Don Stewart

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think, overall, the issue around the declining funding is there really are a lot of elements that are going in to trying to manage that. Obviously, our top priority is to work with our federal partner and see if they may reconsider that decision to get out of the social housing business. We work very closely with our provincial and territorial colleagues on that. The Minister is the chair of the P/T forum, the Housing forum, and the Ministers met in June and were developing a number of materials to help engage with the federal government, to both demonstrate the need...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member is correct; there is clearly a demand for single units that are out there. The Housing Corporation did some work a number of years back on the concept of a small unit. The costs were higher than I think made sense in terms of looking at that versus one-bedroom/two-bedroom type units. I think there’s some more research that needs to be done. I know there was a northern housing conference recently where there were a number of discussions around smaller units and those sorts of things, and I think it’s one of those areas of innovation that Member Dolynny spoke...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member may recall that there were a number of initiatives that the Housing Corporation committed to do last fall, including the seniors facilities that we were using internal resources for. That’s partly reflected in the 2014-2015 Main Estimates. Those are the resources that we had from our working capital that had built up over time, so we’re going to be investing that money into additional housing. You will see the increased amount in ’14-15 and for the next few years as we actually implement the investments we had discussed last fall. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Chair, really what’s going on there is that our own programs have become… People have been more aware of that. They have been applying for our programs as opposed to the CMHC programs. So we have moved some of the resources that previously were under those program titles into our own. It’s not a question of them losing money, it’s really us focusing on our own program offerings as opposed to what we are doing for CMHC. It’s the same amount of money, but we are now focusing much more on our own design programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are three basic components to the system in our information management. So there’s what’s called the territorial housing system, which is really our client system. It was implemented on April 1st of last year. It’s fully implemented now. All of the LHOs are using it and it’s working very well, I think, in terms of there’s always a certain number of growing pains. But we’re quite pleased with how well it is being used and the information that we’re able to get out of it.

The second system that we’ve developed and implemented recently is an overall asset system so that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is something we do on a regular basis. Certainly, when we developed the rent scale changes, for example, we spent a lot of time with ECE so that they would be able to make sure we’re aligning and adjust their policies as were necessary in terms of implementing that.

As part of the anti-poverty work, as well, we’ve spent a fair amount of time looking at the very issue that the Member raises, of how do all of these policies interact with one another and making sure there’s coherence there. Sometimes differences are there for a reason, but I think the Member is correct...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to clarify with the Member, are you on 5-43 or 5-45?

Mr. Chair, the information that the Member is looking at on the bottom of the page, you’ll see from the main estimates of 2012 to the 2013-14, it is down a little bit but not a lot. The revised estimates that you see reflects carry-over projects that we have that we then add to our revised estimates. If there were carry-overs in 2012-13, that will end up in a revised estimate as well. The actual, when you compare the mains to mains, it is down a little bit but not a lot. Part of that is going to be driven by our program intake which we are just finishing up now and doing approvals, and that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, they would be changed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, my apologies. The capital infrastructure was described in 5-43. So it will come up later as well.