David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now, as a corporation, we are in the process of reviewing the mandate of this corporation. We are taking a look at the program services we do deliver. Also, we are looking at a 10-year plan to look forward on exactly where we go as a corporation and to take on the challenges that we’re facing. We have to find more unique ways of delivering housing in the Northwest Territories, especially with the number of houses that are going to be required. I know a couple of Members touched on the whole area of selling off public housing. That’s one area we’re...

Definitely I can’t commit for the Minister of Education, but I definitely will suggest that we sit down and talk about this. He’s heard the questions, so hopefully we can consider finding ways to implement such a program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to recognize a former Member of this House, the former Member for Mackenzie Delta and now the chief for the Inuvik Band Council, Mr. Richard Nerysoo.

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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now there is a program that we offer through our housing programs. It’s basically put forward for the individual or the client to go out of their way to get their logs, bring their logs into the community, get it on the site, and then the government will allow them the resources to purchase the material to construct the unit. But it is up to the individual to have sweat equity going into this program. So they have to go out of their way to ensure they get the logs, they peel them, they bring them onto the site, and then the government will...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe there are several ways that we can work with the communities and with the Sahtu region. That’s to devolve more authority to those communities through universal partnership agreements and also ensuring that the needs surveys that we develop are able to meet the most needs of the communities that are out there. Definitely the Sahtu is one of them. I think once we put forward our business plans for next year, we will be focusing on those needs surveys to ensure that we are able to accommodate the communities that are in most critical need. So we...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank the Member for his comments. I believe that we do have to encourage more people, especially with our growing economy or seeing people with more dollars in their pockets with the diamond industry and oil and gas industry. I think we have to direct people who are presently in that high-income range to get out of social housing and get them into the private housing market by way of our programs. We have the EDAP program, we have the DAP program, we work with the banking industry to get these people into a mortgage so they can own their own homes and be...

Again, Mr. Speaker, that request is a handful in regard to being able to accomplish all those goals in the short time that you are requesting, but I think it is something that I will definitely promise the Member that I will look into and see exactly where we are with a policy for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation and exactly what the cost to implement such a policy would be.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regards to those units that do go in, I've heard the concern from communities with regard to how we construct these units. Most of them have been pre-designed, or we've implemented designs that have been constructed in other areas. Again the whole idea is that we have to realize that because in the North a lot of our transportation is done by roads or by barges, through the winter road systems we have to be able to package these things in such a way that most of them have been designed through the programs we do deliver by way of homeownership and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member raised this issue in the House before. We have completed our phase two report with regard to our needs survey. On page 7 of that report, it identifies that we do have 194 dwellings which have been modified for people with disabilities. So we do have that stock in house. Also, I’d just like to inform the Member that we also have programs for people in the private sector who can apply for a grant of up to $25,000 to renovate their units to make them accessible for people with disabilities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry for confusing the Member, but what we are presently doing now, because we are looking at the mandate of the corporation, we are looking at our programs and services. One of the things we are doing is we are trying to ensure…Right now the programs we have are application-based. It is based on the number of applications that you’d get. Out of that, we determine allocation. So what we are trying to do is work with communities to determine how many clients they have in their homes that need these programs, and work with those people at the community level to...