. Of course, the involvement of the GNWT through the Housing Corporation is a matter that needs to be resolved. It’s been ongoing and I’m hoping the Minister and the department will at least try to come to a point where the matter can be addressed and build on some of the common interests of the people. We want to ensure that people have houses and aren’t homeless. At the same time, we need a good system so that housing can be available for people on the reserve. I just wanted to check on the status. I understand there have been some discussions and wonder if that’s going to come to a resolution at some point. Mahsi.

This issue with the Hay River Reserve has been ongoing for some time. We’ve been trying to find some resolution. We’ve been working on trying to get leases to those properties so we can make them available through some of our programs. I think we worked out an arrangement with the Hay River Reserve and we’re

happy with the lease. I believe they are okay with it. We’re just waiting to hear back from the AANDC Minister because, apparently, it’s they’re reserve, they had to go through the AANDC Minister, so we’re just waiting to hear back. If we don’t hear back soon, then through what channels are available to us, we may have to send the federal folks a note saying we’d like to get some resolution to this because this has been going on as long as I’ve had the Housing portfolio. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe I will try to combine these two final points into one so I don’t take up too much time. The other point I wanted to be considered by the Housing Corporation is the accessibility of disabled persons. Of course, the social housing and public units sometimes do occupy and they have chronic conditions, whether it’s arthritis and they have to walk up the stairs or sometimes they are in a wheelchair. Sometimes they are restricted in terms of going up the stairs or restricted in terms of their mobility from their room to the bathroom to the kitchen. I just want to understand what steps the Housing Corporation is ensuring that that is being addressed, so that disabled persons at least have accessibility to their units in a very comfortable way.

The last point is in terms of seniors housing. Seniors, for the most part, are on a fixed income. They’ve been living in units that are very old, maybe 30 or 40 years old. They’ve raised their kids in there and their kids have moved on, but they continue to pay rent. At some point, would the Housing Corporation consider perhaps, because of these older units, giving the responsibility of ownership to the seniors and consider the rent they have paid over the course of the years the equity? Mahsi.

As far as the accessible units, through our CARE program, if we have seniors who are living in their own homes and have application, there might be some opportunities there to get that work done.

In our public housing units, I know in a few communities they have a couple of units that are earmarked for accessibility, and if they’re not and they realize that somebody needs an accessible unit, then I think the local housing authority would take the necessary steps to ensure they make the home as accessible as possible for the resident living in there.

We’ve heard on a number of occasions about seniors that are living in a three- or four-bedroom house and have raised their families there, they’ve been there 20 or 30 years and they’re paying right now, depending on what zone they are in, up to $80 or $90 a month and that’s all in. That’s everything included. If we were to turn those units over to them or sell them to the seniors that are in there, then they’re going to be responsible for their own utilities

which, depending on which community they’re in, could be quite substantial and we want to ensure that they have the ability to look after utilities before we consider selling them the unit.

Again, as I said before, Housing Corporation has proven that we are getting to be fairly flexible and are willing to work with anyone and everyone out there. My big concern and the discussion I have with the officials at the NWT Housing Corporation is we don’t want to put people in positions where it’s a hardship to them. We don’t want to put them in a position to fail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next I have Mr. Moses, followed by Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before I get into some of the areas that a lot of Members have touched on, the department has come before committee and we’ve had a lot of good discussion there as well. Over the length of this Assembly, I want to applaud the department for all the good work that’s going on and good initiatives, changing policies and also looking at the infrastructure investments going into communities. Not only new units but there are a lot of retrofits. We are really fixing up some of the housing units that Members do hear concerns on. That’s good to hear.

Just looking at the project list, it’s great to see that it’s very diverse in terms that we are getting some kind of project going on in every community across the Northwest Territories. So it’s not focused in one area, but spreading the capital investments in the Northwest Territories. With that said, I know there are still places like bigger centres, like here in Yellowknife, who have long waiting lists for housing. Possibly a needs assessment needs to be done when we do our next capital budget in terms of seeing where we can start putting these units to address some of these needs that we’re seeing with our residents of the NWT.

