Alfred Moses

I have named off a bunch of programs that we are doing. One thing that we also are doing and actually have a good partnership with the IRC is unit disposal plans. If we can get rid of some of these, whether they are derelict units or units that have reached their life cycle, then we open up land to build new housing units. We are continuing work with the IRC to address some of these housing concerns. We will continue to support them, work collaboratively with them, and continue to lobby and work with the federal government to see how we can get some of the Indigenous housing funding through...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Obviously, with the new units, it is going to make a dent in terms of core housing needs, but you are going to have to look at some of the other programs that we are doing within the NWT Housing Corporation. I did field some questions in the House during this session about core housing needs and meeting our goal of 250. I mentioned to Members that we are well beyond that with various programs. We are developing a document that we will share to Members to show how we are adjusting core housing need in many areas throughout the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I will refer back to another Minister's Statement that I gave earlier this session, and that is the work that we are doing with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. We have seen some great success. Also, in partnership with the federal government, we have been able to build some new housing stocks in all of the communities in the Nunakput region. We are going to continue that partnership moving forward.

One thing that I have also mentioned, which is a great initiative under the NWT Housing Corporation, is that we are going to start developing these community housing plans that are going to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you look on the acquisition list there, the second one from the bottom, you will see a seniors' mixed rent complex. We are looking up to 25 new units for that one in particular. That will be both a mixed market and a public house complex. Thank you.

As I mentioned, it is a little bit too early to say what we are going to do in terms of expansion of this program. We have to evaluate. We already had an initial discussion with the Deline Got'ine Government on a lot of our housing programs and how we can work together as well as work with the federal government.

We do want to support our communities, as well as the communities that have the highest utility costs, and address our cost of living. I am committed to continuing that work, but we are going to need to look at the evaluation and continue to monitor before we decide what our next steps...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member's comments, and I appreciate working with the leadership as well and going in and having those initiative discussions. We also do have the fuel tank replacement program. He mentioned something on the fuel tanks there.

In terms of inventory and investments, we do have a community support initiative program that I believe are already working with the leadership on how that is going to kind of unfold, as well as the community housing plans that I had mentioned numerous times in the House here, that, if they look at creating a housing plan for the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the Member is quite right. The NWT Housing Corporation has utilized the structural insulation panels in the past and, most recently, for communities in the Sahtu region. We are going to continue to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the SIP panels in these units, but I anticipate that there will be gains in energy efficiency and see how we can utilize the structural insulation panels in other communities in the Northwest Territories, especially ones where we do see high costs of the utility costs.

Yesterday, I had questions from another Member, and we talked...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is based on the annual assessment of need right across the territory, and in the Member's riding, we have identified a couple of market rental units, and we will have discussions moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just kind of general overview, when we look at our capital planning process, we do look at our public housing stock. Once they get over the age of 40 years old, we look at replacing them, and then we also do some M and I, which is modernization and improvement, when the units reach the age of 20 and 35 years old.

Other factors that we consider are unit condition rating and the operating performance of the units. Just in general, any questions that come on how the capital planning process is selected, that is how we identify them. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. Obviously, we will work with all of our departments. When the funding was allocated, we got our share of the LCEF funding. We will always push to try to get more money. I think this announcement that we are going to hopefully be saying soon will help alleviate a lot of the infrastructure needs that we see in our communities. Looking forward to making that announcement. Thank you, Mr. Chair.