David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I stated to the Member, we are open to pilot projects, if he can come up with the idea in regard to these square logs for home construction. We are hoping to use more of our northern products such as our trees for home construction. I think that we do have to work with communities and, as he stated, the homes have been built in the past and it is proven that you can construct homes with logs in the North. So it is something that we are definitely open to. So again, I’d just like to suggest to the Member if he could maybe come forward with some sort...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The policy, as it sits, has been worked on for a number of years. It is clear and we have arrangements for people who have arrears to work them off. Again, if you move from Fort McPherson with the arrears and went to Yellowknife, got into the private housing market and then tried to get into social housing; sorry, you can’t skip that queue. You still have the arrears in Fort McPherson that you have to pay off before you can get back into public housing. So if the Member can understand the notion that if you have arrears with one authority, we can’t just skip the...

Mr. Speaker, as the Member mentioned, the individual he is talking about is in the private housing market; they are not in public housing. As the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, we are only responsible for public housing that are in our stock which includes some 2,300 units. So if the individual is talking about someone who is in the private market; sorry, we are not responsible for those individuals in the private market, only it is those individuals who are in public housing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, we have been getting direction from this House to do a better job on our collections and we are doing that by ensuring that people with arrears work out arrangements and have a payback plan with the local authority to pay off those arrears. For those individuals who have been evicted from public housing, it’s clear; if you want to get back into public housing, you have to pay down those arrears before you will be put back on the list.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have to realize that we have to be fair to all tenants. We can’t have a loophole for one group of tenants. You were evicted for a reason. There is a reason that you got kicked out of housing. In order to get back into public housing, you can’t skip the queue by jumping in front of the line. We have people on waiting lists who want to get into public housing who are in just as much need as the person who got kicked out. If you didn’t have a problem the first time, you wouldn’t have been evicted. There is a way to get people back into social housing or...

Mr. Speaker, again, it is a confusing question because, like I stated, the Housing Corporation deals with clients in public housing. Those are our clients. But if someone wants to get into public housing, they have to be in good standing. If they go from one community with arrears and move to another community, there is an agreement between all of our local housing authorities, the 23 authorities that we have, that if you go from one authority to another authority with your arrears, in order to get into that other community, you have to work out those arrears before you can get back into...

Mr. Speaker, if the tenant is in public housing and they have arrears, they know, if they have been given an eviction notice, that they have six to eight weeks to respond to that notice. In between that time, they can go to the local housing authority and work out a payback plan where they commit themselves to pay back their arrears over a period of time through an arrangement they work out with the authority. If they commit themselves to that arrangement, and they pay on the time they say they are going to pay, they can remain there. But if they break that agreement and they do not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to sit down with the Member and work with the person he’s talking about and see if there is a way we can work it through. You talk about being fair, but you have to realize that people presently are trying to get the opportunity to get into public housing. We have people on the waiting list who are trying to get in, but the people who were already there, were evicted and now are trying to find a way to get back in. The whole idea is to be fair to all tenants, regardless of whether they are on a waiting list. There are ways to work it out, but the key is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The policy is clear that if you were a former tenant and were evicted for not paying your rent and you do have arrears, the way you get back into social housing is you have to pay your arrears or attempt to pay those arrears, so you can get back on the waiting list to get back into social housing. You have to realize that in most of our local housing authorities, there is a waiting list to try to get into housing. To be fair, those people who have been evicted for not paying their rent, there is a process for them to get back on but the key is they have to pay down...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there are not two units going into Fort Resolution this year. There’s six units going into Rae-Edzo, two into Aklavik, eight into Norman Wells, two into Deline, two into Rae Lakes. But just in regard to Fort Resolution, since the last time I met with the Members, right now we do have an expression of interest by an individuals, an employee with the local housing authority. We have someone who works in the mines who is interested in purchasing, and also we have an expression of interest by a teacher to look at renting or purchasing. So we are starting...