Does the committee agree?

Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber. Would the Minister please introduce the witnesses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right is president Erin Kelly, Dr. Erin Kelly, president of Housing NWT. And to my left is Mr. Jim Martin. Mr. Martin is vice-president, finance and infrastructure, excuse me.

Thank you. Committee, Housing Northwest Territories is included in the capital estimates as an information item, and the totals are not voteable. We will review these estimates as we do for the other departments; however, we will not vote on the totals. If Members have comments or questions, they can be raised at the appropriate time.

The committee has agreed to forego general comments. Does the committee agree to proceed to the detailed contained in tabled document?

Committee, Housing Northwest Territories begins on page 78. We will defer the totals and review the estimates by activity summary, beginning at page 79, with finance and infrastructure services, with information items on page 80. Are there any questions? Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I just wanted to say how pleased I am to see the announcement from the Minister on the large capital projects, and that's what I want to -- well, I want to ask questions about both, really.

So my first question is just about the O and M deficits. So I understand from chatting with the Minister's staff over a number of different briefings that there's this $50 million a year O and M deficit that housing has been facing. And I was perhaps a bit mistakenly under the impression that a good portion of the $50 million for this year -- of the $150 million annually would be going towards that problem. So can the Minister help us understand how we're addressing that issue through this capital spend, all these different houses being built. Is this related to the O and M problem, or are we getting at that problem in any way through these investments? Thank you.

Minister of housing.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's really important to understand that we operate almost 2,900 units across the Northwest Territories. And back in 1997, we signed the social housing agreement with the Government of Canada with CMHC to operate and maintain these units, but that funding has been declining over the last number of years. We were able to sign a bilateral agreement with Canada again in 2019, and this provided us supplemental funding for a 10-year period and, again, this number will drop 2028-2029.

With Housing NWT and the $150 million capital plan over the next three years, $5 million a year will be assigned to deferred preventative maintenance, and $5 million a year will be assigned to modernization and improvement of our public housing -- or social housing units. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that answer. So we're doing $5 million a year. So $10 million a year for effective maintenance. So I guess I would just ask again, and maybe some better clarification could be given, about the $50 million a year deficit that I was under the impression we were in. Can the Minister or her staff just help me better understand that and whether we are getting at that problem. Because -- and I'll just put it quite plainly. My understanding of the issue is that if we aren't addressing the $50 million a year problem of O and M, we're losing units. And so building them is great, and it is good to see us building units. I do want to see that. But if we're losing units at the same time, it all just kind of comes out in the wash. So I just want to ensure that we are actually increasing the housing stock. That's what I'm trying to get at. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Minister of Housing NWT. I haven't graduated yet to finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's really important that, again, we highlight the infrastructure deficit of Housing NWT. And we've done some work with that, including the operations and maintenance deficit. And President Erin Kelly could provide us more detail of the $50 million deficit that the Member is speaking about. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. President Erin Kelly.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that point necessarily leads to another question, and that is, you know, I think it's very clear that the NWT can't do this alone. What kind of progress have we made at the negotiating table with the federal government considering they are -- you know, they just recently announced a very generous amount of funding to Nunavut. I'm curious where NWT lands in terms of the fed's plan to increase housing in the NWT -- or in Canada but also hopefully the NWT. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Housing NWT.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, something else that's really an important and critical discussion is our discussions with the federal government but also our discussions with Indigenous governments and NGOs and communities that are receiving funding from the federal government through Indigenous Services of Canada or CIRNAC. In my recent FPT meeting in Vancouver, this was something that was talked about, the affordable housing fund, the URNI funding, the urban, rural, north, and Indigenous funding, and also the new Build Canada Homes. And this is something, again, that was highlighted at the Council of Leaders, was the need for public and social housing in the Northwest Territories.

In terms of the negotiations and discussions internally, president Erin Kelly will provide you some insight to that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. President Kelly.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm certainly very happy to hear that and very supportive of the Minister and department's efforts on that front. We certainly need it here.

Bjust noting that I'm starting to run out of time, I wanted to move to a different issue, and I do hope some of my colleagues take up the flag on some of the questions I'm leaving on the table with regards to housing money. But I wanted to speak about an issue that's been concerning me. We did ask about this in lead-up to budget. But I'm concerned about the department's capacity to bring all this to fruition. So I'm curious are other departments, such as infrastructure or -- I think infrastructure is the one I'm thinking of. But are other departments helping collaborate with HNWT with project implementation just knowing that this is quite a large thing that we've taken on, adding another $50 million a year on top of projects that housing was already doing but with federal money. This department's pretty busy. I'm just curious what are we doing to help boost up the capacity of the department and ensuring that we don't end up in the situation where we're talking about why we weren't able to bring all these houses to fruition with the money that we set aside. Thank you.