Does committee agree that we have concluded consideration of the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs?

Thank you, committee. At this time I would like to thank Ms. Young, Mr. Williams, thank you for joining us and, of course, the Minister, R.C. McLeod. Thank you again. If I could

get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you.

Okay, we’re going to turn our attention now to the next on the list, the NWT Housing Corporation and the Minister responsible. I’ll ask him if he has any witnesses to bring in. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, I would.

Thank you Mr. McLeod. Does committee agree?

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

Thank you. Minister McLeod, will you be kind enough to introduce your witnesses to the House, please.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Martin, Mr. Anderson, welcome back to the House. Committee, we’re on page 67 in the c

apital estimates here. We’re going to start off with

general comments. I’ll go to Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have two questions and comments. I’m very happy to see we have some units coming into the Mackenzie Delta, also the replacement of four units in Fort McPherson. As I’ve said many times, with waiting lists of up to three to four years, we have some young families that are expecting children, expecting newborns, ready to start a family but yet they’re on the waiting list. You know, they have been for anywhere up to a year, some for three years and there’s a real need for additions to our present stock. I can’t stress that enough. We have to start planning here for increasing what we have in stock right now, even by ten would help in each community. But, you know, even those single units that we have been building over the years for the elders, that would help a long way. That would free up other units that we have in the community. That’s something my constituents keep requ

esting. There’s a real need for more units

here, but I’m glad to see we have some new ones on the horizon here and look forward to those opening. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. I’ll treat that as comment here. General comments, NWT Housing Corporation. We have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just noticed some of these units in the smaller communities, just a general question about the concept of, in order to reduce costs, duplexes or

four-plex type of schematic. Is there anything new in the works with regard to that in placing those in the smaller communities, Mr. Chair? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Th

at’s a direction that we’re going in the future. If you

notice, a lot of communities there are a lot of detached, very large houses, and as we’re taking those out of stock we’re going to more of a multi-unit type of configuration. I think we have up to 68 percent of our units that we have now are multi-unit type of configuration. We find there are many benefits to that. We find that we’re needing smaller units now instead of the big five-bedroom Webers we used to have. So, that’s the direction the Housing Corporation is taking in the future and there’s a trickle-down effect because it helps with all utility costs and the cost to maintain the unit. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the Minister for that answer. With the project listing for the

'16-17 construction year, are any of those multiplex-type buildings planned for next year then?

All our planned replacement public housing units next year are going to be multi-type units. All our planned affordable housing units are going to be a duplex or a multiplex- type unit.

While I’ve got the microphone,

I’d like to speak a little bit about future needs of Fort Simpson. Of course, due to the housing stock, there’s a need for a new eight-plex or a 10-plex type of

building. I don’t know if the department has that in

their forecast for future growth of Fort Simpson and their needs there.

Not at this point. As we plan as we go forward here, we’ll have to look at each community and their needs going forward. We did, I think, have a couple of duplexes or triplexes that were planned for Fort Simpson, but because of the situation there, we’re trying to find ways we can get that product on the ground. As far as immediate future, it’s not in the plan right now, but again, as we go forward and as the 18th Assembly goes forward

then they’ll start identifying some of their needs in the communities.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Is the committee prepared to go to detail?

Committee, we’re

going to defer page 67 until we have consideration of the activities. I’d like to next turn to pages 68, 69, 70, 71 and 72, finance and infrastructure services, infrastructure investments, $22.187 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to make a general comment and reiterate the comments I made in my opening remarks to the budget itself. In general, we don’t have enough public housing units in the NWT in any of our communities. Particularly here in Yellowknife, we have a huge wait-list for public housing, we have a huge wait-list for assisted living housing and so on. I would encourage the Housing Corporation to seriously consider finding a way to increase the number of units of public housing that we have. I know that we are losing money through the CMHC declining funding, but we need, particularly in Yellowknife, a greater number of units, we need higher numbers of stock.

That’s just a comment. I do have two questions from page 72, the projects in Yellowknife. The first one is it states

: “Non-residential building, 1 unit, major

retrofit.

” I’d like an explanation of why the Housing

Corporation is renovating a non-residential building.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll

respond to the first part of Ms. Bisaro’s concern and then I’ll have Mr. Anderson respond to the non- residential.

We hear the concern that we do need more public housing across the Northwest Territories, and again, we keep saying that we’re challenged by the CMHC declining funding, but I think there’s probably going to have to come a time where we can’t keep saying, well, we’re challenged by the CMHC declining funding. We have to think, or future government may have to make a decision as to whether we are just a public housing provider and use the money that we put into some of our repair programs to help offset the losses from CMHC. I think we’ve been very fortunate in the last couple of years that this Assembly has stepped up and filled in some of the gap of the money that we lost through the declining funding, but there’s going to have to be a decision, I think, made in the future sometime as to whether we are just solely a public housing provider or we continue with the programs we have and continue to be challenged financially.

I will have Mr. Anderson speak to the non-residential renovation.