Even moving further on that like maybe possibly a needs assessments in terms of transitional units, we do have a high homelessness issue in some of the communities, especially the regional centres and how we can address the hard to house. I’ve brought this up before, but I know at the Aurora Research Institute they are doing that one study of pilings and how the pilings are being developed, so that they freeze the ground and keep the permafrost frozen. Maybe the Housing Corporation has looked into that study or worked with the staff over at the research institute to see how we can incorporate that into the building of these new units, especially in the Beaufort-Delta region where we see a lot of the area with permafrost.

Another one that I know is pretty tough to do but we do have a lot of bachelor residents out there who also do require housing, and I know when we do build infrastructure, we want to focus on the family,

but these individuals who are bachelors or are single have a hard time finding units. I think they may sometimes end up on income assistance where they could possibly be getting some kind of housing help.

Another one was the elder-friendly units. I know that in some cases when we go out and build units, if we can develop some type of general development or any units that we build that there’s general planning for should this unit become available for an elder we want to make sure that these types of specs are put into the planning design. So if a family was not able to stay in the unit and with the increase in our senior population somebody might need a housing unit, but they might not be able to get into the unit because it might not be fit for them. So just something to think about as we’re building these units that we develop some type of general guidelines or general specs for each unit that should a senior or a senior couple want to go in there that it’s readily available and no retrofits need to be done in terms of moving into those positions. Like I said, it’s generally happening with the work that’s going on where we’re investing in the infrastructure throughout the Northwest Territories.

I guess another concern is we do have this one apartment building in Inuvik, a very old apartment building and I know it was on the list for retrofits, the Sydney Apartments. If there’s an update on them, that would be great to see where we’re moving in that area.

Those are just some general observations and some ideas and things that maybe the Housing Corp can look into as they’re investing into the communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, we appreciate the Member’s comments on the work that the NWT Housing Corporation is doing, and his committee is actually the one that we report to, so we’ve had a lot of interaction with the Social Programs committee. We appreciate the comments.

The Member was talking about the units for seniors and people with disabilities. We have a visible design that we incorporate into all our new units now that we build. So that is there.

The bachelor units in Inuvik, those are actually being replaced. We have a contract that’s been let and work was supposed to be underway. So those are being replaced.

We have one pilot project, and the Member was talking about the hard to house. In some of the larger centres, some of the regional centres are a little more fortunate because they have groups and organizations in the community that give people an

option. But some of the small communities, there’s really no option there. We’ve tried a pilot program, and I think we’ve had three take us up on it right now. We still have one more that we’re hoping went out there, and that was for an initiative in the communities for a hard-to-house type of unit where we do a little bit of renovations and work with the local group to look over the house first. Of course, there will be some compensation for them to maintain the unit for us. So we have had three communities take us up on that and we still have, I think one more that’s available.

So we try to do what we can to address. Again, there’s a number of reasons that people are homeless. Addictions issues, obviously, is one of them. A lot of them have been evicted from the units that they’re in because of the addictions issues. So it’s a struggle to try and find a balance, but we try to find some pilot projects and we support others that give them a chance to get out of the situation they’re in and hopefully turn their life around and be able to get back into public housing.

Being involved in housing for as long as I have, I’ve seen it firsthand where folks have been given another chance and they’ve gotten it and run with it and done quite well. So if there’s any way that we can assist, it’s those options that we look at. Thank you.

I also just made a comment there in terms of with the Aurora Research Institute and the study that they’re doing with the pilings, and I just wanted to see if the department has looked into that research and whether it’s feasible and the work that’s been going on there in terms of building our units up in the Beaufort-Delta. Thank you.

Thank you. The pilings, and we’re always looking at new ways of building and putting buildings up. So if there’s an opportunity for us to take advantage of some of the new technology and new ways of doing things, then we have folks within the Housing Corporation that explore all these options and if they are feasible, then we apply it to some of the work that we do. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Anything further, Mr. Moses?

