Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are working on phase two legislation. There is draft legislation that is being developed and I am working with my counterpart in Nunavut. Because we have a joint board here, we have to share the information. I just concluded a meeting on January 25th in Iqaluit with my counterpart, Mr. Akesuk, from Nunavut, on the basis that we have to go forward with the legislation jointly because we have shared the same legislative authority and it has to proceed. We are reviewing that legislation jointly between the two territories and we are hoping to have something...

Yes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like I stated, we are working closely with our partners in Nunavut with this legislation and we are looking to ensure that the phase two recommendations are proceeding. A lot of that does have to deal with ensuring we have a system of how to deal with appeals, and how to ensure clients are dealt with fairly. I think through the changes and the input from myself and my counterpart from Nunavut, we’ve had these discussions on making some major changes, but also ensuring that we have a transparent system that works for both jurisdictions, and also realizing...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have completed two phases of a needs survey. Based on those needs surveys which identify where the majority of the core need is, we are now focusing our dollars and resources to where that highest need is. That’s how we basically make our decisions on how we allocate; based on the needs surveys that have been completed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d just like to point out to the Member that almost 50 percent of the cost of phase one was done through the BIP process. Fifty percent of that investment was put back into the North for the business communities, the manufacturing business that build the septic tanks, the fuel tanks and whatnot put into these units. So I would just like to clarify that for the Member, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I think we can’t lose sight of the objective that we’re trying to meet here. The whole intention was to ensure that we have housing available for our core...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to inform the Members and the general public of a change to the planned implementation of the new rent scale.

Mr. Speaker, in 1995, the public housing rent scale moved from a flat rate of 25 percent of income to a sliding scale of between 6.4 percent and 30 percent. This was done to bring our public housing sector more in line with other jurisdictions across the country and to ensure that public housing remained available to clients in need. This change was originally scheduled to take place over a four-year period from 1995 to 1998 but was...

We have to look at housing in the context of how do we get houses on the ground and get more accommodation in communities. This is one of the ways we’re looking at. I think that to access 22 units at the cost that we have been able to, we talk about affordability and trying to get program services to make sure that the client that we’re dealing with is looking at how these units could be occupied and also the rents that we’re charging. That was the big concern under phase one.

For phase two we believe we are able to come forward with changes that will bring down that cost to almost $1,000 a...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with regard to establishing a policy of dealing with seniors and people with disabilities, I don’t see it being a problem. I think that’s something we can look at. We have an opportunity now. We’re reviewing our mandate going forward with a new Northern Strategy and also looking at how we are going to be dealing with these people. So with regard to the Member’s questions, yes, we can develop such a policy and I will bring that forward for the Member once we have it in place.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if you look at the programs and services that this government delivers, especially in the area of seniors and working with people with disabilities, we do have a lot of good programs. I’m not going to say they are all bad. We do have good programs out there. They do improve the living conditions of a lot of our seniors with regard to our repair programs and our maintenance programs. Also we are looking at the whole arrangement with regard to barrier-free access. The Member touches on that but, again, it’s a national standard. We build houses in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, there are several initiatives we are working on. One is looking at the mandate of the corporation and we’re hoping to have it ready by April 1st to take to Cabinet. Another area that I touched on earlier is the whole area of developing a northern housing strategy to deal with the federal government. In the federal budget there was a whole bunch of announcements looking at the whole area of conservation and looking at energy-efficient homes and whatnot. We have to build that into our building methods in the North, but also look at access...