Debates of February 6, 2006 (day 23)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just one last question here for the Minister in regard to the corporation plan to invest 10.439 in modernizing and upgrading the rental stock. Can he give us an example of what he means by that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we do what we call MNIs in communities, which are major and minor repairs to most of our public stock. It is where a large portion of this is to basically do repairs to keep our houses in certain conditions to make sure that they are not falling below certain standards. So those are basically repair programs that are done annually by the housing authority. The money has been identified for all of the communities to do repairs on their housing stock. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Next I have Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to offer some comments to the Minister’s opening statement, as well. It is fair to say that probably for all Ministers in this chamber, they are probably more anxious to talk to the newly minted Cabinet Ministers in Ottawa than they might be interested in talking to us at the moment. Such is the vital importance that the federal counterparts play for our government. We have never had a change in government like this in 13 years. Pardon me? I thought the Premier was trying to say something here. If I could just finish my statement, I am just going into a prelude here.

Madam Chair, I think it has such importance. There is nothing as important that the federal government does for us or as important as the housing. I guess it is fair to say that a lot of our funding right now for the Housing Corporation is in a bubble. Perhaps anything critical I say to the Minister will all be forgiven if he manages to secure additional housing money from the new Housing Minister.

Having said that, I think our work is two-pronged. We have to get our agreements out of the federal government, but it is also important that we manage our in house business well. The issue that I want to just start with with the Minister is to do with mandate, specifically of the Housing Corporation, but just general orientation of the Housing Corporation. I want to say of the people and the leadership of the Housing Corporation. I want to speak this in a very positive way. I am really trying to be productive and constructive as not only a Member of this House, but as a chair of the Social Programs committee because I need to tell you that the work and the mandate of the Housing Corporation has been a topic of discussion in so many different areas and not just in our committee, but in every other committee that we all sit in down the hallways. I think it is time that the Minister and the leadership -- and that includes the Cabinet -- really address their minds to the issues of housing. I don’t think there is one more important issue. Maybe after life, it is a basic shelter. Every time we go anywhere, we hear of the need for social housing in the North. The only thing that is quite simple, but vital, that we are trying to do, is to work the corporation mandate and the budget in such a way that we help to do that.

So far, what we are getting from the corporation and the latest example of trying to change the mandate, Madam Chair, speaks to and really expresses the lack of communication going on. I don’t know where that is coming from.

Madam Chair, for example, here in his opening statement, the Minister speaks to the fact that he has heard the MLAs expressing concerns that he is going to do consultation, but he just said that he is going to do it in the next two or three months and he is going to come to the committee with the findings. That is exactly the backward way of doing that. In the last six months, we have had to address letters to the Premier, Minister of Finance, to the Housing Corporation just to explain what it is that we are trying to get. I would suggest to the Minister that he probably should come to the committee first. He has six Members there. Maybe we should talk about what the terms of reference should be on this review.

Minister of Education, I don’t know how many consultations he has going. One of the things he did turned out to be that…Sometimes you can consult with stakeholders and you might find that what the people have in mind are quite different than...The Minister of Education has a consultation going on on income security. He did one on a Yellowknife facility. I think the Housing Corporation could do more to consult with MLAs and communities and LHOs about so many things that people are speaking about how we can best spend housing money.

Madam Chair, in the last business plan, in the year just passed, the Housing Corporation has seen a transfer of $30 million for income, the low-cost housing or social housing, I guess, that it is commonly known as. That was transferred to Education, Culture and Employment. That constituted a huge amount of that department’s budget. That should just tell you that that would require the corporation to re-look at what it is they are doing and how do we best address our needs and such and how do we rewrite this mandate. Yet we didn’t hear from them even still now. I cannot believe how a corporation could put a budget together and not really know exactly what their mandate should be and what the end objective is. In all of our communications, I just want to let the people who work at the Housing Corporation to know that, when we are being critical or when we are giving input like this about the mandate or changing the work of the department, it is not really geared toward the administrative body of that. It is really geared toward the leadership. The latest communication, in our frustration, that we sent to the Minister really speaks to looking at it from the bottom to the top, looking at it widely, looking at it, how do we best address the social housing. Do we do it in a corporation way? Do we do it in a department way? We want to open that up and have a really wide discussion about that. I think it is really important for somebody to say that this is not meant to be a negative exercise. This is not a blame game exercise. This is not saying anything about the staff of the Housing Corporation. I just want to really make it clear. I want to say that, as a chair and as a Member in this House, as we go forward -- and I think all of us here take this responsibility very seriously -- in terms of addressing the mandate and responsibility and the role of the Housing Corporation, that we are aiming the responsibility right at the top of the administration and the Minister and the Cabinet.

In terms of us giving them political direction and political vision about where we would like to see this very important program go forward, I would really like to see this Minister, before it is too late, to just reorient himself slightly more into the membership rather than…If he spent as much time that he does with the industry and lobbying the federal minister, which is an important part I suppose, if he spent as much time doing that as he spends time talking to us and talking to the members of the Social Programs committee or even AOC, and just not only talking to us but listening to what it is that we are saying and not make us write three different letters to three Ministers just explaining what it is, something pretty basic but vital that we are asking for, I think that, in the next three to four months, we may make some headways in that regard.