No, nothing further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next I have Ms. Bisaro, followed by Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments are quite similar to those of my colleagues, but as I’ve said before, I think they bear repeating.

I too am pleased with the work that the Housing Corporation has done over the last number of years. There have been a number of changes that have been made. I like to think that the Housing

Corp is thinking beyond the box a bit, that they are analyzing where need is and they’re responding to that need. I think the changes have been very positive on certainly the government but also, I think, on the people that are in public housing and the people that are administrating public housing, our local housing authorities.

I am also really pleased to see that the Housing Corp is focusing more and more on green works. We’ve got voltaic systems; we’ve got pellet boilers and so on, and it seems to be a bit more of a focus every year and I’m very glad to see that. I think it’s only going to prove beneficial in terms of efficiencies. Efficiencies, in my mind, are going to lower costs, and we certainly need to lower our costs because of our declining federal funding.

I only really have two main concerns and they apply particularly to my community, but they certainly apply, as well, to every community in the North. The one is the cap that we have at the moment on public housing units in our communities. Yellowknife I think particularly Yellowknife’s single people are in a particularly difficult situation with the cap on our public housing facilities. As a single person you can get on a housing list, but you’re going to stay there for years and years and years. I don’t think there are single people who are in desperate need of housing who ever move from maybe 30 or 35 people on the wait-list. So we need more public housing in general, but I think in Yellowknife particularly we need to look at public housing for single people, and I would encourage the Housing Corp to look again outside the box and consider something innovative but that is going to be relatively cheap but also to serve the needs of our single people in Yellowknife. It’s an issue in other communities; we’ve heard that from Members. There’s also the issue about just the need for more public housing units period, but I want to emphasize that we need units for our singles.

The other major concern for me is seniors housing. We have, and I’m not sure if we’ve had the numbers out there, but certainly there have been several studies that have been done in the last number or months or certainly over the last year, which indicate a huge increase in the number of seniors in the NWT. That number is going to increase, I think, 100 percent to 150 percent across the NWT, but in Yellowknife that number is liable to increase three times, 300 percent. We need to, whether it’s the Housing Corp or whether it’s the Housing Corp in conjunction with other departments, we need to not look into this but start to make some progress on this problem. By that I mean providing some sort of housing for our seniors. We have a fair amount of housing already, I appreciate that, but where I’m more concerned is the lack of housing and it’s going to be even worse as the years go by for seniors who can no longer

stay in their home. I support the concept of Aging in Place. It’s something that I think is very valuable and I think most seniors, most elders if they can, if they’re still physically able, if they’re mentally capable, want to stay in their own home and they want to stay there as long as they possibly can, but there comes a point in time when they can no longer stay in their own home for one reason or another. At that point they need to be put into a housing situation where they have professional care where they have people who can look after them. There’s graduated elements of that care. Some people need more care than others, but we do not have in the NWT, and particularly in Yellowknife, we do not have that space available now, particularly for seniors who need to be looked after, so to speak, and who can’t stay in their own home.

It would be something that I really strongly encourage the Housing Corporation to act on yesterday. I was going to say sooner than later, but this is something which is an urgent need and needs to be actioned as soon as possible.

Certainly, the organization in Yellowknife, the Avens Society or the Avens Group, they have put a great deal of housing in place for Yellowknife seniors, but it also serves NWT seniors as well. Aven Manor and Aven Cottages are not just for Yellowknife members. If they are residents, they serve residents across the territory. Both of those facilities are full and both of those facilities have very long wait-lists.

I think I have stressed it twice already and I’m going to stress it again, Mr. Chair, seniors housing for those who can no longer look after themselves is an urgent need, and I hope the corporation will work with other departments to get it done. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments on the work that the NWT Housing Corporation is doing. I heard her say she is pleased with the work we are doing. We appreciate that. Again, we work with the committee very closely.

The Member was talking about singles units. It is a challenge and that’s a direction that we are going to have to go, is give more towards singles. In some of the larger communities, especially the market communities, if we were to come and put 20 or 30 units on the ground, I think we would hear from the business community, and we don’t want to do that.

