Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, it would be really nice to get to zero, but I don’t think that would ever happen. The national average is actually 12 percent and that’s the goal that we are striving towards. We have 2,200 families right now in core need across the Territories. That’s the rating we use. We look at and analyze people in the communities in terms of the different measurements for suitability, overcrowding, things of that nature.

Mr. Chairman, that is our goal, to reduce the need in all the different areas. The numbers the Member is referring to, the 76 percent and the core need rating was from four years ago. We have, since then, put a lot of units on the ground in the last three years. We put close to 500 units in the communities. We expect the 2009 core need rating to be significantly different. We still will set our budgets according to the core need based on unit costs and the different construction needs in the area.

Mr. Chairman, we already do some of these projects in that fashion. We would be open to that, providing all of the ingredients or all the components of doing the contract in that fashion are there.

That is probably a question better posed to the Department of Human Resources. The areas that are of concern under the collective bargaining are the issues of potential or what could be viewed as potential subsidy and the other issue is availability of units once we enter a program that may be required to be provided for everyone. So those are issues that need to be looked at and understood properly before we move forward.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is asking my opinion whether I think it’s right. All I can say is that public housing units are charged the government water rate, which is three times the actual residential rate.

Mr. Chairman, I have Jeff Anderson and Revi Lau-a with me.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, we will do a little bit of digging and find out what we have in terms of documents that could shed some light on the questions that the Member is raising. Mr. Chairman, once again, it should be clear that we only carry the balance of what the federal government is paying and what we are paying, so there is $23 million that goes against the debt wall and the rest is covered by the feds.

Mr. Chairman, we will ask Mr. Anderson, who has been dealing with this issue, to respond.

Mr. Chairman, the Market Housing Program was set up so that we could buy a number of mobile units, waive the BIP policy on it and put them in the communities where there was a demand and have them available for operation by the LHOs and/or for sale. That was the design of it. I think we bought 42 units overall over a couple of years and then didn’t carry it out any longer. The housing for staff is more towards trying to provide incentive to communities, development corporations and businesses in the communities, band councils or municipal councils to invest into providing units for people that...

Mr. Chairman, we’ll have Mr. Anderson explain the details of the $39 million.