Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, to the Member’s question, the answer is yes. The focus and the priority this time around, we are hoping, will be on upgrades to our public housing stock for energy purposes and also for suitability purposes.

Mr. Chairman, the Member also asked if we take that into consideration. We do condition rates on our units and that is factored into the rent and any time there are conditions that fall below 60 percent, we take a certain amount of money off for every percentage that it drops below that.

We are just checking to see if we had the latest update on any discussions we have had with the federal government. Up to now, all our discussions on housing infrastructure on aboriginal lands or aboriginal reserves and the funding that flows and other jurisdictions get are not available to the Northwest Territories. Our dollars are presented through a Northern Housing Program. The last Northern Trust and also these new dollars that are flowing are geared to that. With the federal government, I think today we are able to nail down a date that we will be able to have things wrapped up and ready...

I’ll answer that question again, Mr. Chairman. I indicated earlier that we did this year set aside $2,000 per community to assist some of the communities to deal with the issues challenging the seniors in terms of preventative maintenance, furnaces, water tanks, things of that nature. We have also opened up our programs so that it’s more accommodating for seniors. We no longer provide a cap on the amount that they can apply for; they can apply for the whole $90,000 that’s available for repairs. Mr. Chairman, we always place the seniors and the disabled at the top of the priority list when...

Mr. Chairman, it’s the first time that I’m committing to do a review. I’ve been here seven months and I was not aware that there were other commitments made. I know ECE did some work that was worked on also by the Housing Corporation, but I don’t believe it’s the same review that the Member is talking about. It was on this process but more how to tweak the system that’s in place to make it more effective. What we’re talking about is doing a complete analysis along the same lines that the Member is referring to. We’d be glad to share this information with the committee. I’m not sure where the...

Mr. Chairman, I am told it’s around 600 to 700 per household on the average.

Mr. Chair, this is an initiative that the Refocusing Government has been working on. We’re also working with the Executive to develop a program that would go out to the communities. There are still a number of issues that we have to work out before we come forward with an actual package. These dollars have been placed in the budget as a placeholder. We’d like to start delivering this program as soon as possible but there are a number of challenges and some legal issues that we have to overcome.

Mr. Chairman, it is certainly a challenge. The number of people on the ground doing the front-line work in terms of keeping the facilities running and responding to emergencies is always very difficult and quite expensive to run. The people we do have we always encourage to upgrade, whether it’s through internal programs or external programs. We’ve really encouraged our staff to broaden their horizons in terms of dealing with new issues and issues that are starting to become common, such as mould issues. We’re also encouraging our staff to be able to deal with the energy efficiency, as our...

There are two completely different scenarios in the sense that the southern jurisdictions are able to accommodate new units on their reserve lands and Metis settlement lands because there is a federal government that is willing to under write it by way of a federal loan guarantee. We don’t have that luxury here. The situation is in the communities in the Northwest Territories that are on unsettled lands. That, I guess, is a possibility for those jurisdictions to go to negotiate at the negotiating table, Mr. Chairman. I am not at the negotiating table. We can explore different concepts, but...

I think times have changed. Historically, the NWT Housing Corporation was dropping houses fairly ad hoc and even on lands that we didn’t have clear title to or we had the rules that were quite broad. Three years ago we had the Auditor General lay down the law for us that require us to have, through the homeownership, a land tenure. Now they can either get that on IAB lands through the federal government or they can have their band acquire a lease from the federal government and sublease.

We thought we had a solution and we are not too sure if it is a workable one anymore, by having another...

Yes, Mr. Chairman. We have carried over I think 10 units because we are not able to settle the land tenure issue. That is still available. We will continue to work with the community to see if we could resolve it. But, Mr. Chairman, it is very difficult if the community refuses to acknowledge the federal lease, then we don’t have much choice. We are probably in a position where it is not going to be a concern because we have the ability to invest, carrying it over for some time may be quite challenging in the future. Thank you.