Michael McLeod

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...

Mr. Chairman, that is an ongoing issue that we wrestle with. How do we keep the politics out of trying to deliver the units, the houses and the programs that are required in communities? We haven’t looked at trying to make it more arm’s length. I think that’s going to be very difficult at this point. But we have looked at trying to find solutions where our constituents are not running on a daily basis to the MLAs, so we are introducing more training and to our staff and in the communities. We are offering more communication so the people know what the programs are, know where the deadlines are...

Mr. Chairman, it’s a flat rate. Each client is required to pay six cents a kilowatt hour.

Mr. Chairman, these are all programs that we had inherited historically from the federal government. We do have a listing and we’d be glad to share it with the Members.

Mr. Chairman, right now with our housing program choices, we don’t have any intention of bringing the HAP program back per se. We are bringing a close cousin to this program. We haven’t titled it or given it any name yet. It is probably a basic housing package or traditional housing package that would allow people to work with us and build their own home, something that would fall within the criteria of forgivable mortgage. It has been raised by a number of the Members, Mr. Yakeleya and Mr. Krutko, and also members of the Small Communities committee, so we are trying to put a design together...

Mr. Chairman, we are anticipating that by 2038 we will no longer have the debt.

Mr. Chairman, this is the issue of dispute from our side of things, including other jurisdictions, that as the money falls off the table we would expect the federal government does realize this as a savings now to put it back into social housing. They have not agreed to do that at this point, so it is really affecting our ability to increase our housing stock. As I indicated to Mr. Bromley with this question, we are very much short of what we need in public housing. These are the dollars that allow us to operate our...

Mr. Chairman, a number of questions there. We do monitor the consumption on all areas including fuel, water and power usage. We do provide for programs that encourage people to become more educated around energy use. We do try to set the standard, for example, in the area of water usage and look at the other standards that are out there from the national organizations such as Health Canada where they recognize 65 litres of water per person per day. We are well below that. The amount allocated, the average set by MACA is 90 litres per person per day and we are certainly below that. So we do...

Mr. Chairman, this was an area that was reduced as part of the reduction process. We expect we’d be able to accommodate this program through our repair program.

Mr. Chairman, we do, indeed, follow the core need assessment to allocate our budget. It is a measurement that allows us to see where the actual needs are in the community and in what areas. It is difficult to tie dollars for repair or for homeownership based on percentages related to core need. For example, 76 percent of Colville has demonstrated they are in core need, but that is 25 families. Overall, we have 2,300 units that have been identified as core need and 240 of them are in the Sahtu, so that is only 10 percent.

Mr. Chairman, we try to invest in all the different areas that need to be...

Mr. Chairman, this pertains to the area of dollars that we owe to the federal government.