The Novel housing issue is just one more example of that. I don’t want anybody to challenge when I say that I don’t care about social housing or small communities when I ask this question or ask anything about Novel housing, but I think it is symbolic of how this Minister and this government, by and large, on this topic, deals with issues like this. They decide. The budget address of the Finance Minister said they are going to deal with social housing. On page 5, he says, on top it says they are going to deal with critical housing needs in our communities by promoting the conversion of pipeline workforce housing. I don’t believe it is the government’s role to promote an idea like that. If it is a good project, it will stand on its own and convince us, but it is not the role of the Minister or the government to promote an idea that really is coming from a third party altogether and speak to, once again, my problem with the way this Minister is dealing with this file in that he is not as open to us in the way that he should be. I am hoping that, by saying this, we will have more open and different orientation from the Minister.

Madam Chair, I do want to end with one question that was very specific that came to us during the pre-budget hearing. That is from people who are talking about the fact that rent scale has changed a lot and the rent that is being charged for existing housing is going up all the time, but that there has been not a lot of work done in renovating and enhancing those housing. I would like to know how much of new money that they are getting from the changes in rent scale is going to fixing those units up. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, just in case the Member doesn’t understand, I have been here for 10 years and housing is probably one of the biggest priorities for myself and also the ridings that represent the challenges are not just unique to my riding or the Member’s riding through the Northwest Territories. The challenge we have is a national crisis right across Canada. What we are doing here is to change the mandate to the corporation, is to find a mechanism that we are able to deliver 185 houses, being able to deliver 500 houses over three years. But in realizing that, in 1992, the federal government, through the CMHC, made a decision to get out of building social housing. It is a national problem which is this crisis we have today. That is where it originated from.

I think it is important to realize that, through this consensus style of government we have, we have to work together to find solutions to these problems. I think that, yes, I have come to committee. I have met with the federal Minister. But it is part of the process that we go through. I am not going to say that I didn’t make an attempt to go to committee, because I have. I have gone there. I wrote a letter back in October 24th. I did not get an allowance or time to meet with them until the first week of December. I think it is important for the public to realize that happens a lot in this House. We do have to go through a process. The process is a formal process to request to sit down with committee and time to be slotted for our briefings. I just want to make sure that we basically got direction back from the Premier that, because of concerns of members of the AOC, the mandate process will be dissolved to a committee which will consist of people from FMB, the Executive and ourselves, which will go out, get public consultation and then come back, which I will not be involved with to keep it at hand's length from myself and also from the department. I think the decision was made in the context that we're asking for 20 positions. Those positions, as far as I feel, are crucial to us being delivered the 500 houses over the next three years. Everybody knows we have some major challenges by way of land deliveries, by way of comments made in Members’ statements about market housing, the challenges that we face there. That was 45 houses. I think the whole area of inspections on our units, how come we don’t have people doing ongoing inspections when we are constructing our units? Again, we have only one lands officer in the whole department. In order to put down 185 houses, we need 185 lots. So I think the scope of this problem is a lot bigger than we believe. I think Members have to realize that the Housing Corporation, when I came to this House in 1995, had 195 positions. Today, they have just a little under 100. They have almost cut themselves in half since pre-division; and then division, we had 144. I think the scope of this problem, because we have allowed it to erode to where it is today, the challenges are there. A motion was passed in this House. In order to meet the 10 percent reductions to bring our core needs down by 2007, we have to put houses on the ground in order to make a difference in people’s lives. I just wanted to make that reference. But I think it has to be made clear here that I have been meeting with the opposition's Members, Jack Layton. Jack Layton is elected again in the House. My former colleague, Mr. Joe Fontana, was the Minister of Housing, is now back in the House of Commons, and also the Prime Minister of Canada, who made a crucial difference in regards to the conference in the Kelowna meeting with the aboriginal conference that took place. Again, these people are all elected back to the House of Commons. I don’t think that they will let go of something they’ve worked on by securing a funding for housing but also securing funding for First Nations people in this country. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. A technical issue. If Members take the full 10 minutes and the Minister takes another five or six minutes for questions, in fact, somebody who is waiting in line to speak, we are not going to be revolving, going to another Member every 10 minutes here. I am not sure how committee wants to deal with that, but it is just something to think about. I don’t see a quorum in the House, and this is Committee of the Whole, so I am going to use my prerogative as Chair to ring the bells to get more people in here.

---Applause

---Ringing of the Bells

Okay. Just a small mystery here now. I rang the bells because there was no quorum in the House. I am the chair. I thought I was in control of the button. The bell is turned off. I am curious who turned them off. Did Mr. Krutko turn them off? Okay. I’m sorry. I just want to know. That is just a small technicality.

