Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, I will be going up to Inuvik this Friday to sign an MOU, so it is a memorandum of agreement, with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. Excuse my pronunciation. So we have been working with them for quite a while to actually decide what they were going to do, how we were going to work this, so we are looking at developing, within this fiscal year, a fourplex in Tuktoyaktuk and a sixplex in Inuvik. Both of them can be used for seniors' accommodations if that is the requirement, if that is the desire of the IRC, Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. Thank you, Mr...

Excuse me, Mr. Chair, if I have to speak really quickly. I don't have a clock here, and I am going to try to address as many as I can. I will be going all over the place because I didn't have time to format it.

Thank you for recognizing that it is a difficult portfolio. I also recognize housing is a difficult portfolio and really important. When we were doing the Cabinet shuffle, I actually asked to keep housing because I believe that it takes someone with experience, with a social degree, actually, to provide some necessary changes, so I did ask to keep this portfolio, good, bad, or ugly.

The...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we do look at them all. All we need is to have a Journeyman within the communities who can do the apprenticeship. So we are open to all apprenticeships. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the current program, like Mr. Carpenter explained, may require going to the bank. When we do the program renewal, we will need to look at those. So we have the idea of what we are doing. We have not defined what it will look like specifically because there may be ideas coming within that, but we need to be cognizant that we need to be fair to all residents.

So if people have gone to the bank and taken out a loan to be able to pay for housing, then it would be not fair to just let other people not do anything. So I am not saying that this program would be looking at they...

As stated, being a resident of that cooperative, I do remember the volunteer hours, and sometimes it was not eagerly volunteered. It was more of a requirement of being in the cooperative, but it does give back to the community, and it is a way of working together, and it does build community relations. It made me actually go out and meet my neighbours, so I am an advocate of that type of housing unit.

However, I have committed to doing this survey and, depending on the results of the survey, we will be defining what I do within the coming year. It would be disrespectful of me to put my needs...

Jim Martin.

Sorry, I gave the wrong answer. I will let Mr. Martin speak to that one, then.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2017-2018 Main Estimates for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. The main estimates propose a budget of $132,888,000, a decrease of $14,019,000 or 9.5 per cent from the 2016-2017 Main Estimates.

These estimates continue to support the Government of the Northwest Territories’ objective of ensuring a strong and sustainable future for the government and its programs by managing expenditures due to limited revenue growth.

The 2017-2018 Main Estimates include a decrease of $7,814,000 from the 2017-2018 Business Plan reviewed by standing...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That question is really hard to give a definitive answer to. I was expecting that there was going to be a federal announcement on the National Housing Initiative when it was National Housing Day. That never came to effect. I was hoping that the federal budget would have come in February; that has now been pushed to March. The only thing I do know is that they have committed to doing a tri-territorial housing strategy separate and we have been told that there should be funding coming with that, substantial. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The current PATH program actually does not put that money out to get mortgages that are outside, so they're actually units that are already within the capital of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. So it's not like there will be actually an increase of money coming because we already own the units. When I do the initiatives, it's more of rewarding good behaviour. So it won't be actually cash. Again, it would be looking at people's payments, have they been substantial, and there would be a host of other ways we would do it. The areas that we're looking at doing...