One of the ways we try to alleviate that is through the Territorial Rent Supplement Program, where singles, if they can get into a unit, we will help subsidize their rent. I think the uptake on that has been fairly consistent, not as much as we… We’re

at 90 percent right now, so there is still some room there.

The seniors in place, we recognize that it is going to be a challenge. I think that is one of the reasons that we are trying to get some of the seniors units into some of the communities. In all of the seniors homes that we are doing, we have designed them so that if we work with Health and Social Services, all the infrastructure is there for them to run their programs. It was in a particular unit in Aklavik I think. So we work with them. We will provide the infrastructure. We will make sure it’s built into the units so if they come back and say, well, we would like to provide these services, then the infrastructure is already there, which is a huge cost savings.

In public housing, we hear there is a huge need for public housing across the Northwest Territories. We hear we need more units in each community. We have been trying to take off some of the pressure by having all of the homeownership units, and again, as I said to one of my colleagues before, there is always going to be a need for social housing. We have 2,300, I believe, public housing units across the Northwest Territories. We have, with the affordable housing, about 350 affordable housing, plus we have some other third-party interests where we are actually leasing space from developers and then in turn renting it out. So it is a challenge. We are challenged again with the declining funding. That is why, with some of the initiatives that we are taking on, the green initiatives, as the Member pointed out, are helping us, I think, to deal with some of those issues and those cost pressures.

As well, and I have to point out and I should have pointed out earlier, we are actually seeing our rental revenue increasing. It is a significant achievement, I think, just to see the revenue increasing, and the assessments and the collection rates are all increasing. To me, that is a great indication that people across the Northwest Territories are starting to take their commitments seriously. There are consequences if they don’t and I think they recognize that. So we are quite pleased about that. Again, if they continue to keep up with their rent and everything and our revenue is increasing, that takes some of the additional pressure off the NWT Housing Corporation and this Assembly. We were fortunate last year, I think during the O and M budget, that we were given an additional $1.2 million from the Assembly to deal with some of the pressures of the money we were losing from CMHC.

All of these, I think, are part of our overall strategy to deal with some of the pressures that we are facing from the declining funding. Again, I have to commend people, our clients out there, for starting

to step up to the plate and accepting their responsibilities. I think that’s huge.

In the Avens, I believe we made an initial investment into the actual infrastructure plus we provide an additional, on top of that, $540,000 a year to help with the O and M of that. Again, we recognize that we are open to any kind of… As I said before, we’re flexible. We are open to any kind of partnerships that we can provide. I think we have proven in some of the construction, we provide some money to help with the construction of the infrastructure. The O and M is normally left up to the group that’s operating, but we do what we can to make a contribution to the infrastructure that is being built because we recognize that it helps identify and deal with a need within the territory and one that is going to continue to grow as the population gets older. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next on my list I have Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate this opportunity. Again, please forgive any overlap. I would like to start by just joining in on this love fest a little bit. I don’t want to be left out. I know the Minister is not used to these words, but all kidding aside, I think this department has really shown some progressive work and move to really tackle the issues. I think there has also been a happy coincidence with the return of housing to its proper home that has helped with collections and so on. I know the Minister fought hard for that under another hat. I think that has been a little bit enabling for some of the collection side of things.

Having said that, housing is a big issue for my constituency, and not just my constituency, for Yellowknife. I don’t want to go into too much detail. I think Ms. Bisaro and others probably have named this, but we have long waiting lists. The turnover is very slow, YWCA and so on. This is a real issue in Yellowknife. Partly, as the Minister knows, I talked a lot about this, income support to access housing doesn’t do it. It simply doesn’t do it. We need public housing. I would ask the Minister to look at that, because I think we can gain for the government. I think the public housing can be more efficient and effective to reduce costs as compared to trying to do it through income support. I have made a number of statements and so on and I know the Minister has access to those.

I thought it might be interesting to get an update on where we are at with the CMHC loan business. I think 2037 is D Day or something, and were there any signs of weakness in the federal government – I expect not – on playing a role in the national housing.

