Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know there are many contractors and many different approaches when they go to work in the communities. But I know in some of the smaller communities I worked in, you have to sit down and meet the people, talk to them, if it is moose hunting season or whaling season or whatever, you have to try and work around those things. Whether it means that men work 12 hours a day for so many days and take so many days off, or whatever. But those are the things a contractor should work out with the community.

We, as a government, are also looking at spreading our contracts out longer so we can get more training involvement in it, and we will be developing training programs and they will be in place for some pilot projects this year, I am hoping, and a lot more next year. That way we will get trained people and capital projects will be spread out over a longer period of time so that communities can benefit. But also, communities will have more control so that they can sit down and look at their priorities. In my area, for example, moose run from around a certain time and that is the time you have to take off work to go and get meat for the winter. Everyone knows that so they work around that. That is basically how things should be done.

Yes, I agree with the Member. That is one way to maximize local labour and it benefits the community. They are doing that again in Fort McPherson this year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Was that the one in Fort McPherson and it was design, build, ship and erect in Inuvik. I will check into that and we will report further. I remember who all got the money out of that contract.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we are very sensitive to this piling issue. Pilings should come from the NWT if they are available; I agree with that 100 per cent, and we are trying to make sure that does happen. If somehow some of it slips by us this year, guaranteed, it will not slip by us next year. We are trying to make sure the pilings come from the NWT because that leaves dollars in the North.

We have many different ways of contracting. Design, supply and erect contracts are done, and labour only where they only supply the labour, and then the NWT Housing is the project manager and supply, ship and erect. So some communities and areas prefer one or the other or a mixture of them. That is the way they get the most benefit. If your area is design built, we could look at doing that in your area on the next contracts, if that is what they want to do.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is a home improvement program, and then there is that emergency repair program that seniors can apply for, and then there is the senior citizens' repair program. As well, there is a HAP senior citizens' repair program, and there is a special project that is going to be designated specifically to serve the seniors -- small economical houses that they could live in, because it is far better to have people live in their own homes. They make dry meat or have their own little warehouse or smoke house. They are a lot happier, and that is the way they are used to living, so we should encourage it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with what the Member is saying, that we have to develop the programs so they meet the people's needs. A lot of them are in catch-22 situations right now. If you go out and work, you do not get a house. If you work for the government and live in government housing, you do not get a house -- your own home. So a lot of these things should be addressed through the new housing strategy of this government on staff housing, making those houses, possibly, available for people to buy so it is their own home, and developing new programs.

We also have to think that a lot of our people are young.

They have young families. We have to design with more imagination, so that people can get a HAP house, for example. It can be a two-bedroom HAP house but it is designed in such a way that the electrical and heating systems allow an add-on to it 10 years down the road or five years down the road, so when their family expands you do not have to give them a new house. Those are the things we are looking at doing.

There is also the land situation. I know in Inuvik it is fairly costly. I guess the community put in a utilidor or something and now people have to buy land there, so the corporation will not be looking at the cost of the land. As well, I understand there were some lots, back in some type of program, paid for in the past.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My understanding is that there have not been any deaths because of the design of the unit, but that is no reason why we cannot fix the design and make it so that we do not have to wait for a death in order to change design. We have also had concerns about elders freezing in, in their units. They cannot open the door. They cannot get out until somebody goes by and hears them yelling. So those design problems we do have are going to be looked at. We have already instructed the construction division to get the units back to earth on the ground, and look at how we could substitute some of the materials that are coming in from the South with northern-built stuff, and look at the design so that it fits the community's needs and, as well, is functional and safe. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I remember that review because I was here as an ordinary Member at that time. That review was not accepted at that time by the Assembly, I believe. The thing is that it is done, and it is going to go to cabinet. We cannot look at it only as a rental review of the public housing. We are going to have these other programs developed. For instance, my understanding is that one portion of the review is that the higher your income the more rent you will pay. There is a certain level where you start paying more rent, and the justification of that was to encourage people with a higher income to get out of social housing and get into their own homes. But if we do not have programs developed where they can get into their own homes, then it is not a very good thing to do.

I believe you have to have the programs developed so that we can get people into their own homes. Home-ownership is the priority of this Housing Corporation; the home-ownership program is supposed to be the top priority. We have to encourage people to get into their own homes. Right now, the higher income -- for example, if you give them a HAP house, even under the existing program, that is about $100,000. If you leave them in public housing you end up subsidizing them to the tune of about $800,000, because of the cost of that unit. So it is better to get them into home-ownership. But it should be done at the same time as the rest.

No. It will be in place this year.