Debates of February 24, 2005 (day 43)

Mr. Speaker, my questions this afternoon are for the Minister of Finance and it relates to our ability to cash flow the growing and inexorable deficit that we have in our capacity to afford our housing program. Mr. Speaker, we heard nothing at all in the federal budget yesterday on a national program, let alone a northern basis, for housing. The CMHC program, of course, is drying up. The Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation has suggested that maybe there’s something out of an aboriginal program, but I’m not convinced and I want to go to the Minister of Finance to ask what our options are to cash flow for this very long-term and very real need; our government’s housing needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Return To Question 471-15(3): Funding For Long-Term Housing Needs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we have in a number of areas and programs with our partners and the federal government, we are trying to come up with working arrangements with them to see if they can continue the dollars for the social housing program. I’m aware the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation is continuing on that initiative. The other areas we would have to look at are to come up with the dollars that are being reduced on an annual basis now. To come up with the additional dollars, we’d have to look at our own-source revenues if it’s not going to come from the federal government. So we’d have to look at how we would fund that and that would include possibly more taxing or, hopefully as we go forward, our own-source revenues, including royalties of the non-renewable resources sector. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Supplementary To Question 471-15(3): Funding For Long-Term Housing Needs

Mr. Speaker, the Minister has opened up an interesting area: our own-source revenues. I’d sort of like to turn that around a little bit. What about our own ability to provide incentives to our partners, builders, developers, communities, aboriginals, development corporations, to step up to the plate to join us in this venture? But we would need to make taxation and revenue decisions to, as I say, provide those incentives. Is that something that we have in our toolbox to help build more houses? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Further Return To Question 471-15(3): Funding For Long-Term Housing Needs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have already within the toolbox, as the Member has mentioned, with the arrangements that have been worked out through the Housing Corporation, incentives that do help people get into their own homes and build homes in the Northwest Territories. The big one around that is EDAP, or Expanded Downpayment Assistance Program. That’s one avenue. From a government end, from the incentive to either…I heard a Member earlier in their Member’s statement talking about a tax relief of some sort or another. That’s something we haven’t looked at directly. Our goals are first to try to find more money from those that are directly involved and we consider the federal government as being a key part of that picture. From what we have available to us, one of the things that the Housing Corporation, for example, is doing is selling off some of the older units and single-dwelling units and looking at multi-unit facilities. Instead of one detached home, looking at a four-plex of that type, because we know that the operations and maintenance are lower for a multi-plex than for a single residence. So those are some of the areas they’ve been working on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Supplementary To Question 471-15(3): Funding For Long-Term Housing Needs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister be able to move these kinds of things forward through Cabinet? Because I know on this side of the House there’s a lot of readiness and willingness to listen to some new ideas and some thinking outside the box. But right now I don’t have much confidence at all in the proposals that are before us. Will there be some new and innovative ways of financing long term brought to the committee and this Assembly, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Further Return To Question 471-15(3): Funding For Long-Term Housing Needs

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, through the Department of Finance, if there are some initiatives brought forward that we could look at that are sustainable from what we see our fiscal picture being, we would look at those and see if in fact they had some merit to go in and investigate a little further. We know, for example, with the reworking of the Housing Corporation and its mandate, there may be some opportunities there to look at going into the area of affordable and sustainable housing and how we would fund those as the Government of the Northwest Territories.