Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just so I understand this clearly, there is no requirement for an individual buying a public housing unit to go to the bank to borrow their share, that their share can actually now be a rent-to-purchase, so the Housing Corporation will come along, say you are a good tenant; you paid rent for the last 20 years without missing rent payments. We are going to sell this house to you. First thing we are going to do is we are going to reduce the cost of the house by 48 per cent. The second thing we are going to do is we are going to take the 52 per cent and we...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'm just looking for a bit of clarification. I'm going to just indicate what I think PATH is going to try to do.

So when a public housing unit is determined for sale and the tenant in that public housing unit has an opportunity to buy it and the house is valued at $100,000 and the corporation makes a decision to apply PATH, and the person is making under a certain amount so that the tenants get 48 per cent of the cost of the house, so one house worth $100,000 would be $48,000. I'm wondering if that $48,000 is budgeted or if it's just a reduction on what...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, earlier the Minister talked about a user-pay program. I was wondering if that would have any direct impact on the actual rents. It would seem that, at the first look, the power bills are fairly significant across many of our communities, and I was wondering if, once the NWT Housing Corporation moves that cost from their books to the tenant, that tenant will pay less rent according to how much more power they are required to pay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement, I talked about funding towards the anti-poverty initiatives for the GNWT. I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the anti-poverty, the Minister of Health and Social Services, a couple of questions.

The GNWT is committed to compiling a broad set of social indicators to measure its progress on the Working Together action plan. Separate from individual departments' monitoring and accountability plans, how will the GNWT measure and report on its overall success in combatting poverty? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

Mr. Speaker, in 2012, the GNWT laid the groundwork for its anti-poverty plan. One press release described it as our "tattered social safety net." It was three more years before we got an action plan called, Working Together.

Now five years have passed. Forget the tattered social safety net; we are in fiscal restraint these days. Yet Northerners living in poverty still have not seen enduring improvements.

It is not for a lack of trying, but for the lack of coordination and new investment. NGOs, community groups, and public servants work...

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Chair rise and report progress.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I move that committee defer further consideration.

No, Mr. Chair, I do not mind the position the government takes. What I am saying is that this should be something that stands alone. Our requests for the additional $700,000 into this budget as a request into this budget, it is not a request that you can then put under another department. We have our own issues with the other departments, and our request going to other departments. We keep them separate. We keep these issues separate. We are not having discussions with the Minister of Finance in saying, well, if you can combine this, or if you add over here, you can take away from here. All...

We on this side of the House have plans for how difficult it is going to be even to access a Small Community Employment Program under its current rules. We are trying to talk to the government about changing some of the rules so that we can access that program as an employment program, not something where we have made a request somewhere, and if we do not get that request, we are going to take that money and place it in there. This is a separate request.

I think the Minister should keep those requests separately. If this Minister is then going to say, well, this would be a good way for the...

Marci, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are two things I want to touch on. I know the Member from Yellowknife North touched on it, but just to add a bit to what he said.

The first one is on the Community Access Roads Program. The Community Access Roads Program is a program that is in place as a program that Regular Members are trying to get government to add money into. I believe that this money that is spent in the communities is very beneficial to the communities and has an element of people who could be doing labour work. It has people who could do slashing, chainsaw work and also people who...