---Interjection

Okay, so much for my prerogative as the Chair. Alright. Then we will resume Committee of the Whole and I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Minister’s comments, I want to ask a few questions. I think the basic presumption or thing that the people in our communities are looking for is that homes be built in the whole Northwest Territories. The Minister is right and the Members are right. We seem to be always in a crisis mode in the North in terms of homes, how much get built in the regions and in the communities. I am very curious in terms of the number of homes being built in the North and maybe specifically in the Sahtu because, in the last couple of years I have been here, past reports indicate that our region had the highest number of core needs. Overcrowding causes other health factors and other consequences of these homes. I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of the homes that will get built this year and in the next couple of years out of the 185 units that are being planned. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. My apologies to Mr. Krutko. I know how the bells got turned off now. My apologies for any insinuation. I want to tell the Members that, on the list right now, I only have two more Members who have already spoken on general comments. So if you want to get on the list and have priority over those who have already had a 10-minute slot, please put your hand up. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, at the present time, roughly, we construct about 100 units a year. The Member is right; because of the needs surveys that we have done over the last number of years, we have been basically trying to ensure that we do everything possible to bring down those core needs in those communities that have high core needs. The Sahtu is one of the areas. This year, we are hoping to allocate some 35 houses. Like I say, over the next number of years, as we all know, the motion was passed in this House to bring down those core needs by 2007. In order to do that, we have to really make a difference to delivering houses in communities in the regions and also ensuring that we find a mechanism to do it. I believe that we are hoping over the next three years to really make a difference in the Sahtu region where we are hoping to construct some 94 units in the next three years which will make a difference to the people in the Sahtu. Like I say, this year, we are looking at 35; the next year 31; and the following year 28. I think, by having this many houses built in the Sahtu region, we will definitely have a handle on the housing crisis that we have in the Sahtu region. So working with the Members and also the Member for the Sahtu, I know it is crucial that we have heard concerns from Fort Good Hope in regards to their housing crisis and in communities like Colville Lake because of the access problems. Again, that is the scope of what we are hoping to deliver in the Sahtu in the next three years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Mr. Minister. The Minister’s question mark on the federal government’s final commitment to release some of the funding for us to continue on with the housing in the Northwest Territories. I wish you luck in terms of securing that funding from the federal Minister and have approval from the Treasury Board. That’s still up in the air. We’re going to have to wait and see on that. The deal’s not done until it’s signed off and all set to go here, like other things this government has planned for the Northwest Territories.

In saying this, Mr. Minister, in terms of upgrading your rental stock, my second question, Madam Chair, in terms of the rental stock, I know in some places in our communities we are paying full price for a house that’s not up to grade or the assessment of the value of the house against the assessment of the amount of the rent. I know you’re upgrading the rental of the units. Is there any consideration of assessing the rent to the value of the place? For example, Madam Chair, some people live in the units for 30 or 20 years, yet we assess them at the full value of almost a new house and they don’t see it as fair. They don’t mind paying for good quality homes, but if the homes are in good shape. So I think there’s some consideration going out to our people in the Sahtu and also other regions of the Northwest Territories. Pay fair value for fair market unit. I want to ask the Minister if he would give some consideration to that issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, presently we do that. We do have a system in place where we take the condition rating of the unit and then we determine what the basic condition rating is and subtract that from the rent. The rent is based on the condition rating of the house right now, so you don’t pay the full cost. You pay based on exactly what the rate of that unit is. It is subtracted from the total price and then that’s the price that we use. So we do that right now, based on the condition ratings that we use for our public housing stock, and that’s how we come up with the rental amount.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the other one is that the Minister indicated almost $5 million going to emergency and other repair programs and various programs for seniors and disabled preventive maintenance programs and senior citizens home repairs. So I want to ask the Minister, in terms of some of these seniors’ English being a second language, how is it being communicated to them for their eligibility or the requirements for these type of programs? Or even the disabled. I know it sometimes gets tossed over to the Department of Health because they have to fund certain programs. Housing will build them, but they have to get, it will cost them some money. How will the seniors, where some of them are very independent, that they know that these funds are available and what criteria they need to apply for it. That I want to know in terms of rolling out the programs in these various avenues to get funding. So I ask the Minister that question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we have been working with the Seniors’ Society of the Northwest Territories. We have worked out a contribution arrangement with them where we are meeting with them with our program people, explaining the different programs and developing pamphlets and whatnot that are simpler and easier to understand. Like I mentioned, we are trying to consolidate our programs to go from 15 programs to five areas. The seniors are very instrumental in helping us with that. Also, we do have liaison officers. We’re working with communities to sign universal partnership arrangements with us to hire people in the communities to be liaison officers to go around and explain to the elders the different seniors' programs. It has been proving to be pretty beneficial in those communities where it has improved our relationship with our seniors and people with disabilities and other residents of those communities. So we have tried a few different things and it has worked. I think it’s also important that we work with the local housing authorities to be more involved with the residents in the communities, to work with the seniors, to make them aware that these programs are out there and also allow them to have access to it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, these programs are application based, so some of these elders would need some good quality time to sit down and take the application in English and translate it into Slavey and then have it again translated back to English. I hope that these liaison people who are in the communities would have that type of support from the local district offices in the regions, and then also from headquarters, that these programs need to be filled out properly by the elders and they have to know how these programs run and that there’s only so much money allocated per region, per community, per senior in the communities. In the Sahtu there’s 197 seniors who are over 60 years old. Not every senior is going to have access to funding or to these type of programs. That has to be very clearly spelled out to our people. I want just to make that comment to the Minister, Madam Chair.

