Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In terms of barriers with the homeownership initiative program -- and I spoke about this in the House earlier. But many times, people are not prepared to take on the homeownership initiative and apply to the program. That's one of the barriers. The second barrier is this is related to coordinating of thresholds, so there is a salary threshold for people to be -- applicable to this program and you have to reach -- you have to be below that threshold to be -- to apply to the program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from the Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So can the Minister help me better understand this a little bit better. So there's an income threshold that you have to be below in order to get it, and I'm assuming if you go above the threshold you're not eligible anymore. But wouldn't we think that people who were above a certain income threshold would be even better able to kind of own and operate a home? And so I kind of -- is that threshold really helping us in this program? I mean, certainly the idea of people starting to own a home, I mean that's the goal that we're trying to achieve here. So why do we even have a threshold which would prevent people from accessing the program? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Erin Kelly will provide more information related to the thresholds. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the president.

Okay, thank you. I'm going to go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And really appreciate that information and certainly encourage the department to pursue that work, which they're already doing. So I guess, yeah, appreciate that that work's taking place. Because -- and I guess I would just say, I mean, yeah, in a market-based community, that makes perfect sense to me. I'm wondering if do we need, then, to maybe think about splitting up the requirements of this program because, you know, again, I can't stop highlighting the work that social development's been doing and some of the great presentations that committee's been receiving about this sort of thing. But in some of the nonmarket communities, programs like this are really a great way to help people kind of not just develop a sense of ownership but, in fact, actually achieve ownership of their homes. So is there maybe a need for a different stream or maybe that already exists or a different set of criteria for communities where market-based solutions just aren't available? Thank you.

Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Kelly will provide the information related to that question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'll go to the president.

Okay, thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate that. And just -- I wanted to highlight it because I just -- I have a feeling that these kinds of programs are certainly going to be a part of what social development ends up coming forward with its recommendations. Not to preclude the committee, but it's just based on the presentations I've been seeing at that committee, and what we've been hearing from Indigenous governments, it really is the trend that I think we're heading towards, and I think it's a good one. I think we want people moving in this direction, so I wanted to highlight that. And, you know, really all I'll say further on this is, you know, it's a relatively modest aspect of the GNWT budget. Out of our $2.6 billion, we're putting, you know, $9.3 million into these homeownership assistance programs, and certainly this is something that I would be very excited to see grow. I note that some of these -- like most of these items have either received, you know, very small reductions or are just kind of proceeding along status quo. And as Emily Morgan -- or I'm sorry, the Member from Yellowknife North pointed out, you know, there's been pretty high inflation over the years, and if we don't keep up with inflation in programs like this, we're going to be falling behind. And just similar to what the Member for Monfwi was saying with programs like this, you know, they're so crucial to people in the communities, to the housing continuum in the NWT, and I certainly want to express my support to the department and to Cabinet, for the Minister's who are listening, to be putting more money towards our housing programs. It's one of the top priorities of the Assembly, and I'm very -- you won't hear any complaints from me if we start to see these budget items increasing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you. I'll take that as a comment. Did the Minister want to respond to?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No complaints from me either. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, we're going to stop there. We're going to give the translators some time. We'll take a 30-minute break, and we'll come back. Thank you.

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Welcome back, everybody. And we'll continue on. We're on the page 392 homeownership assistance programs. Are there any further questions from Members? Seeing no further questions. Oh, I'm going to go to the Member from Monfwi.

I know for senior aging in place retrofit and repair program, I know the budget has been the same from 2024-2025, and I know it's a popular program, and this year alone or just this -- yeah, this fiscal year, I mean, they exceeded the fund, you know, because there's a lot of elders that apply for the program and some of them got a denial letter because they used up all the funds that -- for that program. So I just wanted to ask to find out to see if there's going to be any increase to that budget because there's, like, a lot of our elders who are, you know, aging in home. I'm sure this 1.6 is for the whole of Northwest Territories. So -- and if they exceed it, then it was like greatly needed, and this year alone was focused on that program alone.

[audio] - to be replaced - ed.

So I just -- so I would like to know if there's going to be an increase in the budget for this coming fiscal year since the program is very popular among our elders, seniors aging at home. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Erin Kelly will provide more information to the seniors aging in place budget item. Thank you.

I'll go to the president.