I heard the Minister’s comment on the old, disused units in communities, and I know the communities would probably regard those as liabilities, and given the hazardous materials, I would suspect the

Minister thinks that’s a real liability and something we don’t want out there, knowing how children get into houses and play around and stuff. I guess I would be interested in what the plan is, given the earlier plan has hit a barrier. What is the plan to address that barrier?

The Housing First really is a philosophical approach at providing housing with some obvious approaches that need to be considered and so on under an operational plan. I am wondering if there are any infrastructure considerations or aspects to the Housing First approach.

In terms of solar, I am also very happy to see the solar installations. I just had an assessment done on my house. I have fairly good solar, but not great. Twelve-year simple payback, internal rate of return over 25 years is 7.5 percent per year. When you consider that that’s before taxes, I am getting a $500 benefit per year. I’m not paying tax on that, so it is really more like a $700 benefit, not to mention some of the jobs that go along with that and the environmental gains and so on.

I am looking forward to some of the evaluation, but I just wanted to mention on the Hay River side of things, was that a Housing Corporation installation of 60 kilowatts and was there a miscommunication there? I think it’s clear that with the Net Metering Policy there is a five kilowatt limit, but with our Solar Strategy that ENR has, I believe there is an interest in having commercial providers with larger solar installations, and I see no reason why the Housing Corp couldn’t negotiate with the power provider to provide power there. I would expect that something like that might be worth considering in order to get full benefits from that installation and enable additional work.

I have to also stress the need for seniors housing and particularly, as a Yellowknife MLA, for the Aven’s stuff. I know the department has played a role in that and I know that the corporation is aware that there is an aging in place problem with infrastructure and that there is a potential role again for the corporation to play there. I have heard the Minister say he is very open on that before and confirmed today, so I don’t need to hear all of those remarks repeated, but I wanted to raise that with the urgency that Ms. Bisaro and others underscored earlier. I will leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments about the work that the NWT Housing Corporation is doing and some of the direction that we are learning. The Member is correct; I have replied to a number of these issues, but there is a couple that I won’t touch on again.

CMHC funding does decline to zero in 2038. I think this year alone our net loss on that was $1.2 million, I believe, or $768,000. It is one of the two numbers. I think all of the deputies in the country have a meeting with the new president of the CMHC in early November. We are co-chairing the meeting. We are actually still co-chairs of the FPT and we have not been able to get everybody into the same room, partly because we want our federal representatives there and the federal Minister and we want to have a discussion with them. Across the country in some of the larger jurisdictions, they are starting to feel the effects of the loss of money from CMHC. We felt it right away because we are such a small jurisdiction. We recognized that it was going to be a challenge for us. I think they are starting to feel the effects now, and we are hoping to get together, to get all in the same room with the political leaders across the country.

The Member is talking about the demolition. We have demolished 75, I think 20 this year, so we would like to be able to expedite that. One of the challenges that we face in some of the smaller communities is that they see a house that is standing that to them is a perfectly good house, and then we say we are going to come in an demolish it, and they say you can’t demolish it, it is a good house. We say, well, there might be some liability there, and if we are going to turn it over to anybody, we are going to put them up for sale, we will do our assessment and make sure we are not turning over a liability. That is one of the challenges that we face. Your colleagues talked about one of the units that he represents with the number of vacant units in there, and we just had a situation in another one of the Sahtu communities where we had 10 vacant units. We made sure that they were all assessed and they were okay, and we made a deal with the community and I think they have ownership of those units now.

That is one of the challenges that we face, but we do need to start dealing with a lot of vacant older units in the communities, a lot of boarded up ones. We need to deal with those, because if you start getting young people, children, getting into there with some of the potential liability in there, then I think it’s on all of us. So we will deal with that and hopefully get a lot of those issues cleared up

I think I have touched on the new stuff that the Member raised. Again, Housing First, I will let Mr. Stewart touch on the Housing First because I know that we are part of a working group, and there was another one that you were going to…

---Interjection

Oh, right. The situation in Hay River with the panels. So, Mr. Chair, I will turn it over to Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Continuing on with general comments, I have Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a couple of quick comments. I do appreciate the work that is being done on the solar panels at Whispering Willows.

