Thanks, Madam Chair. I do have some comments. Thank you for the opportunity. I have a couple of questions. One of them comes from the Minister’s comments yesterday when he opened the department. I was struck on page 3 where he said that, “NWT Housing Corp activities are just part of the overall support as homelessness is addressed through the activities within a number of departments in the GNWT.” I thought that we had consolidated homelessness within the NWT Housing Corporation. That struck me as a little strange. I would appreciate an explanation of what that means.

Right after that, the Minister mentioned we have increased the funding for homelessness from $325,000 to $855,000. I am extremely pleased to see that. It certainly was a paltry amount at $325,000. It needs to go beyond the $855,000, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. I hope the emphasis on homelessness will continue. Along with that, the funding that has been provided for the City of Yellowknife for the Housing First program is an extremely positive step and I want to thank you on behalf of council and the residents of Yellowknife.

In looking at the numbers, it’s really good to see that rent revenue is being collected, that the percentage of rent revenue we are collecting has gone up. I think the corp has made changes to assist the LHOs in their rent collections and it’s obviously working, because rent revenues are far better than they were a couple of years ago. I would say keep the pressure on, it’s working and keep it up.

I want to express strong support for the move to bring the money from ECE into Housing to provide for housing for clients who are on income support, the long-term income support clients. I think it’s an excellent move. I think it’s going to make it easier for those clients to deal with their daily struggles with paperwork, applications and so on. It does help to a certain extent to alleviate the need for public housing stock in Yellowknife, but my other concern is there’s a huge need for public housing stock in Yellowknife. There’s a huge need pretty much across the Territories, so we’re not alone in Yellowknife in asking for this but I would hope that the corporation, albeit you’re strapped for money, that you would be looking at public housing on a per capita basis and making things a bit more equitable from a Yellowknife perspective.

I wondered about the impact of Investment and Affordable Housing(sic) money we’re getting from the federal government. It was recently announced. I’m presuming that maybe the Minister and the Housing Corp knew about this previously. Do we have money in the budget to match what the federal government is giving us? Are we going to be able to use this in the 2015-16 budget year? I certainly hope so.

Just something that came up during oral question earlier, I thought the minister said it’s $1.8 million per year coming to the NWT and then I thought I heard him say $3.6 million over five years is what we’re getting. So $1.8 million times five doesn’t equal $3.6 million. So I’m a little confused here.

I have to speak again about the need for seniors housing in Yellowknife particularly. I think I know that the Housing Corp is involved with the steering committee or whatever it’s called that’s dealing with the Avens project. I certainly hope that that project can get a greenlight to go forward, and I just encourage the Housing Corp to do everything they can to make sure that the Avens project goes ahead. It’s desperately needed.

There was a statement sometime within the last year about the Housing Corporation monitoring utilities in public housing. I guess I would like to know if that is still happening. Has there been a reduction in the cost of utilities for all of our public housing units across the territory? If so, because we’re monitoring, that’s great but if we’re not doing any monitoring, is there an intent on the part of the Housing Corp to start monitoring utility usage in public housing units? I think that’s something we are going to have to do if we are ever going to experience any kind of efficiencies in the use of heat and power.

The Rent Supplement Program, I believe we’re almost on to two years now and the Minister said we’re going to do an evaluation after a two-year initial period. I would hope that that would happen fairly soon. I want to, again, suggest that the Rent Supplement Program should be applicable to those people who are renting a room in a house, not that they have their own unit, but they’re just renting a room in a house. There are many people that that’s all they can afford and some of them still need to get some kind of a rent supplement. Maybe not the full $500, maybe something less, but there are people who are struggling to make it when they are only renting a room.

Lastly, Madam Chair, the CMHC money is declining. We heard that from Mr. Dolynny today. The government has been putting money in, the Housing Corporation has been putting money into their programs over the years. As the CMHC money declines and the input from the GNWT increases, are we going to get to a point where we’re going to be able to cover the whole shortfall from the CMHC funding or is that something that is not going to be attainable? I guess we could, but is it going to be an unmanageable amount? We are saving some money with the various changes the Housing Corporation has put in place. My guess is that the savings don’t equal the revenue that we’re losing through CMHC, but as we go forward we need to have a plan to deal with the lack of CMHC funding in another 20 years or so. Is it going to simply be an infusion of cash from the GNWT or are we going to be able to generate savings that are going to equal to the money we don’t get from the feds? I kind of doubt that.

With regard to Housing Ministers and the federal government, I know our Housing Minister has experienced frustration because there’s a lack of willingness on the part of the federal government to meet with the Housing Ministers, particularly to discuss the declining CMHC funding. I guess I would like to know from the Minister if there is any progress on that front. Are we getting any closer to being able to negotiate with the federal government to try to reinstate some CMHC funding for our housing stock? Thank you, Madam Chair.