My last question would have to be on the new mandate in terms of the Minister going out and seeking community input. It’s the community that’s going to really drive the success of this housing association. You get the community to back you, not just the stakeholders or the staff. To have community members really talk about what they see as a priority in the region and let them know that the funding from the federal government is on the decline now. They’re going downhill now with the federal housing initiative and that the Minister would look at an initiative that would involve the community members to really be consulted. Also, as the MLAs could have some input into the housing program. They have a lot of good ideas. We heard that maybe some woodstoves should go into the houses in the communities. They would like that; that kind of initiative to bring wood stoves into the homes. Get them out and active and working. Right now they’re sitting and putting the furnace on. I think that’s a good initiative we could explore more. You've got to be creative. I’m going to ask the Minister if he would consider something like that, having woodstoves and getting people out there and cutting wood and doing the good things in life. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In regard to the commitment we’ve made, I know in the Sahtu, when we were in Colville Lake we did commit to go into the region and have a workshop with the region with regards to housing and also I had heard similar requests from the Nahendeh riding, I believe, that we were still looking forward to doing this fiscal year. I think that by having seniors involved in these workshops, that will improve our dialogue and allow them input at these regional meetings. We definitely will be going to the different communities and hearing from the public on exactly our mandate. Also, we’re going to be reviewing our program changes. They’re not going to take effect until 2007-2008, when we’re hoping to get into the communities and get their input on the different program changes that we’re looking at. So we have committed to that and we are willing to work with the Member and also the ridings.

The other issue that he raised about woodstoves; there is an individual that when they do a home, they do have a choice to have a backup system such as a woodstove. That is offered to seniors. I think we are realizing that seniors do have a problem in most communities with the heat they do get from the furnace and they do want an alternative heating source, such as woodstoves. I think there is a program for that. I think that we are working with the seniors in that area, but we do have programs for the different type of heating systems they have in their homes. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Just for the information of Members, on the list now I have Mr. Ramsay, Menicoche, McLeod, Villeneuve. I would like to speak under general comments after that, and then we’re starting on round two. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to start off by thanking the Social Programs committee. I know there’s been a number of issues that have been raised with the Housing Corporation in the past little while, and I commend them on the report that they presented to us earlier. They have covered off a number of important issues, but I just wanted to, if I could, share with you a few of my concerns as I see it.

One of the more complex things, I think it comes from a policy direction of the government. I think it’s been a policy of the government to build stand-alone units across the Northwest Territories for the past 25 years. I’m just wondering, maybe it’s time that the government re-examined that policy, because in light of the rising energy costs that are even more pronounced here in the Northwest Territories because of our cold climate, I’m wondering if it’s time to re-examine that policy. What I really think should be happening is we should be looking at building row housing, building six-plexes or eight-plexes, whatever you want to call them, and doing things that way, instead of rushing out and just replacing unit for unit for unit in all of these various communities. Why don’t we try to collect what scarce resources there are for housing and try to get more housing on the ground? More roofs over more people heads? I think that might be one way to tackle it.

The other thing, I know the Minister knows I’m supportive of Novel and the potential that project has for the Northwest Territories, but again, those are stand-alone units and I think what I’ve seen in the past with the market housing initiative, specifically, if you want to get people into homeownership programs, you have to go out there and beat the bushes and try to identify who your clients are going to be. That wasn’t done with the market housing initiative. I think if you’re going to enter into anything like the Novel project, you have to go out and do your homework and go into every community and identify everybody that could potentially be a homeownership candidate. You have to make sure that you do that, otherwise I think we may be setting ourselves up for a big fall. Again, I am supportive of it. I think it may be a good project in the end.

The other thing I wanted to mention, and I was interested to see a response I got to a written question just recently where it was raised before about the Housing Corporation building seniors’ facilities in the various communities, and I was really interested to see at the end of the response that I got that there was no historic information on occupancy levels in the Tuk seniors’ facility. I find that really hard to believe, considering it’s only five years old. How could you not come up with historic occupancy levels? Maybe because there’s zero, or next to zero, or negligible. I think that’s, you know, when we were in Tuktoyaktuk and we went to that facility, and I mentioned it before. You walk in, the heat is cranked up, there’s nobody living there, and you open the fridge and it’s turned on full. This is just allowed to go on and allowed to happen. That’s just one example. There’s numerous examples out there.

The other thing I wanted to mention, and I know the land administration has now become paramount in a lot of the communities and trying to get communities set up and geared up to allow more housing to be put in on the ground. I just think it’s admirable that the Housing Corporation wants to try to take on this role, but we already have MACA and I think it’s MACA’s responsibility to be looking at land development in communities and assisting communities with land development, not the Housing Corporation. I think you could work in concert with MACA, but I definitely don’t agree that you need to have a full augment of staff online and get into land development in communities. I think there’s already a government department that’s mandated to do that kind of work and I’d encourage you to work with them. These are more or less comments, Madam Chair.