I guess senior housing has been a big issue recently, and I know it’s going to continue to be a bigger problem with the aging population. Some of the problems that we are seeing are basically the quantity, I guess, the seniors in their own homes in places. I guess we’re having some difficulty in the placement side of it. There’s a gap, it seems to me,

between seniors that have houses that are dilapidated or need major retrofits. Housing has indicated that they’re probably too extreme to be taken on by a seniors program or whatever, so then a senior sells their home and then just basically has to be put on a list to go into social housing, so there’s a gap there between when you sell your personal home and get on to social housing. There’s that gap, that period of time where you’re in limbo. I guess that is a concern and I’m not sure how the department can look at doing that and looking to see if we could do a transition period of six months to a year to allow that gap between when people need to sell their home for whatever reason, whether it’s the need of the house or whether it’s the need of the senior, and when you get on the list. Right now, you can’t apply and get on the list until you sell your house, so you’re basically throwing yourself out to the wolves before you get on the list.

The other thing that we’re seeing with seniors is a lot of them are couples and the fact that there’s a big discrepancy between income requirements for a single and the income requirements for a couple. You would think it would be almost double, but it doesn’t really work out that way. The numbers are probably slanted to the single quite a bit, 75 percent and you only get an additional 25 percent for that second person, so if you have two professionals that are seniors that have a good income, sometimes that’s more difficult to get into that type of stuff.

Other areas that we’re seeing, and it may be just based on demand… Like I said, we have some couples that are seniors that definitely don’t want to be in a… They may not be in a housing requirement but they may be requiring. We need that, kind of, that gap, and some of it may have to do with the public sector. We may need some private investment. I think we need NWT Housing to look at that gap between private sector and public housing, and somewhere in the middle there should be a mixture unit that we can mix the two, and similar to what some of the Yellowknife MLAs have indicated, some of those will require different needs. If we had a unit that would have different types of seniors as well as some of their needs, so then you could also put a nurse or something like that into that facility and that would allow some of those seniors that are aging and require a little bit of assistance to fulfill that kind of need that’s being left in the lurch right now.

That being seniors, I think there are a couple other issues in Hay River that I’ve seen. Obviously, that Disneyland area that we have in the community, I think we have just about eliminated all of the units that are there. There may be one or two that are still operational, but going forward, what is the plan for that area, for adding units into there, maybe multi-family, or are we looking at just leaving that

piece of land vacant for now? If I could get direction on what the department is looking for going forward with that.

One other area that I’m seeing difficulty in is the rating. This is for more single individuals, but you go on a wait-list to get into social housing. I had a fine example of an individual that was working poor and wanted to be in social housing but kept being bumped down the list because he actually had an income and was able to couch surf for a year or two years with family and friends, but had that little bit of support and a little bit of an income, and he actually was being bumped down from people that were coming into the community, didn’t have a job, didn’t, I would say, even try, but they would get a higher rating because they were that much more needed. They needed more stuff from the social housing. I mean, I think some of these are operational, but they are all based on the demand of infrastructure in housing. Those are my opening comments.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I’ll allow the Minister to reply. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We believe that the private sector can play a role in the supply of housing in the Northwest Territories. Through some of our third-party programs, I think we do work with private developers. In some of the communities we offer incentives for private developers to provide housing for professionals in their community.

The Disneyland, our plan is to have it vacant for now and then we’ll look at what different options we might have for that particular piece of property.

On the seniors that are selling their own homes, the Member makes a fair comment that there’s a gap between the time they sell their homes and they’re able to access public housing if that’s what they’re trying to get into, and it’s something that they may plan for before they sell their house, but it’s a fair comment, and I suppose it’s something that we’d need to have a look at to see where we can play a role there.

