What portion do they have to pay? Can you explain that in a percentage or is that a flat rate? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, it’s a flat rate. Each client is required to pay six cents a kilowatt hour.
Does that have a ceiling amount or is it just six cents no matter how many kilowatts they use? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, it’s a flat rate; six cents no matter how many they use.
What would be the average usage per household? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I am told it’s around 600 to 700 per household on the average.
Thank you. I am just trying to get a sense of it. Was that a power bill cost or was that how much the person pays or was he referring to kilowatts, 600 kilowatts? If he could explain that a little further as to what the actual person pays. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, the Member asked about how many kilowatts on the average was used per household. It’s 600 to 700 kilowatts per household on the average and each individual or each client is required to pay six cents per kilowatt.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next on my list is Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chairman, the issue of units I have talked about in my region. I guess you need to upgrade some of the units. Just on this issue here, power, heating; some of the units, when you go into them you can see a half an inch to a quarter inch, you can see light under the door when you close the door. One of the complaints is you still have to pay for the power that they use to heat their houses and that. I think the Minister knows this type of issue follows in our communities. I guess those units need to be fixed up. I am going to ask the Minister about working with the tenants. They are pretty well energy conscience, but sometimes it’s out of their hands because of how their units are built and they move with the freezing and thawing of the ground and it causes more difficulties. Is the Minister going to look at some of these units that need desperate repairs in terms of how to conserve energy? Have we looked at having some of these homes energy efficient, particularly the ones that have large families in their units that are overcrowded?
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I am not 100 percent sure how that is relevant to the budget page we are working on, but I will go to the Minister for a response. If we could keep our questions focused on the pages we are dealing with, that would be great. Mr. McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, to the Member’s question, the answer is yes. The focus and the priority this time around, we are hoping, will be on upgrades to our public housing stock for energy purposes and also for suitability purposes.
Mr. Chairman, the Member also asked if we take that into consideration. We do condition rates on our units and that is factored into the rent and any time there are conditions that fall below 60 percent, we take a certain amount of money off for every percentage that it drops below that.
I am on page 5-60. I hope my questions…They may seem like they are alluding page 5-60. Are we on 5-60?
---Interjection
I just want to get clarification on what I heard. I want to ask again in terms of these units, over a number of years some of my residents have not seen improvements in their units. They are charged a high percentage of income off their cheques and they are getting quite frustrated because there are no improvements to some of their units. Doors are not shutting properly, windows are kept open on top because of the extreme amount of hot air that is going up to the second floor. The bottom floor is pretty cold. There are lots of things that I hope the Minister can do to rectify it. This has been ongoing. This is not something new. These complaints have come over a number of years from the same tenants hoping that they would get their house fixed. That’s why I am asking these questions. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, that’s the same question. I already indicated, yes, this time around we are going to focus on repairs as a priority. The Member has indicated a lot of concern there. We acknowledge that our housing stock is getting old. Over the last while, it’s been very difficult to do the required maintenance, so we have certainly a lot of deferred maintenance to tend to. I think the Member will be pleased, as we put our budgets together with this budget here and the federal budget, to see the investment in the different regions and different ridings including his.
Thank you. I look forward to that, Minister. Mr. Chairman, in the proposed budget, how he is going to rectify some of these issues, the houses are old. The assessments are done on a different level to pay for these units in terms of rental units. I can point out a few in my region that they said yes, we will look at this and we will do something. That is all they did. When I look at it, nothing has been done. That is why I keep bringing it up. So the answer I am giving to the…I am letting the Minister know that his answers are old too. He is saying yes. He is saying yes. I need to see where there is going to be some significant improvements on these old spots and that is why I am bringing this up. If it wasn’t an issue in my region, I wouldn’t be sitting here passionately talking about it. It would have been done already but it keeps coming up. We keep getting calls. We have been talking about it and talking about it in our communities about these houses, what they can get done. I know there is a limit on the amount of budget, but the money we see sometimes are not going where it should be going. I understand that. I know he is under a lot of stress. The government is under a lot of pressure, but that is why I keep saying let’s do something. I am going to leave it at that, Mr. Chairman. I am hoping that we can certainly see some difference with the housing.
Mr. Chairman, I think this is my first time in front of committee as Housing Minister. I take his issues very seriously. We intend to deal with the repairs and also replacement of some units that are too old to be repaired. The difference is, Mr. Chairman, that we are intending to focus a good portion of our budget of new monies, once we get it sorted out, towards upgrade of our public housing stock. That includes repairs in his riding and replacing some of the units in his riding that cannot be repaired. I think it is going to be a breath of fresh air for all the communities across the Territories to see the amount of work that will be available and that will be done to these units.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. We are on page 5-60, information item, local housing organizations, grants and contributions.
Agreed.
We are on page 5-61, information item, lease commitments - infrastructure.
Agreed.
We are on page 5-62, also an information item, infrastructure investment summary.
Agreed.
We are on page 5-63, information item, infrastructure acquisition plan. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just looking under Fort Simpson. We have lots of major retrofits and they are probably very needed mid-life retrofits, et cetera. But in our infrastructure acquisition plan, I don’t see one new unit, so maybe if the Minister can address the reason for it. Is there an additional plan or strategy that they have in terms of adding additional units to Fort Simpson? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, this budget was put together prior to the federal money being announced. We are not in a position to revise it as we have not formally entered an agreement. We are still sorting out the detail. We expect to have something in place by March 2nd, and per our financial FMB rules, we have to just present what we have dollars planned to spend. There will be a change when we bring forward the new dollars that will be spread over two years. That will be focussed on a little more than just homeownership.
Mr. Chairman, this was the reality of the day with the dollars that we had in our budget for this coming year. This will be increased, the investment, by $25 million.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. We are on page 5-63, information item, infrastructure acquisition plan. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for clarity here, this does not include the carry-over dollars from the Affordable Housing Initiative, for example for Ndilo and Dettah.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, no, it doesn’t. There is still $60 million earmarked for this coming year that is carried over.
Perhaps we can get that confirmed. I am wondering also on the one new unit indicated for Dettah and Ndilo, if we have a land tenure figured out for that unit. There are two questions. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I have to retract my comment. It says 60 units earmarked for this year.
---Laughter
It comes out to about $12 million, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. And to the second part of the question, the Member asked about the one unit in Dettah, if the land issues have been dealt with. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, we will ask Mr. Anderson, who has been dealing with this issue, to respond.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Anderson.
We did a little bit of follow-up since we were here yesterday. We are reasonably confident that we are going to be able to resolve the land tenure issues to get these units on the ground. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you for that, Mr. Chairman. Just to confirm, those 60 units, I think…Is it 34 or 38 that are scheduled for Ndilo and Dettah?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, I will have to ask Mr. Anderson to see if he has that information. Mr. Chairman, I would just add that the issue with Dettah and Ndilo, the meetings continue to happen. In fact, they are meeting tonight again to see if they can resolve some of these issues with some of our Housing Corporation staff.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Anderson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we are looking at putting in two five-plexes into the two communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Mr. Bromley.
That sounds like a reduction. My understanding was we were planning something like 34 or 38 units for Ndilo and Dettah. Is that correct? Thank you.
No, for the Dettah and Ndilo the original allocation was 14. Some money was moved to repairs and because of the time delay and that the cost of putting housing on the ground has gone up over the years, we feel we still have enough resources to do 10. Thank you.
I have nothing further.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We are on page 5-63, which is an information item, infrastructure acquisition plan.
Agreed.
We are on page 5-64, also an information item, also an infrastructure acquisition plan.
