Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you know, housing conditions in remote communities matter to all Members of this House regardless of what constituency you represent. I want to talk about some of the public housing conditions in Paulatuk here today.
I’ve been reading some of the condition ratings provided in detail by the Housing Corporation, and I am quite concerned, and I think we need to discuss them today. Now, if you have visited or perhaps been in contact with any of the families there recently, you would hear one point of view, and of course, if you have asked for information such as I have, the Housing Corporation would have provided a briefing note which says one thing, which is a different view, and furthermore, they provided stats to back that up which, oddly enough, is something else.
Take, for example, that the Housing Corporation says that there are five units that fall under the condition rating of liveable. But, you know, when you go through their stats, they don’t actually line up. When you ask them how many units are available for families out there, they’ll tell you that there are three under one condition and two under another, and that adds up to five. But if you talk to people in the community, there are actually nine units sitting there unavailable for people to live in. It causes people to wonder, or at least it causes me to wonder: who is doing some of these condition ratings, who is counting houses, how do you lose houses, what is their ability to do condition ratings, do they actually have competencies to do these types of things, and how do we allow this to happen?
Frankly, in talking to the people in the community, they feel that these conditions that they’re living under are bleak without any hope. I hear stories that the houses there are fraught with mould, the inspections are not being done, the repair and maintenance is non-existent, and as everybody knows, most certainly people like yourself, when it costs $7 or more a pound to fly up anything, if you shipped up one sheet of drywall, which could weigh 40 pounds, you’re paying $280 just to get that one sheet of drywall to Paulatuk, for goodness sakes. The question is: Do we have the money and are we doing what we should be obliged to, to help the people there?
I have a lengthy Member’s statement, and I don’t know where to begin. There is just so much to say about the mould there and the conditions people are living under, the fact is, are we being fair and honest with the folks there? Clearly, there is a significant need there, and I would definitely say that the responsibility of our government needs to listen clearly to this point. When we own 75 percent of the housing in Paulatuk, 60 out of 80 units, it doesn’t leave you a lot of options on where to go, so people learned that they cannot complain or they’ll be shunned. That has to end. We need something done.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
