Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure if the Member and I are living in the same territory because I know from the work that we’re doing, we’re getting as many units on the ground as possible. We used the Affordable Housing Initiative a few years ago to get a number of houses on the ground; we’ve converted them to public housing. We are trying to be as innovative as possible, recognizing the fact that we are losing funding. The Member says he has been a Member for 11 years and that has been the complaint for the last 11 years, and it will be the complaint until 2038 when we’re down to zero. So we have to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; most of the units we do put up are replacement units. We do have I believe it’s 30 market housing units that are going up this year. But as far as the stock goes, the Member is correct; the units we do put in are replacement units for old public housing units. Thank you.

We’d love to see the day where we have a lot of homes being bought because people are moving to the Northwest Territories, and I feel that day will come and we need to ensure that they are protected. There are some firms out there, one, possibly two, that will do home inspections on behalf of the potential buyer. I think the Member, in his statement before, talked about different training opportunities, and here again is another opportunity for us to have some people that are trained to do proper home inspections.

It is probably the largest purchase a person will ever make, so it would be to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve done some research, and our research indicated that territories and provinces feel voluntary disclosure statements don’t provide meaningful consumer protection because they ask many types of questions to the homeowner. Here in the Northwest Territories, being a smaller jurisdiction, we rely, and people should rely, on the honesty and the integrity of the people that are selling the home. However, I mean, this is an issue that has been raised before. I can assure the Member that MACA is still doing some research into this particular subject.

I think we will get somewhere under this leadership this Assembly. I think we’ve proven that we’ve gotten somewhere. If the Member would have attended some of the Social Programs briefings, he would have been up to date on some of the initiatives that we’re taking and will continue to take them.

It is a struggle to work with Canada on the funding, but we’re not using that as an excuse, we’re trying to meet that head on. We’ve updated Social Programs on some of the initiatives that we’re taking to deal with the declining funding to go to a multi-unit type configuration. We find that would be...

What this Minister is doing is working with Social Programs committee and getting some feedback from them. This Minister is providing direction and leadership to the NWT Housing Corporation as to how we can distribute our resources equally across the Northwest Territories, and also trying to work with the federal government to ask them about our CMHC declining funding because that’s affecting our ability to put new houses on the ground. We are fortunate that this Assembly stepped up to the plate during the last O and M budget and gave Housing an additional $1.2 million to replace some of the...

As I said before, we will enhance the information and communication that’s on our website. If you looked at stand-alone legislation for this particular issue, that’s almost a two-year process. With the priorities that this government has had in the 17th Legislative Assembly, we have received no complaints on this particular issue. It wasn’t considered a priority at this time. However, most of the work for the 17th Assembly is coming to an end, so this is one that they could possibly look at in future. Part of doing this is doing the research and seeing if there is a need for full-blown...

The sheer volume of home sales in some of the larger jurisdictions down south required it almost be mandatory for them to have this type of protection. However, here in the Northwest Territories we deal with this on a much smaller scale. However, we hear the concerns.

One thing we are planning on doing is our whole communications strategy, our consumer affairs website. We’re trying to enhance our content on that website to provide all different types of advice on different types of consumer protection, so any input we receive on how we can enhance that even further would be much appreciated.

Mr. Speaker, we know exactly what our responsibilities are, that’s why we have these people go and take care of these units. On behalf of all housing maintainers across the Northwest Territories, I take offence to the Member’s comments, because it is a full apprenticeship, they do three years of training and a lot of it is basic home repair. But I would challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified.

I say, Mr. Speaker, I challenge the Member to write the test if he thinks they’re not qualified. For him to stand over there and question the ability and the...

I appreciate the Member’s interest in the state of housing across the Northwest Territories. I can assure him that our folks on the front lines are fully trained, that they are all qualified. As far as who is qualified or how many there are, that’s more of an operational question. I can get the information for the Member and share it with the Member and committee. The condition ratings, again, those are inspections we do every year with the local housing authorities. I can get the information as to how many individuals are actually qualified and which region they work in. Thank you, Mr...