Thank you, Madam Chair. We did roll out that initiative earlier in this government as well. We didn't have such a significant uptake. I was under the assumption that we probably would have gotten rid of a thousand of our units; that's what I was assuming. But what had come back is that in response that a lot of the people weren't ready to get into homeownership and looking at a transfer and the responsibility of 100 percent of the operation and maintenance and the utilities that come with it as well. To date, we've received 52 applications. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.

Yes, I know there are people that I have been talking to, they want -- they're waiting. And I sent in numerous emails to the Minister to get in contact with these people. And there's a lot of people that are -- I know people have different perspectives. Some people in favour. Some people are not in favour. That's up to them. But there are a lot of people that are interested. They want to become a homeowner. And they're waiting patiently. They're waiting from the executive office where all the decisions are being made. So I just wanted to ask the Minister will this be completed within this fiscal year?

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd have to follow up on those requests coming forward because what I've seen so far is that there's a number of circumstances that lie within those transactions as well too. And just looking at every file but also trying to create fair, adequate opportunity for them as well. I don't want to see units being transferred and then later on we've transferred something that needed $100,000 worth of work, and we just basically walked away. I want to make sure that they are secured. But the priority is to get them out of the social programming. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Monfwi.

Yeah, no, well this will really free up a lot of housing for the Housing to build more houses in small communities. And I can't believe it that we do have a homeless specialist in our own territory where there's 50 percent of the population are Indigenous and most of the people that are living in those units are Indigenous people. You know, and it is -- I find it offensive because in our -- like, we never really had any issues with this in the past. And this goes back to colonization. From the beginning, we've been asked -- we've been told how to live, what to do, all those things. There's a lot of legislations in place. And now with this handbook, whatever, tenant's handbook is also telling tenants what to do. And I find that very offensive. And I know that -- and they said they were going to, you know, like, put it in Indigenous language as well. Like, we never really had that issues. We never had an issue with homelessness before. Now, because of colonization, we do have a serious, serious housing crisis in small communities. Even in Tlicho region alone, we have more than six people living in a single household, and transferring this unit to long-term tenants. And I know what she's saying that -- I know there are some arrears that's probably stopping some of the transfer to take place. Like I said before, some of these outstanding arrears stems from going back using the last year's income tax notice of assessment. And I said it before that last year maybe they were working; this year they're not working. And some years are good that way. Just like it's being reported on the CBC news report. So I just wanted to ask the Minister when can she do the transfer? Like, can she do it sooner than later? Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Housing is there ready and available to be working with these individuals in making sure that we provide the adequate services. We've got 52 applications so far. And like I had said, that the condition of the units as well too that we need to make sure that when we transfer these units over that they are -- they don't come with issues. We've got to make sure that they -- we are transferring over units that don't actually have the problems. And I've travelled throughout the Northwest Territories. I've pretty much been to every single community throughout the territory, and I've seen a number of issues. I've been into a public housing unit where we had tenants using a -- what you call those, outhouse -- what is it? Honey bucket. You know, and we lack our services as well too in trying to people to maintain our units and housing maintain those as well. And to try to adequately get people purchasing these units, I need to make sure that they're safe and they're healthy units that we're transferring. I don't want to create the barriers for these transfers, but we do have this opportunity that's out there, but we just don't have the huge uptake that I was expecting. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.