The point rating system, I think we designed the point rating system so they would be rated based on their need. We heard the concern so many times in a lot of the small communities that there was favouritism that was going on and we thought the point system would alleviate some of that. For the most part, I think it has. It’s unfortunate that the person that you speak of keeps getting bumped down the list again. I suppose we’d have to evaluate how things are done and how they’re rated. The fact that he had some income, as you mentioned, Mr. Bouchard, is probably one of the reasons that he kept getting bumped down the list, because his need didn’t seem to be as high as someone else’s. Again, we’ll look at that.

I think I touched on most of the Member’s concerns.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, are we okay to go to detail?

Thank you, committee. If I can turn committee’s attention to page 57 of the expenditure capital items expense under Housing Corporation. We’re going to actually defer page 57. I’d like to go to page 58, finance and infrastructure services, information item. Any questions? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m just wondering, I see for Detah/Ndilo some major retrofits, but I’m wondering: is there a schedule for providing new public housing in Detah/Ndilo other than this fiscal year? I was disappointed not to see any there, and for Yellowknife, as per our earlier discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

We have no new public housing or no public housing replacement units for Detah/Ndilo in this fiscal year. As far as the long-term plan, I would have to see what our long-term plan is.

Again, we have the major retrofits that we’re planning on doing there. As far as the long-term plan, again, we’re using the recently completed Community Needs Survey to help us to determine our next allocation of capital projects, and as soon as we have that, then we will share that with committee, obviously, and we’ll have an opportunity to have a discussion on the Community Needs Survey in our briefing with committee next week.

Thanks to the Minister for that. Yes, that, I think, will be a key document and I’ll be very curious on what that shows for the communities I represent.

My last question here is how many homeownership units, I believe I heard the Minister say some of them were being converted to public housing recognizing that people don’t have the capacity to take advantage of those homeownership units. That’s certainly been the case in Detah and Ndilo. In Detah and Ndilo, how many public housing homeownership units have been converted to public housing over the last couple of years? Thank you.

Thank you. I’m assuming the Member is speaking to all units across the Northwest Territories that were converted to public housing. If he is, we don’t have those numbers with us right now, but we can get those numbers and provide it to the Member in committee. I will hand it over to Mr. Stewart to speak of six units I believe we have in Detah/Ndilo that we’re planning on converting to public housing.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Minister’s offer might be of interest to the Members, too, but just on those older units, I’m assuming they are beyond use, would we be expecting replacement units to be on the capital plan in the near future? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we put those six into stock, we have to take six out and they’re replaced. So they’ll replace six older units because we just don’t have the funds from CMHC, again, to deal with that. There’s a lot of CMHC numbers that were tied to particular pieces of infrastructure. So we put six in and we take six out. Thank you.

It just seems a little bit caddy-wonky. On the surface it seems right, but given that there’s nobody there that can take advantage of those six homeownership units, they’re not really part of the public housing stock. Obviously, there’s a need there to replace the units where people already are. So I’ll just leave it at that. I don’t want to take up too much time on this, but I look forward to this Community Needs Survey that we’re getting a briefing on in the next week for further discussion. So I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I didn’t hear a question there, but I’ll allow the Minister a final comment here. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will take it as a comment, and of course, we’ll be updating the Member on any changes that might be happening in his riding. But we’ll take it as a comment.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Again, committee, we’re on page 58, and continuing on with detailed questions I have Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I mentioned earlier, I see a lot of things happening in the Mackenzie Delta region. I’m thankful for that.

I’d just like to ask the Minister, I don’t see anything on here for Tsiigehtchic and I mentioned that there’s a unit that needs retrofit. So would that fall under O and M because it was a current unit? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t know, we’ve got a couple of major M and I’s that are slated for Tsiigehtchic. I don’t have the exact, but this year we have two major M and I’s that are slated for Tsiigehtchic. As to the details of which units those are, I don’t have that right now. It may or may not include the unit that the Member is speaking about. So, we’ll get the details as to what two units they’re planning on doing major retrofits on. I think over the next couple of years we have four major M and I’s that are going into Tsiigehtchic. So whether that includes the burned unit or not, I’m not quite sure. I’ll get the details and share it with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you. I look forward to that information. Moving forward, are there any plans for another multiplex unit for Tsiigehtchic and also Aklavik as well? Thank you.

