Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I meet with my counterparts from the other jurisdictions in the finance area, we use the information we have available to us; the housing information, the cost of living factors and we use that to build our argument to try to get more revenues to our own jurisdictions. So when I go down to meet with Minister Goodale, I’m carrying in my briefcase or my backpack the arguments we’ve developed in the Northwest Territories to try to convince them in fact we need more dollars to deliver the same level of programs that southern Canadians have already. The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we again, as a government, can demonstrate the fact that it is across the board and the cost of living impacts on the health of residents. There are a number of factors that we’ve looked at, as a government, in trying to wrestle with the shortage of housing across the Northwest Territories, and the Housing Corporation has undergone an initiative to try to bridge that gap to a certain degree. Members of this House have put a motion on the floor to decrease the core need, and all of that requires much more money than we have right now, and we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think the government can demonstrate, on many fronts, that we’re interested in keeping the cost of living down through many of our subsidy programs. So this would be another one that we’d look at. I guess the big feature of this would be the fact that as we look at programs, is what the cost would be on the revenues of the government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have my department look at the initiative to see what the pros and cons would be and once I have that information, I’d gladly share it with the Members. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through the Department of Finance, if there are some initiatives brought forward that we could look at that are sustainable from what we see our fiscal picture being, we would look at those and see if in fact they had some merit to go in and investigate a little further. We know, for example, with the reworking of the Housing Corporation and its mandate, there may be some opportunities there to look at going into the area of affordable and sustainable housing and how we would fund those as the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we have in a number of areas and programs with our partners and the federal government, we are trying to come up with working arrangements with them to see if they can continue the dollars for the social housing program. I’m aware the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation is continuing on that initiative. The other areas we would have to look at are to come up with the dollars that are being reduced on an annual basis now. To come up with the additional dollars, we’d have to look at our own-source revenues if it’s not going to come from the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I think we can show examples of how we’ve partnered with other governments from across the territory, aboriginal governments in some of the initiatives, either through supporting them through negotiated contracts in the smaller communities to help build housing, as well as universal partnership agreements in delivery of the housing program in those communities. There’s definitely an option there. At the end of the day even for example in the community of Inuvik, a developer wants a core tenant to be there to make sure that they can afford and they...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we would look at any initiative that would come forward that would cost the government in delivery of that initiative, if we forego taxes in this area of an incentive, we’d have to look at the total cost of that, because if it means we have to come and find another $10 million or $15 million from our own-source revenues, we have to balance that off. Yes, there could be some positive aspects. It would get more construction happening and more people into their own homes. We would need to balance both of those off; I agree. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for sure by the spring session, and hopefully we could have something before that, but no later than that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our process as the Government of the Northwest Territories is through the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. They work with our community governments throughout the Northwest Territories, so there is contact there. Once this review is done, we will look at it and see if we have to make changes overall as a government. Thank you.