Thank you. I know that within our LHO, they are understaffed in Behchoko, Whati, and Gameti, and there's nothing in Wekweeti. There's no LHO office there. So I know that they are understaffed and they are overworked and, as a result, many of these units are sitting empty. Some of them have been sitting empty for over ten years. And I can tell you there's a house that has been sitting, that's vacant since 2009. To date, it's still sitting vacant. In 2009, it was in good operation. And what the Minister's office should have done was gave that unit to the family member that are living in the area or the family that grew up in that house. And there's a lot of them like that. And I can tell you that there's a lot of people -- the reason I am pushing is because a lot of people, they want to be a homeowner but they can fix up those units as well. I know in my region, they want to fix up those units. They want to become a homeowner. And we do have a lot of skilled people too as well. And this is a good project for the trades program, even with the SNAP that my colleague mentioned during our Member's statement. So there's a lot of opportunity, work, and the Minister shouldn't be making a decision for the people that the people should make. You know, like they should be given a chance, an opportunity, to become homeowners. And she said I don't want to create barriers. You know, I mean my goodness. Like I said, our people have been here, and I know -- I heard her say before that I don't want to set up people to fail. We've been here for thousands of years and we're going to be here for another ten thousands of years. You know, I just want this Minister to do the right thing. Just give those units away to those people, to the people. And the arrears is their mistake. It's not the people's mistake. It's the Housing that they created those arrears through their policy that is not working for the people in the Northwest Territories, and especially in my region because we have the highest arrears, housing arrears, on their book. So I think the housing -- it's up to her if she wants to answer me. But the Housing should do the right thing, transfer those units as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I hear where the Member is coming from, and I hear this comment throughout the Northwest Territories. But I put this opportunity out there. This was a new initiative, a new approach to say that these single-family housing units are up for sale, here you go, purchase them. But like I had said, we didn't have the huge uptake that I was expecting. I was honestly expecting to get rid of a thousand units. That's what I thought it would honestly look like. I wanted to go to the federal government to say we need a replenishment of a thousand units. We're selling them. We're going to have these agreements done in the next ten years. And I wanted to have a different conversation. But then the reaction from the public, like I had said it wasn't as -- the uptake wasn't as strong as I thought it would be. And then going back to the local housing authority and hearing that they're understaffed, they're overworked, I want to say that, you know, we're trying to improve the communication and the support for them at that local level. But I can tell you that I've travelled throughout the territory. These are probably the most -- these positions are very hard to staff. Thank you, Madam Chair.

The time has expired, so. I understand. We get ten minutes to ask questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just part of the executive, I guess, I'm just -- I want to just chat a little bit about housing, and we heard some of it today and, as you know, I still have -- you know, we still have problems in our communities. Have been for a while. You know, I sat on the AFN housing committee for a while, and I understand the need of trying -- at least meet the demands in housing throughout Canada, and it's growing every day. You know, homeownership repairs in the communities is growing. Repairs are important. New homes, public housing down the road. You know, we already know that in 2036 that CMHC are going to be looking at cutting back on CMHC dollars to housing corporation completely. That's only 13 years away. And so what's the plan? So while we're trying to figure out the housing corporation even by that time, we probably would already have settled claims in the Deh Cho and Akaitcho region and including the Metis. But at the end of the day, you know, the vision and mission statement of the housing corporation overall really needs to be looked at now and -- because we got to allow for change that, you know, housing is going to be looked at and delivered at the local level.

And it's already under agreements, you know. And so how -- what's Housing NWT going to look like in 13 years? You know, it's really interesting. But in the meantime on the interim basis, you know, we look to our colleagues and your neighbour in Nunavut, and my colleague Caitlin Cleveland talked about that as well, and they've been aggressively lobbying Ottawa for housing for their jurisdiction for quite some time. And they've been successful. And they did -- you know, I'm happy to hear that, you know, they're making real progress in a lot of these areas. And same thing with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. You know, they've been doing the same thing. You know, just to touch on housing overall, you know, like, to look at all the homes here in the Northwest Territories, just to catch up on new homes, you know, I'm just thinking outside the box here, whether it be 4,500 to 6,000 -- I mean homes, you know, given new construction costs given today is -- it's crazy. The prices just went up, you know. So just to catch up on homes today, you know, I'd be surprised that we're looking at about almost $3 billion just to catch up. Not including the homeownership repairs in the communities. You know, that alone, you know -- you know, repairs alone is $1.2 billion. And not the mention that the ongoing costs of new homes in the community. But we're still going to need public housing sometime down the road. And the thing is that we -- I guess what I'm trying to say is that maybe it's something that we should really think about now as a housing corporation that maybe we should have a -- I know that you're already saying that you're already working with the, you know, Indigenous governments and this and that. I understand that. But the reality is that we are going to have claims done by -- in 13 years when CMHC dollar happens. So we got to start thinking differently here. And, you know, sometimes whenever -- to me, whenever we make application to CIRNAC on our own and -- it just means that, you know -- you know, there's the trust and some barriers there that just is created when we do those kind of things. So I guess at the end of the day, I guess what I'm trying to say is that we may have to revisit our vision and mission statement of the housing corporation and how it's going to look in 13 years from now. And then what can we do now to improve that. You know, maybe by working together, we could do what Nunavut did. They were aggressive coming up with a housing plan for Nunavut to address, you know. Right now just what I mentioned, you know, we're talking about $4.8 billion. You know, I could be high, I don't know.

