Statements in Debates
We have heard that. We have taken the message to heart and we are planning on doing some contracts, particularly in the smaller communities, with just labour only and just putting the supply/ship, then we’ll have the labour as a separate contract.
The original question I thought the Member was referring to the transfer of the public housing delivery by, as I understood him, the Member means all things housing into the community, homeownership included. Obviously, again, as I said in my first response, it’s something that we would consider doing. If communities feel that they’re far enough along that they can effectively deliver housing programs in the community, then it’s obviously something that as a corporation we would have to obviously listen to.
Mr. Chairman, that would depend on some of the terms of the contract. There are many cases. There are some cases where there are cold weather clauses that kick in. If you are building in a particular type of year, obviously the cost is going to be higher. It is a cost that is the cost of doing business in winter when the construction season is a lot different. There will be costs. As to exactly how much, we wouldn’t be able to give that information to the Member until after these are completed or we make some progress on them, then we will have a fairly good idea of the actual cost of this. I...
Mr. Speaker, we don’t have a SWAT team in place. The Member said that this has been going on for four months now. Today is actually the first that I have heard of it. If I had some communication with the Member, I may have been able to follow up on it and make sure that the tenants in his riding don’t have to wait so long for an answer.
I make a commitment to the Member. If we can discuss this afterwards, I will forward the information on to the proper people and see if we can have this dealt with as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we are just in the process of developing the framework for it now. It is a comprehensive piece of work and it is going to take a lot of research. My best guess would be that may be something that is ready for the beginning of the 17th Assembly. There is a lot of work.
We obviously have heard a lot of issues concerning housing today, and not just today but every day in all of the communities we go to. We have to be sure. We have heard from Members on what they thought of the different policies, how certain things didn’t work and we want to make sure that we get a policy in place...
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The details of the money transfer are going to be in the supp documents that we are discussing. As far as a comprehensive human resource plan, we are more than willing to sit with the Regular Members, as we have on a couple of occasions, and give them briefings on what the Housing Corporation is doing. I can commit to the Member that we can have the human resource plan as part of any future briefings that committee may wish.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, the Member is correct; they are completely separate from the ones that are going there now. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did commit that we will, first of all, look at the overall regionalization of rent and further on down the road, if we feel the need arises, then we will look at a territorial-wide system. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we see the Shelter Policy as doing an overall territorial housing review on all the different aspects of housing. As I mentioned a couple of times, we are actually doing a rent scale review. We are doing an evaluation of the whole Housing Choices program and those are just a couple of components. We see the Shelter Policy as an overall review on a go-forward basis on the delivery of anything housing in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.