Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Okay. Is there a timeframe for the Minister to get back to us, and can that information be made public? Look, I'm just looking for some kind of a ballpark figure. Is it 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 percent, something like that? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will have that number available for the Member tomorrow. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I'm not sure how else I can get the Minister to agree do this in a bit more timely fashion and make the information public, but if I don't get the information and it's not been made public I'll ask her on the floor of the House.

So the next line here, minor modernization and improvements, is going up by a little over $2 million. Can I get an explanation as to what the additional funding is for and what it's going to accomplish. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is for the replacement and the priority repairs for public housing. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The numbers do vary, and I just want to just express through one of my community visits that I did have, the wait time was between three and seven years. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Wow, three to seven years to get into public housing, that's pretty appalling. I don't know what to say.

I think this is part of the housing corporation that also helps people get into homeownership. One of the I think biggest barriers, or growing barriers for homeownership, is insurance. You know, look, I'll confess, I live in Yellowknife, my riding is in Yellowknife, but I, you know, had several constituents contact me over the last year about the difficulty of trying to get home insurance in Yellowknife let alone, you know, regional centres or the smaller communities. So what is NWT Housing Corporation doing about this problem, this barrier to homeownership? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. I think that goes under programs and district operation. This is LHO, public housing. But if the Minister has the answer, I'll...

Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. There has been conversations going back and forth with the Department of Finance to address the insurance issue. I don't have a solution for that, and I do understand that it is quite complex. I do come from a smaller community as well too, and to get home insurance is quite difficult. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. Well, that seems to be one of the hottest potatoes here is this problem with home insurance. I raised it with the Department of Finance. I even made suggestions about looking at the Government of Saskatchewan insurance program because they actually provide insurance outside of Saskatchewan for homeowners in some of the provinces but nobody seems to want to actually do anything about this. And the reason I guess why I raised it is in the activity description, homeownership programs are mentioned here but I guess I'm not going to get any answers from the Minister on this either. Thanks, Madam Chair. That's it.

Thank you. Questions? Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I wanted to start off just in regards to a question that the MLA for Yellowknife North asked. It was in regards to operations and maintenance concerns for LHOs being able to purchase their own -- essentially enter into their own mortgages and source their own funding agreements to be able to really contribute to improving and increasing the housing landscape -- or the number of houses in the Northwest Territories and the number of homes. And one of the things that they do in BC through Indigenous Housing BC is they actually have the O and M of all of the units built into the mortgages. And they've had tremendous amount of success with this and so I just wanted to point to that solution there.

But one of the questions that I have in regards to community housing is the housing corporation is, thankfully, in the process of doing a government renewal right now, and that was in response to a motion that was put forward by this side of the House. And I have to say a huge thank you to the housing corporation because it was probably the motion that was most positively responded to in the lifetime of this Assembly and became an actual clear action item for the other side of the House. So kudos to housing corporation for taking that on. But my concern is that the roll out is supposed to happen on April 1st for this new suite of policies, and I'm wondering is there funding within this budget, and would it be within community housing services, to provide the training and communication material that not only LHOs will need but also the people of the Northwest Territories who use public housing services? They're going to need to understand how the rules and policies that govern their housing are changing and how they fit within that. And so I'm wondering -- I'll leave it at that. So is there funding for training within this budget for LHOs? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We are funding those changes through our existing budget. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, I'm wondering why the housing corporation would not ask for more money to take that on when, from what it looks like from this side of the House, is housing corporation is already trying to stretch a budget, a very thin budget, farther than they can. And this House has been asking, since the beginning of the 19th Assembly, to please, please, please ask us for more money. We want to give more money to housing. Please, let us pay you. Let us on this side of the House say yes, we agree with the budget that's being asked for by housing corporation.

And so I have huge concern with the housing corporation stretching their existing dollars to pay for this training. And I guess my next question is will the housing corporation be producing resources for the people of the Northwest Territories to ensure that they are able to be connected to the services of the rest of the government? Because that's where this started from, was a need for the housing corporation to recognize its place in the social envelope departments of GNWT and to provide those connections to its residents that require other services from other government departments to make sure that they have a fair shot at establishing stable housing. Thank you, Madam Chair.