But the point is that, you know, we need to really start reaching out to settle claims and Indigenous governments as a new partner. Who knows? Maybe your structure that you already have here in your organization chart here, you know, there could be another organization there where we have -- you know, that we call the Circle of Leaders but not -- sometimes not everybody's there. Also we got to figure a way around this because housing is a problem. And right now, you know, I said it today that, you know, I'll be continuing to advocate for that. So anyways, I just wanted to share that with you because I'm just saying that, you know, at the end of the day we all got to work together. You know, we're -- you know, when we make a decision, we got to think seven generations ahead, you know. And housing's still going to be around. It's still going to be a problem. So anyways, I just wanted to make that comment in regards to the executive and the way they're thinking and then just how we could improve on that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A lot of comments there, but I appreciate them all coming forward as well because, you know, I first of all want to touch on AFN and when I first got the portfolio that, you know, there was some talk amongst AFN but they didn't recognize anything north of 60. So that conversation did not contribute to the Northwest Territories and what we needed up here in the territory. And also I want to compare us to Nunavut is that, yes, we do see the major plan that they do have out there but it doesn't come with any funding. You know, it's a plan that's out there, it looks great, but here in the Northwest Territories we're very unique. We have settled land claim areas. We have non-settled land claim areas. We've got Indigenous governments that are in negotiations. We don't represent as one where Nunavut represents as one. And when we're having the conversation, there is 17 Indigenous groups that are having the same conversation that we are with really different significant needs and building in different climates. What we're building in Nunakput is not going to be what we're going to be building in Nahendeh, you know, and what we're going to be delivering in the Sahtu is not going to be in a timely manner as what's being delivered in Hay River.

You know, we're up against a lot of challenges here in the North. And looking at our success, we had over $500 million coming to the Indigenous governments through the distinction-based funding that the Indigenous governments are front and centre. They are putting their land claim agreements to work. They are recognizing their self-government agreements. And us as housing, we're sitting there side-by-side as a partner, not to compete with them but to give them our expertise. This is what we build; this is how we build; and these are the changes that we've made.

And right now, our energy plan is out there for consultation for the next two weeks, and that is something that is quite important to the portfolio. And I also want to recognize that we never had a replenishment of public housing units in four decades. Four decades, Madam Chair. You know, we've administered the same public housing units. And we needed the federal government to recognize that we need a replenishment. And I see that Housing NWT and the staff have made significant progress. And also the partnership of meeting with Indigenous governments, we're more welcome to the table than looked at as if what is it that you want now. You know, and I see a lot of our negotiated contracts that are going out.

Communities are building on behalf of their own communities. They're creating the employment. The money is staying in the North. So I see the progress that we have made. And our vision and mission, we've updated that this year as well too. So there's been a lot of work but it doesn't say that it's going to stop. But we still open those conversations and whatever. And I do have a scheduled meeting as well too with the Minister of Housing for Nunavut as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh, did you --

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I got one minute left. I appreciate what she's saying. And the thing is that on the interim basis, you know, again, I am still concerned about, you know, how we make application to CIRNAC and I heard your comments today. But I think we're going to have to work a way to work with Indigenous governments much closer because it's still a problem. Again, I don't know what the housing corporation takes for administration on those dollars. And, again, we're still struggling with housing in the community. As an example, last -- this year I brought forward a housing situation in Lutselk'e, and I put the documents on the table and it's still not resolved. You know, so -- you know, to me, I just don't want to keep using these words, yeah, I hear it but nothing gets done, right. So we're going to have to really make the change at around -- but anyway, going forward, I think we need to come up with a better plan that's going to be inclusive because after 2036, we don't know what the government's going to do. I don't think they're going to just shut the door on us. I think there might be just a different program, different name, whatever. But anyway, Madam Chair, I'm just going to leave it there. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll take that as a comment. Are there any further Members that haven't spoken to executive? Seeing none, we'll move on. Thank you.

Finance and infrastructure services, beginning on page 383, with information items on 384 and 385. So if Members could direct their questions to the information on these pages. Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I see that there's $955,000 for debt repayment. I'll note that in a previous fiscal year there was only $300,000. Can I get a confirmation that this is the money we owe to CMHC for mortgages and an explanation of why it increases? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister Chinna.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll have vice-president Jim Martin respond. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice-president Martin.