Thank you. We have no new units that are slated for Tsiigehtchic this year or the next year, I believe it’s the next year too. There’s nothing slated for Tsiigehtchic or identified for Tsiigehtchic this year. We’ve got the two major retrofits and that’s our investment in Tsiigehtchic this year.

As far as a long-term plan, as I responded to Mr. Bromley before, we’re looking at a Community Needs Survey to help us identify where some of our strategic investments have to be.

In Aklavik we have two replacement units going into Aklavik this year; as well, we’ve got some major M and I’s that are going there. I think we just had a couple of market units go in there in the last couple of years, plus you’ve got the new Joe Greenland Centre and then you’ve got those five duplexes we just put in there. So there you go. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, a lot of nice buildings coming up in Aklavik. I was wondering if the Minister would know if one of those replacement units is Bennett Apartments. As the Minister knows, it was probably built in the time that he lived there and that was quite some time ago.

---Laughter

If the Minister could answer that, thank you.

Thank you. Again, I’m not sure of that particular one. The bones in the unit itself are pretty good. So if there’s some work that

needs to be done in there, I’m sure the LHO will identify it, but it’s about 20 years old, I believe, 20 or 25 years old. The structure itself is still pretty sound and if there is some major work that needs to be done in there, then the local housing organization will identify it, but I don’t know, again, the details for sure. We’ll find out exactly what the plan is for there.

Our numbers we have are pretty high level numbers, as far as the actual house numbers and the details of what’s being replaced in the community, that’s a decision that we will work with local housing organizations to see if there are some units that they want out of stock and we can replace them with some of the newer units. They’re in a better position to tell us what works and doesn’t work in the community.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, again, we’re on page 58 of the capital estimates. Finance and infrastructure services, information item, any questions? Seeing none, again committee, if you’d be kind enough to go back to page 57, NWT Housing Corporation. This is just an information item only, any questions?

Seeing none. Does committee agree we have concluded consideration of NWT Housing Corporation?

Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank Minister McLeod, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Anderson for joining us this evening. If I can get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber, thank you.

We are going to continue on with the NWT capital estimates with Municipal and Community Affairs. With that, I will turn it over to the Minister responsible. Mr. Minister, do you have any witnesses you would like to bring into the House? Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Does committee agree?

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

For the record, Mr. McLeod, would you like to introduce your witness, please?

Mr. Chair, I have with me Mr. Tom Williams, deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Williams, welcome to the Chamber again. Committee has indicated we are on municipal and corporate affairs. According to our protocol, we are going to forego opening comments and be going directly into general comments. Mr. Blake.

Mr. Chair, I have a couple of questions for the Minister referring to Fort McPherson as it is under public administration now which is basically under the Minister’s department. I’d like to ask the Minister what the plans are. I know there are some issues with the arena. That is why the hours have been cut back. There is a little trouble with the foundation. Is the department looking to fix this problem in the next month or two? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chair, we have, I believe, an engineer going into Fort McPherson next week. We will work with the community, identify some of the issues that might be taking place with the hockey rink, not only the hockey rink but the curling rink. Once we receive that report, we will work with the community to see if there are ways that we can deal with that and if there are ways so these facilities can be kept open. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, just on the same topic, I know the community, when it was under the hamlet, we were planning to start the planning process towards a new arena. What stage are we at now with those plans for a new arena? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, the planning work can still be undertaken even while they are under municipal administration. We will work with them, obviously, to make sure that they have financing or the finances to help deal with it. As far as the planning goes, that doesn’t stop because they are under municipal administration. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I mentioned they are under the public administrator. Is the administrator starting those plans as we speak? Thank you.

Mr. Chair, not at the present time. He is spending a lot of his time dealing with the deficit and trying to find ways to alleviate some of the pressures. As things settle down a bit, then we can have a discussion with him as to getting someone in there and working with the community to start the plans for a new facility.