Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to welcome the Minister and the Housing Corporation executives here today. The hard part about going near the end of general comments is that a lot of the good things have been said by members on the committee and also responded to by the Minister. But I would like to mention a few things that I think in my opening comments that may have not been addressed or at least echo some of the comments, and I’ve already heard some of the responses so I don’t expect the Minister to reply accordingly.

As mentioned by Member Moses, faced with a very scathing Auditor General of Canada report it’s only befitting that we find ourselves on the tail end of a lot of good work from the department. This committee, and as a Member I know I’ve faced many times questioning, sometimes, departments with a real “can’t do” attitude. It’s a pleasure to work with the Ministers; it’s a pleasure to work with authorities here as well as the corporation where it’s been a “can do” attitude after a scathing report. So, congratulations for literally, I believe, within a short period of time, in my opinion, you’ve turned a lot of negatives into positives and that’s not an easy task. That’s a monumental task. It’s not the work of one individual. It was definitely a team effort. I know you’re flanked, Mr. Minister, with some pretty good people on your right and your left, but I think kudos goes to your entire department.

So, first and foremost, it’s worth noting that if you look at the main estimates here for housing, there’s only a 1 percent increase from the main estimates which I’m pleased to say is in line with our revenues. So congratulations for actually living up to the rigours of the statement of the Finance Minister.

That said, if I started to look at your opening address, the areas that I think are worth mentioning, and I think there are some good things happening, and as I mentioned earlier, homelessness. I know Member Menicoche talked earlier today in the House about it. But I think when you look at the steps – and they’re not just gradual steps, these are monumental steps in homelessness over the past three or four years – it’s been almost a threefold investment and that’s very impressive. Could we do more? Absolutely we could do more. But the fact that we’re seeing those increases over that period of time in addressing homelessness, as you said from $325,000 at the start of the 17th Assembly to now $855,000 in this budget, I commend you and I commend your

ability to leverage those monies out of our bigger budget.

As mentioned here, Ms. Bisaro mentioned and again Member Menicoche, on behalf of Yellowknife we do appreciate the Housing First approach. I know it’s not a lot of money,

it’s $150,000, but it’s still $150,000. It’s still the intent and I believe that this coordinated approach will have a spilling factor into the communities and I’m hoping we can work with our colleagues to make sure that is a successful endeavour.

That being said, I’m still a bit concerned that this Housing Corporation is still faced with two very large operating pressures. As I mentioned earlier in my statements and also covered by Ms. Bisaro and others, that declining CMHC funding, there’s a time when the pavement is going to hit the road, the rubber is going to hit the road. What I mean by that is that right now, as it was indicated, you’re feeling it now, but we’re really going to feel it when those numbers are really not going to be strong enough to do what we need to do and I don’t know when we’re going to hit that threshold. Like I said, we only have 23 years left of funding and that number is decreasing gradually down, so even every year we’re getting less and less money which is almost like a double negative. So that is by far, I think, one of the largest operational pressures to which today, as a Member, I’m still a little bit perplexed by how we’re going to do it. I can’t quantify, I can’t visualize how this department is going to mitigate that over the next couple of years.

Of course, there are graphs that show where the money is. But as we are all well aware, I look at our revenue streams over the next couple of years, the predictability models, the fact that we’re having pressure on our resource revenues, unless something cataclysmic occurs in terms of revenue stream, we’re going to be hitting a wall and I’m concerned about that.

The second key operating pressure that I think is going to be facing us, and is facing us currently and as I said in our statement today, is our aging stock of inventory. With 50 percent of our houses over 30 years old, it’s only a matter of time where those houses are going to be beyond repair. Those houses are going to be beyond any preventative maintenance program, which means that we’re going to be looking at new inventory, and we know the cost of new inventory and the disposal of old.

Again, I know it has been discussed here but I still think those two key operating pressures are still a little bit murky in terms of how we’re going to deal with that moving forward.

That said, again as I indicated, we carry about 400 mortgages. I know that the collection rate, as we talked about earlier today in our exchange, was about 30 percent back in 2012 and that arrears are around $16 million. We heard today that those arrears are $9.1 million. If I’m wrong, please correct me. I think that is an important milestone; that’s huge in terms of getting those monies back, and I do commend the government for doing so. I will have questions regarding the 115 clients that have not yet met that obligation, and we’ll deal with that in detail shortly.

The issue of the 2007 rental units that are managed by our local housing authorities, again we have seen great strides in rent collection. This is part of that can-do attitude. We know that a number of LHOs were faced with really poor collection rates when we first started our jobs here not that many years ago. When you look at it today, from a 71 percent collection rate to now a 97 collection rate, those are huge numbers. As we indicated earlier in our oral exchange, still we have those who are still under 70 percent collection. I will have questions a little more specifically when we get to that number.

The other thing, as I indicated, was that seeing the overall aspect of the Housing Corporation in terms of a lot of their housing preventative maintenance or preventative care models, and there are lots of options out there for our residents. I don’t understand the rationale behind doing that, because if we were to invest into preventative and good maintenance of our units, it will definitely decrease those major repairs. So you’re spending 10 cents to hopefully save a dollar. I get it. However, as we’ll get into details and one of your plans, actually your CARE model, it’s interesting that we’re seeing a reduction. So if this is indeed a philosophy of the corporation in terms of wanting to invest into preventative maintenance, when we get to that operating line or that activity I will be asking why are we going in the other direction, because it goes against the philosophy that I believe we’ve been given as a committee and I just want to get clarification.

That being said, with the amount of potential opportunity of this corporation, I don’t want to lose the shining star that I think we have before us here today. We have to give it the due consideration of the House, and I believe what you’ve heard today from many Members, we have done so. Are there opportunities? Yes, there are always opportunities within a department, within especially a housing corporation. But bar none, this has been a department that clearly rose to the occasion, has taken on this challenge right on the chin, I’m sure had to mitigate and swim through shark-infested waters to get to where they are today and live up to the mantra of their terms of reference for the people they serve. So for that I’d just like to say congratulations and I’m looking forward to more details. Thank you, Madam Chair.