Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, really wanted to focus that the advocacy to the federal government is based on the core need assessment, the 2014 Core Needs Assessment. The federal government does not need to know, in my opinion, what each community has prioritized. They need to know that core need within the whole NWT is substantial, and then as well, remembering that we have agreed to a partnership tri-territorial that we are going to be advocating to the federal government, so it would be really disrespectful, in my opinion, once we have agreed to that partnership, that we would be looking individually and trying to promote our own.

The three territories when we speak about housing have been speaking in general to the federal government and saying as the North, we have huge core need issues and we need more money. You cannot use the base formula based on population to address our needs.

In general, we're not saying to the federal government that this is how many houses in each community. We're saying we have higher costs of living. We have huge needs. We have lack of infrastructure. We have higher, bigger challenges than communities in the South, so therefore, we need to have base-plus funding. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. O'Reilly's time has expired, so we will move on to Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can the Minister explain what culturally appropriate housing is? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not going to say it's a really good question, but it is a really good question because I didn't have any idea either. The first time that an Aboriginal government came to me and said we want culturally appropriate housing in our community, I kind of thought in my head and I said well, I'm sure that doesn't mean tents and igloos, because we've kind of passed that.

I asked them what does culturally appropriate mean to you, and examples were given. For example, the IRC had said that within their community, culturally appropriate, they're hunters, and within their community, they bring in meat, and I know that my father used to be a hunter as well. They bring in meat. They hang it in their house. They have blood dripping.

We currently, we bring in tile, housing with tiles and laminate flooring. The blood is dripping. It might go through the cardboard if they have cardboard down, and it gets into the cracks, and it's rotting within their flooring. For them, they want to have ideally laminate or linoleum flooring, and ideally, they'd like some kind of a drain within the room so that they can hang meat.

Now, of course, in Yellowknife, we don't have, my assumption is that we don't have as many people in our public housing units that are hunters, so for Yellowknife, those kind of additions to housings would not be appropriate. So I'm not going to go across and say within every community, now we're going to put in linoleum floors and drain pipes, but within the higher north communities, if they address that and they say that's what they need, then we'd be focusing our housing units within those communities based on what they say.

So culturally appropriate means whatever the community feels is culturally appropriate to them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Testart.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Minister for clarifying that. I think that's a very interesting example, and in the context of food security and traditional activities, that's a very important piece of the puzzle that I wouldn't have considered, so I appreciate the Minister sharing that with us.

I think this is a way that our government can be a leader on this is if we make those kinds of decisions that listen to our people, and especially, it reinforces that nation-to-nation dialogue that's going to be so important for Canada moving forward. I wish her all the best in this approach. I have nothing further to say. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Testart. I will let the Minister respond if she would like.

I just want to respond by saying thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Next, we have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I feel like I have been talking about core need all day here, and then we're getting into more questions around core need.

I would like to know how the Housing Corporation sees affordability when the house is in perfect condition and adequately sized or suitably sized, affordability as a housing issue, as a core-need housing issue. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So within the affordability, if a person has a suitable house and adequate house in that the roof doesn't leak and they have the proper amount of bedrooms, affordability can still become an issue if they are making, for example, making $10.50 an hour, and there's no other units within the community, so although they have enough bedrooms and the roof doesn't leak, they are in a unit that they have no option to be in, but they can't really financially afford to be in. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it's still my question. My question is what is a person living in a perfect house with enough bedrooms with no adequacy issues that doesn't make enough money have to do with Housing Corporation?

My understanding of core need is it's pretty basic. It's not that complex. You have to have an affordability issue, because if you're making $250,000 or $300,000 a year, no matter what your house looks like, how small it is, you're never going to be in core need. The same applies the other way. Unless you have a suitability or an adequacy issue, how on earth are you in core need for housing? Because you don't make enough money? Then you go get a subsidy or you get some money.