The other thing I wanted to mention, while I’ve got the floor, these rent supplement units that are negotiated, in some cases for up to 20 years, Madam Chair; 20 years negotiated over market rate. These contracts are virtually imposed upon local housing authorities. I just don’t know how that is allowed to happen. How is it allowed to happen? I have no idea. I think the sooner we can get out of these types of arrangements, the better off we’ll be. So I guess I’ll leave it at that, Madam Chair, and again, the Minister can respond to some of these. The one thing I will want him to respond on is to the re-examination of the policy that this government builds a house and when one is replaced, it’s unit for unit, and we just go about trying to find money to build single units. I think we have to really re-examine that policy, and the sooner the better. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank Mr. Ramsay for his questions. I definitely support the Member in regard to his request that we do look at more multi-constructed facilities, because it does cost us less to operate and you are able to house more people. We have made a decision that the 75 units that we’re looking at replacing in public housing are going to be multi-constructed facilities. They won’t be single dwellings. We are shifting away from that. So the 75 units that are identified to replace public housing will be multi-plex construction. You mentioned six or eight units and I think that is the way to go, and I think that because of the availability of land in communities and also because we have a large young population in a lot of our communities. We have forgotten a certain segment of our population where we’ve left out in regards to the construction of houses in the past where we look more at family dwellings and large housing units by stick-built units. I think we have to realize we’re going that way.

The other issue that you raised in regards to Novel, we are looking at some options and one of the options is to look at stacking, instead of having them all on the ground in single-constructed formation. We are looking at the possibility of stacking them to have these multi-use units where you have instead of just one family using the site, you’ll have two; in some cases, maybe four. We are looking at those as some of our options.

In regard to the issue of the seniors’ facility, I know I did respond to you about the facility in Tuk. We have an update. There are five people occupying it now. We do have two more people on the waiting list to go in there, but they are waiting for the weather to warm up before they make the decision to move. There is an improvement to get more people in there. Again, it’s an area that we do have to look at. Right now we have about 416 elders in seniors’ facilities in the Northwest Territories. There is a large number of them that we do accommodate, but again, it’s just trying to ensure that people making that shift from being in the unit they’ve been in for years and doing the transfer over to a seniors’ facility. A lot of people are hesitant to move away from their family members and be on their own. They’d as soon stay together as a family. We do have these challenges. We are working with them.

In regards to the question the Member asked with respect to MACA and the lands, presently MACA does not do land development in communities. That responsibility is left to the developer. Because of that, we have to, as a developer not only of housing, develop property along with our responsibility. In most cases, your responsibility for putting the roads in, your responsibility for putting the culverts in, your responsibility for putting the power poles and lines in, all that is left to the responsibility of the individual person or contractor to do that. So MACA has devolved the responsibility to the communities, but they have not devolved the capital assets. In the past they used to do that; now they do not. So that’s where we’re having the differences. We are working with MACA to try to find a way that, like I mentioned, we only have one lands officer in our shop to try to figure out what lands are available, what titles we own, exactly what properties we have to put money aside to develop, when do we get the pilings in, when do we get the power poles in. All that is left to one individual in the Housing Corporation and I don’t think that’s fair. But we are working with MACA on that problem.

In regard to rent sup, yes, there have been long leases in place for rent sups, but again, we have gotten away from long-term commitments. We only commit five to 10 years at the most. But I understand where the Member is coming from. That was the practice in the past where they were trying to attract the private sector to get into providing housing in which those were the commitments made back then. Again, because of legal obligations, we can’t get out of those. Once the term of those leases expire, then we will be re-looking at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Next on the list I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I am pleased to provide some comments, as well, to the department or to housing. It’s one of the biggest concerns to my riding. I have my riding consisting of six communities where four of them are very small communities that look to housing to help create their growth. Of the two larger centres, Fort Liard has been, I think, increasingly on top of the agenda. I think overall, before I get into specifics of some of my communities, Madam Chair and Mr. Minister, is that, overall, the communities see the Housing Corporation as taking a lead in updating the services they offer. In fact, I’ve been working with the Minister trying to get a regional workshop in the Nahendeh riding, and I thought that one of the intents was to go out and ask the people how you see the Housing Corporation working, what can it better improve. That’s kind of the thinking that people had when the Housing Corporation was talking about reviewing its mandate and delivery processes. That’s the kind of expectation that they thought they had. Just recently we find out the mandate changed and I was wondering, well, they never really went to the communities or asked anybody. So I was wondering, how did the mandate change and what was the focus of the mandate? What caused the mandate to change without asking people about it? For one of the great foundations of our government system is participatory democracy, and that’s fundamental to the people. That’s what they like. They like to participate in our decisions. Even ask them for feedback. If we’re going to do it workshop style, to involve them and get all this feedback. That’s what we thought we were going to get when the Housing Corporation was talking about its mandate changes.

Thanks to one of my colleagues, I just learned it’s a process that began early in the term, around 2004, and now we’re 2006. It’s been a couple of years and nothing significant as change in terms of reviewing that mandate. Some of the things, too, in private sector they call it a comprehensive organizational study, where they look at how the organization is set up and how it can better utilize its staff, utilize its resources, utilize its delivery programs. People were happy that they were going to have input into that, but I don’t know what changed, but I know that one of the worst things that people hate is top-down approaches. That’s what happened, I believe, in this case with the mandate. You said we were changing the mandate and this is how it’s going to be done. Then the people that I represent, my constituents, have always believed it should be from the ground up. In fact, it was one of your reports, Madam Chair, that the Minister tabled last year in the House was the actual name of the Housing Corporation report was “The Ground Up” but lately we’ve been trying to do things top down. I believe that if we do, if the Minister will go about and go to the communities and listen to the people like we did in the pre-budget consultations. People did mention the Housing Corporation, the program, the program delivery quite extensively. Our colleagues in the Social Programs heard that, included it in their report, and it’s something that we’re going to have to look at seriously.

