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.