I recognize that the Housing Corporation would like to address people that have affordability issues, not core need issues, affordability issues in other rentals as an example. People that are renting in a private market. They can give subsidies to those guys and reduce the people that have an affordability issue across the Territory or in Yellowknife or wherever there's other rental units, but we can't do anything about their house. We can't add a bedroom to somebody else's house. We can't start fixing somebody else's apartment. The individuals in there have affordability issue? We address it. If the Housing Corporation wants to address that issue, that's fine. Why call it core need for housing? It's not a core need housing issue.

I was amazed to see that CMHC has essentially the same description, but we must know that affordability can't stand alone. We must know that by now, that affordability cannot stand alone. No one can convince me that somebody that's not making enough money that lives in an adequate and suitable house has a housing core need issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Affordability is a core need. The Members just moved a motion that the Corporation is to try to work two percent per year to meet the national standards, which are set by CMHC, which address affordability as a core need.

Within Yellowknife, the major issue is affordability, and it has a huge need of people that can't afford. So nationally, the standard is if you're paying more than 30 per cent of your income for your housing needs, you are in core need. At any point, you're at risk of being homeless. So if we ignore people that have a suitable house in that they have enough rooms, that their roof doesn't leak, and we ignore that they aren't making enough money to pay for the market rent that we're charging in the communities, then we're not addressing, in my opinion, the realities of people. So affordability is a core need, and for anyone that has made $10.50 an hour and trying to pay for rent within our community of Yellowknife knows that affordability is a core need. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'm not asking the government to ignore people that can't afford their homes. There are subsidies that can be paid to individuals. My point is we have a budget that is there to address people that have adequacy, suitability issues. So somebody's house is not adequate to live in, whether they're lacking electricity, hot and cold running water, continuous heat, solid foundation, whatever, all adequacy issues, however, and/or it's too small. They got more than two people using the national standards on individuals. I'm not going to go through that, but just sufficient to say they have more individuals in the home that either can share or single people in rooms than they have in this particular apartment.

How does that become a housing issue? It's an affordability issue, I agree, but in order to have a core need issue for housing, you have to have a suitability or adequacy issue. I could go on and on about the need survey and why we're indicating that people, I mean, private rentals have an adequacy issue or private rentals had a suitability issue.

If someone is renting a two-bedroom apartment and chooses to have four people or five people live in there, that's their business. Why would we all of a sudden identify that, mark that down as a core need issue and report it as such? It's the same thing with apartments. If somebody is renting an apartment, spending more than 30 per cent of their income towards apartment, that's not a housing issue. It's an affordability issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister Cochrane.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to have to beg to argue with the Member on that one. Affordability is defined within the national standards on core needs. Like I said, we've just passed a motion in the House that said we're to work towards addressing the core need, national, and so I don't know how I would work towards that if we changed the definition and our definition of core need does not match the national definition of core need, because then I cannot at any time address-- I can't compare apples to oranges. So if you want me to do the motion and work towards addressing the core need then you need to use the definition of core need that is nationally accepted. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'll say one more thing on this. I'm not asking the Minister to ignore core need first of all, I'm asking the Minister to make sure that if there's affordability-- pardon me, an affordability issue-- if there is an affordability issue then it should be coupled with adequacy or suitability or both. That's true core need.

An individual that doesn't make enough money that's renting an apartment off Northern Properties is not necessarily in core need as a standard that the Housing Corporation has to go and address. Does the Housing Corporation even have a program to address core need, the affordability issues in the community? If they do, it'll be just a cash thing. As, like I said, they can't go to somebody else's apartment block and start putting in plumbing or running water or adding roofs to someone's private home, right?

So the question is, shouldn't these all be together? At least affordability should be coupled with one of those other needs or both. Affordability should not stand alone, just as adequacy shouldn't stand alone and neither should suitability. Because a person can have a suitability and adequacy issue but does not have an affordability issue that individual is not in core need.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Would the Minister like to respond?