Caroline Cochrane

Nothing at this moment is confirmed. We're still in negotiations with Justice and the federal government. Once we decide upon it, we would be putting in a request to the Financial Management Board. The money, actually, will not take away from social housing at all. In fact, it will help to provide social housing. Within the next 15 years -- 2032, in fact -- CMHC is expected to delete all of their funding for social housing, so we need to look at revenue sources to be able to continue to provide social housing and this is one method.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, last week I had the honour to participate in the 2nd National Roundtable on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Winnipeg. This was an important opportunity for the Northwest Territories to engage in the national discussion on how we can take action together to address the root causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls. The core of this roundtable was the families of missing and murdered Indigenous women. Their voices were heard loudly and clearly, and they want action. Violence against Indigenous women and girls remains a serious...

Currently, it costs about $18,000 to $20,000 a year to provide the operating and maintenance provision for public housing. For every unit that we rent out, we would be able to support that cost.

If the Member would like to meet with me any time this week, then we would coordinate our schedules and see what times works good for both of us.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department is actually, at this point, compiling a listing of all of the housing that we have available. Right now, we have no housing available for public housing. Just to let people know, the buildings that people see boarded up are scheduled for demolition, it’s expensive to do that, or else they are public houses owned by the community members, but we can provide a list of those houses that the corporation owns that are empty. Thank you.

The agreement with the federal government was to look at the housing for RCMP territory-wide. We are, however, willing to meet with the SCOSD committee to be able to review it and see if they would like changes to it.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The federal government, as people know, is getting out of the staff housing for the RCMP. They approached the NWT Housing Corporation. We look at this as two things. One is that to retain employment within our communities, we need to have housing for the RCMP to be in the communities. The other thing is it will be a revenue resource. With the declining CMHC funding, we are looking at the revenue that would come from that to be able to transfer into the operating and maintenance for public housing. Thank you.

As stated earlier, the initiative is not to displace public housing. It is a revenue source to be able to supplement the public housing. I also can give you some information on the federal units that the RCMP had. At this point, the federal government is saying that they’re beyond repair for them to make them financially viable. They will be offering them out to market. If they are not taken up by the market within the communities, then they’ll send them to negotiations with the Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As previously stated in my answers, the benefit of the Housing Corporation taking on this initiative is that we will retain RCMP officers within the communities and we can use the market rent that we will be charging them to subsidize the operating maintenance costs to the public housing considering that the CMHC funding will be dissolving. Thank you.

I am more than interested in visiting the communities and the regions. I would, however, have to have a date, so I could check my schedule. If available, I would be pleased.