So that’s what I kind of see with the Housing Corporation, is just a follow-up on my vision and the people’s vision and see if the Minister will concur if that’s what should be done. It has to be all-encompassing because I believe the Housing Corporation is in a state of flux. Where do we go from here now? At one time having it as a corporation did make sense because there was some flow-through funding coming from different agencies, not only us. But now the GNWT is the primary one that gives them the transfer payments to deliver housing programs. Does it have to be a corporation any more? Can we look at it just being a department? Those are the kind of discussions that need to happen and they have to happen in this coming term, Madam Chair.

Just with that, if the Minister can comment on the overall mandate review. It has to be a lot more than just a paper review, because quite often people sit down and the consultants sit down and talk with department heads and say, okay, we reviewed it. But that’s not what I’m asking the Minister today. It has to be comprehensive. I know it’s going to cost a few bucks, but it’s something so we have a good, efficiently run organization, if indeed it stays a corporation or a department, Madam Chair. But that’s something we have to look at and have a good hard look at it. How are we going to continue this function of taking care of the housing needs of our people in the smaller communities? I think that’s how we have to refocus the goal and objectives of the Housing Corporation. If I can just get the Minister to comment, Madam Chair, on how he sees, and where he sees the Housing Corporation going in the next little bit to better deliver our services. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In regard to the mandate, this process has been ongoing since last year. It’s something that we’ve been working on. We’ve been having workshops with our local housing authorities. We’ve had workshops with all our maintenance people in the LHOs. We’ve had our regional directors involved in this process. We have done a lot of consultation already with the local housing authorities, with the maintenance staff in those organizations, and also the board of directors that was overseeing this was the regional directors. We have one in almost every region. I think it is time for this organization to change the way we do business.

As you’ve heard, we just celebrated our 30 years as a corporation in the Northwest Territories just last year. In 30 years a lot has changed in the North and I think because of the dynamics of the corporation, we also have to change with the times. I think in order for us to realize we’re not immune to the pressures on development in the North. The biggest challenge we face, like I mentioned, is the area of just trying to deliver what we have right now. I think because of the competition in the area for tradespeople and contractors and whatnot, that we’re realizing there’s a higher cost to doing business in the Northwest Territories, especially in the area of housing and construction.

But again, the mandate is going to proceed through a new process where they have a board to go out and get public input and then come back, and I will report back to the standing committee and this House. So I’d just like to remind the Member that I have travelled along with the Member. I’ve travelled to most of the communities in the Northwest Territories and I have been consistent with my message. We are changing the way we do business in the Northwest Territories. Part of that change will include the change of how we deliver programs and services and also changing of the mandate of the corporation to be able to deal with some of these issues such as land development issues and being able to have capacity so that we can be able to find the people in the right areas to assist us on delivering. We are right now, like I mentioned earlier, the number of people that we’ve had in the Housing Corporation over the last 10 years have changed to almost half the size of the staff prior to division. We were at 195 people. After division we went down to 144. With the budget cuts ever since, we’re down to 103. There has been a drastic change to the size of the Housing Corporation to deliver those programs.

We are committed to go back out, get consultation from the key stakeholders and Members of this Legislature. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. With four seconds on the clock, Mr. Menicoche.

---Laughter

Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe I can use up my four seconds quite efficiently here. Just with respect to the Minister’s comments, I don’t disagree that the Minister heard us and that he is seeking a mandate change. I don’t disagree with the methodology at all and that he indeed does recognize, once again, that there has to be a change. How that change is going to be done is what I would like to impart to the Minister. There are people out there in the communities, the regions and throughout the North that want input into how we change the Housing Corporation. Indeed, they just want to be heard. I believe that that consultation has to be extensive and we have to get out there, listen and be the responsive and reflective department with respect to housing that the people want. I would just like to urge the Minister again to consider that and to comment that it will be a comprehensive and extensive consultation with respect to the mandate and review of the corporation, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. We will take that as a comment, so we don’t need to have the Minister answer any questions on that. Next on the list is Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Last year, going through the same exercise, I spoke to a number of issues and concerns. I see this year I am going to be speaking to almost the same issues and concerns. We go travelling to the communities and it never fails, even in our day-to-day work in our constituencies, I am sure there is not a day or a couple of days that goes by that we don’t have people calling with concerns with housing, not so much the Housing Corporation, and the way the programs are delivered. I commend the Housing Corporation, as I did last year, for putting a lot of these programs into place where people could try to get into their own homes, and a lot of them have. Some of them have found that they couldn’t maintain these homes, so they went back to the corporation. So I have a concern with people calling and wanting to know why couldn’t I be approved. I make enough to maintain my own home and they are giving homes to people who end up giving them back, or a single person…We can go on and on with the list of concerns we get regarding the housing programs.

