Thanks, Madam Chair. I was told this was the place where I could ask about the community housing plans. The Minister said that there are 33 to be developed. How are the community housing plans going to be done in, say, the regional centres, including Yellowknife? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Debates of March 11th, 2020
This is page numbers 607 - 658 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was housing.
Topics
Consideration Of Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. Drafting and putting these community plans together, we have 13 participants so far and we've completed one. My push is that I want the majority of these community plans to be completed and done by August of this year. I'm going to have Mr. Martin elaborate on the community plans going forward. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Martin
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, as the Minister alluded to, the community housing plans are a priority for the corporation. We recognize the importance of what they're going to provide in terms of informing future investment and partnerships. As the Minister mentioned, this will continue to be a top priority for the corporation, and our aim is to make significant progress between now and August, as the Minister alluded to, and certainly we'll continue to work with the communities and also take into consideration their needs in terms of timing, et cetera, as these plans unfold. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll have Mr. Carpenter elaborate on the community plans, as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Carpenter
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just in terms of the question related to our approach to working with major centres like Yellowknife, we would have to work with all the stakeholders involved, particularly the city, and we have to find out what our role is that they want us to play in the development of that plan. It might be a small one, it might be a major one, but we haven't yet determined that with the city. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank the last speaker, who actually answered my question, which is about how there is going to be a different approach with I'll call them the tax-based communities. Have there been any preliminary discussions with any of the tax-based communities about how they're going to approach developing the an approach with we will call them the tax-based communities. Have there been any preliminary discussions with any of the tax-based communities about how they are going to approach to helping the community housing plans? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Consideration Of Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
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The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to have Mr. Carpenter elaborate on the answer. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Carpenter
In terms of us reaching out or being contacted by the major centres, not yet. Right now, it is a new initiative for us. The ones that we have been dealing with have been actively coming forward to us. What we are doing now is to strengthen up our activity towards reaching out to all communities to see how interested they are to get this process going. We haven't reached out to the major centres yet. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess I am going to make a suggestion here to the Minister and her staff that a scheduled work plan for getting all of these 33 done would be really helpful. I agree. I think approaching the tax-based municipalities is going to be a different kind of process and involve different partners and so on. The City of Yellowknife has a homelessness strategy. They survey the number of homeless people in the community. There is quite a bit of work that the city's done. There are a lot of NGOs here in town that are doing work on this issue, as well. My suggestion to the Minister is to develop a timeline for this work to make sure it actually gets done and set out in there different kinds of approaches they need to take for the tax-based communities.
I want to turn now to some of the numbers that are on page 366. Policy and planning, there is what looks like a large increase of $400,000 between 2019-2020 and 2020-2021. When I look down into the expenditure categories, it seems to be made up of an increase in compensation in benefits and travel. Those seem to be some of the major areas, contract services, as well. Can someone tell me what is going on with this part of the Housing Corporation? This is a relatively large increase in expenditures, and I would like to know what this is related to. Thanks, Madam Chair.
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The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to have the question reverted to Mr. Carpenter. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Carpenter
Thank you, Madam Chair. In terms of the major increase there, most of it is related to what we might have mentioned earlier, that we set aside money there of over $236,000 for the community planned activity. That was to support these community engagement costs. Part of that development of the community plan, too, is that we hire. Whenever we get into a community, we make sure we hire somebody local to participate in that process. It is a really community-driven process. The other funding that makes up that increase is, we will see it in a lot of our costs here, forced-growth increases related to the UNW collective bargaining process. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake
Thanks, Madam Chair. That is a helpful explanation. I certainly support the development of the community housing plans. This is the section of the Housing Corporation budget that seems to deal with federal, provincial, territorial matters, as well. In November of 2018, the bilateral agreement with CMHC on the National Housing Strategy was signed by our government. I don't think I've seen an action plan that spells out how that money is going to be used. I thought that was a requirement of the funding agreement. We are now a year and a half into this nine-year program, and I still haven't seen an action plan. When is the corporation going to have an action plan? Thanks, Madam Chair.
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The Chair Lesa Semmler
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.
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Paulie Chinna Sahtu
Thank you, Madam Chair. In regard to the action plan that was developed in 2018, I am going to have Mr. Carpenter elaborate on that.