In the Minister’s opening comments, he spoke to the Supported Lease Program and this ambitious plan is subject to support from the federal government. I am curious to know if the Supported Lease Program is also subject to continued support from the federal government. If we don’t get that support, what is going to happen to some of these programs? Are we still going to get 185 units? I think you have been asked this question a couple of times. I just have a real concern with the direction that the Housing Corporation has taken. I have spoken to it before and, as Mr. Menicoche pointed out, I thought this mandate was just something that was just a new initiative, but it was something that was started in 2004. I understand there was even a task team sent out and I am curious to know if all the LHOs, the district offices, were consulted on the new mandate. Did they have much input into it? The universal partnership agreements, did they have much say into whether they wanted to be part of these universal partnership agreements, or did they just have to sign because everybody else did? I don’t think a lot of them had much choice.

You mention housing and it just strikes a nerve in everyone. I understand the corporation is trying to do their best, but I think they are really straying from their original intent to provide housing to residents of the Northwest Territories. I have a concern with that. I see money being cut to the districts and the LHOs. It seems like it just keeps growing and growing in headquarters. That causes me concern. We’ve lost so much money in the Housing Corporation over the years, like I said in my Member’s statement before, we could have had a few more houses on the ground. I would like to see a bit more transparency in some of the housing programs. It’s public money and the public has the right to know where their money is going and how it’s being divided up by certain clients. I understand the Minister is going to say I can’t give you the names. Everybody has the right to know what we all make in here. So it being public money, the taxpayer has the right to know where some of their funds are going.

I will say it again, and I may be doing the same spiel next year -- I should just ask for this recording and I can play it again next year -- I really believe the Housing Corporation is straying too far away from their original mandate and I think the business decisions should be left to people who have the shops for them. Housing can provide the expertise because they should know housing. I have a problem again with headquarters continuing to grow and the people in the frontline district offices seem to be the ones taking the most hits. I believe there may have been a few questions in there. Some of the other Members spoke to some of the ones I had in my notes, so I won’t repeat it again.

Housing is a concern with residents of the Northwest Territories; it always has been, always will be. The Housing Corporation should, in my opinion, stay to their original mandate and reason they were established. I don’t like the looks of the proposed new mandate. It’s not something I would be able to support. It’s trying to become too businesslike and I don’t agree with that. I think they should be providing the houses. A lot of people have access to a lot of programs and have gotten money to be put into their own homes. You still hear a few concerns from people who have lived in public housing their whole life and they have worked hard to try to get out of public housing and get into their own homes, but all of a sudden they make too much so they are paying big rent. I thought that’s what these programs were designed for. That’s why I said there should be a little more transparency to these programs, so we could at least see where some of the money is going and make sure that one client is not getting $70,000 and another client who is not that far off in wage earnings gets $6,000. It’s got to be transparent. It has to be fair. I have suggested before that one of the changes that the Housing Corporation could make is just have a block $50,000, $25,000 or $30,000 number that if people qualify with the bank to own their own home, they should all be able to access that money, nothing higher and nothing lower, just straight across the board, like the Minimum Downpayment Assistance Program they had a few years ago. That did that. It just gave a straight number right across the board to clients who qualified through the bank. It just seems like the programs change every few years right back to SHAG and the Rural and Remote Program where some of the people just finished paying 25 years later.

So I would like to see some consistency. I would like to see the programs stay the same, at least for awhile and not be changed every few years. I think there may have been a few questions in there. The Minister may wish to comment on some of the statements that I have made. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the programs that we do have, we have devolved over a period of time. I think a lot of the programs we do deliver, we are delivering on behalf of CMHC which are federal programs. We see a lot of our program dollars from CMHC such as emergency repair funding, EDAP funding and access funding. Because we are an agency that delivers program dollars, we have to follow the national standards. Because the standards we fall under, it may not look like we are being fair, but, in most cases, the programs we do deliver are for people who are at the lower end of the wage scale and also trying to get them to become homeowners and get them out of social housing, which the focus has been on over the last number of years.

We have to realize the other emphasis was to get people to go to the banks and get a mortgage and become homeowners and we assisted with their downpayment. These programs have devolved over a period of time and, like I mentioned earlier, we are looking at trying to consolidate our homeownership programs so that we have more flexibility. We tried to get away with setting amounts where once we exceed that, we can’t help you. We have to get away from that mentality and try to find programs that are more flexible. Instead of trying to see which program you fit into, we have to find a way we can work with you and help you become homeowners. A lot of the emphasis that we have been focussing on in the past has been the area of homeownership, to get assistance through the banks for mortgages.

With regard to the Member’s comments on the Supported Lease Program, it is a program that is identified to get people out of social housing and become homeowners, for those people who have lived in those units for a number of years. We want to ensure that they have the ability to pay the operational costs and the cost to maintain a home, and that will be taken into consideration. So those individuals, over that two-year period, will be monitored to ensure they will be able to do that. We don’t want to set people up for failure, like the Member mentioned. We have a lot of people who got into the Access Program and then they were able to sustain themselves for a year, and then they had to give the units back. We want to get away from that so we don’t have those situations.

With regard to the reorganization of the corporation, because direction was given by the Legislature to get out of the area of social housing and devolve that mandate to the Department of Education, we have to realize we still have responsibility to people in public housing. We have 2,300 units. We still have contractual arrangements with CHMC where we have to continue to deliver those. It’s important that we do have annual reports that identify the different dollar amounts that are allocated and we do have audits done by the Auditor General every year which are tabled in this House. The Member has asked for information and I know there are certain confidential matters that do come by way of those applications, names and persons who may receive assistance from the government. So it’s under ATIPP and I know that he doesn’t want to hear that answer, but that’s the answer we have to give. We do have federal legislation that we have to hold confidential information under.

So those are some of the responses to the Member’s questions. I think the issues the Member is raising aren’t new to the House. I heard the same issues we are talking about today 10 years ago. It’s how we have to devolve and move with the times. Nothing changes, nothing changes. I think we do have to change the way housing is delivered in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I just want to welcome the Minister and it’s good to see Jeff and Fred again. It’s funny that the Minister, in his last sentence, said these are the same issues he has been hearing for 10 years. That just drives home one of the points that all Members have been raising today with the Housing Corporation. There are many issues and outstanding housing concerns that are just so long ongoing that the regional staff or the headquarters staff have pretty much earmarked these ones, flagged them and just put them in a file in a box in the closet or something and hopefully they will go away. The Minister probably knows that, too.

It’s good to see the $120 million over the next year on 185 units. My first question before I go on is if this funding arrangement is contingent on federal government supports with the new government and if it doesn’t go through with what the old government had agreed on, do we have a contingency plan? That’s my first question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if we don’t get the federal funding, we will just deliver the formula we used before, which is 118 units. We have the resources to build 118 units with our own money this year. We are pretty positive we will be receiving the money from the feds; the $50 million over two years.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess just to follow up on that, what percentage of 118 units is going to be public replacement units? That’s just for clarification.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Minister.

It roughly works out to one-third of the number of units we are looking at allocating.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I don’t want to reiterate a lot of the concerns that a lot of Members have already raised, and I am sure the Minister has heard them all before in committee, but I just want to talk about the $10 million for the upgrades and the $4.9 million for emergency, seniors and disabled housing. It’s great to see that there is a little bit of increases going into these areas and that these programs are actually in place, but I just wanted to remind the Minister again, I am sure you heard it in many instances, a lot of emergency repairs and a lot of upgrades and a lot of senior repairs are approved every year in the various regions, but when it actually comes down to doing the actual work, doing the actual repair, that’s not so quick to get approved or get done. I just got a few examples. I got a senior with the furnace that is still sitting in his porch to get installed and it’s been there for two years. So a senior with a fire damaged room in his house upstairs that has also been approved for repairs, but that’s been two years ago also. I guess that just alludes to the point I want to make. It seems a lot of the contracts that go out for these repairs and the upgrades to the various units always seem to be going to a specific contractor who has had a long-standing history working with the Housing Corporation; and all other contractors, be it proprietorships or just individual people who are willing and able to do that work, are never really considered because of liability issues, they don’t have their business licence in place and they don’t have some of the insurance that the government requires and stuff like that. But there are a few that do. Five years ago, they maybe didn’t complete a project or something like that and they seem to be blacklisted on the government’s contracting list at the regional level anyway.

I have raised the issue with the Minister before on some people that are willing and able to do all this outstanding work that's still kind of out there in the communities, and people are still wondering why we have to wait for a contractor to come out of Yellowknife, or a contractor to come out of Hay River to complete the work. Well, one of the barriers to getting these contracts in the outlying communities, in the satellite communities where they're actually required is because the government is saying the contractor has to be within cost of what a contract is going to bid on. Pretty much there's a limit to what you can bid on this project, and whether you're in Hay River or Yellowknife or in Colville Lake, this is money that the government's willing to spend and that's that. Therefore, a lot of these smaller community contractors don't bother with bidding on this work, because basically it's not going to make them any money, it's not going to be cost effective for them. The costs in these communities are a lot higher than they are in the regional centres, but it seems to be the government policy that these contracts have to be within these larger centre cost barriers or brackets.

I just want to ask the Minister, is there any inclination that the government is going to relay down the line to tell the regional centres you have to be a little bit more flexible when it comes to very remote communities. These people that are trying to do business in those communities and trying to stay in those communities, especially when a lot of housing projects are just backed up to the door as far as getting completions done. Is there any appetite for that?

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we do try to work with communities and especially with our LHOs. We do find that we're trying to give more responsibility for the local housing authorities to build capacity, but also take on more housing responsibilities such as the seniors' maintenance repair program. We're asking the LHOs to do the work in house so they can hire another person on staff so that they have someone in the community that has a ticket and are able to build up their capacity in communities. But I think also the majority of our contracts that go to communities are tendered. I think because of that, sometimes you have negotiated contracts where there's only one business there that does it. We've heard over the years in my travels that there's a lot of frustration. The people that have got work done by contracts which they'll never allow them to do work on their house or whatnot again because of bad experiences people have had in regards to contracts that have been done. So again, yes, there are people that are basically not used because of not having the certification or not being registered and also registered under the BIP, and also not having tradespeople on their workforce to do a lot of this work where you have to have electricians or plumbers or whatnot. Again, we have to ensure that whoever does the work has the capacity to do it. I think that in order to allow for that capacity to go, I think we do support community initiatives through negotiated contracts, along with the local municipality or local housing authority, to take these on. But I think at the end of the day, the solution to our problems in our communities is to have people local doing this work and not have people coming in. But again, in most cases we can't find those people who have the tickets that are required to do the work. Thank you.