Debates of October 14, 2004 (day 20)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this afternoon are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation and it’s a follow through. First question, it’s a follow through to an area that I know the Minister has himself favoured in another life of this Assembly, Mr. Speaker, and it’s about affordability and availability of housing, especially on a rental side. Mr. Speaker, while the private sector and their investment is the ideal way to address this issue, we are seeing here in Yellowknife continuing upward pressure on rents and availability; and in a report that I heard on the news last week, Inuvik is even in more dire straits here. My point here, Mr. Speaker, is that while housing is a multi-level responsibility of federal, territorial, provincial and municipal governments, what are we doing as the NWT government and the NWT Housing Corporation to alleviate this problem and to provide incentives to the private sector to do what they do best, which is to build and develop? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, the Honourable Mr. Krutko.

Return To Question 221-15(3): Private Sector Investment In Housing Development

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regard to the one for housing, we did a needs survey which identified that we do have a major problem especially when it comes to affordability of housing, but most importantly the investment to increase the amount of housing in the Northwest Territories. In Yellowknife we see a lot of development happening where the private sector has stepped in. They have taken a lot of slack off in regard to ensuring that they have a thriving industry in regard to the retail industry in providing housing for the residents of the larger sectors. What we also see is that in a lot of the smaller isolated communities there is no investment, and that is where we are having a real problem in regard to delivering this program. We do have programs by way of the Loan Guarantee Program to assist the private sector to get into that market. That’s something that I have been doing over the summer is meeting with people through the different development corporations, the different housing authorities, to get them more involved in the business of building housing.

As a corporation we can’t do it alone, we need the private sector. So that is something we are working on. We do have programs available to assist in that area so that we are working with the private sector, but more importantly through our Loan Guarantee Program we have been working with a lot of major companies. Again, a lot of these corporations will not take the risk in the smaller communities because they know they cannot get these loan guarantees or they don’t have a big enough client base to take on that investment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Supplementary To Question 221-15(3): Private Sector Investment In Housing Development

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Loan Guarantee Program I am familiar with and I know there has been some uptake and it is a good program. But what else can government do? I suggest that there are a number of other areas in conjunction with working with other levels of government, including our partners in municipalities, to provide incentives and tax breaks and things like this. Our corporation could be a major stimulator or catalyst for this kind of thing. I would like to ask the Minister, is the Housing Corporation considering going into other areas to help stimulate private sector investment? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.

Further Return To Question 221-15(3): Private Sector Investment In Housing Development

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a corporation, we are developing our 10-year plan. We are looking at different initiatives. We all know that we are seeing a major decline in the amount of money we get through CMHC, so we are looking at new initiatives. One of the different initiatives we are looking at is selling off a bunch of our assets to make our units more operational. Right now, we are paying a large amount of our dollars on the operational side, in regards to the water, the sewer, the electricity. The utilities are very high in a lot of our communities. We have to find ways of bringing down that cost so we could put more money into building more economically-efficient units. We are looking at multi-units to be able to do that, where you have one mechanical system. You don’t have all of these independent housing units which are costing us a lot of money. In order to do that, we have to be able to find ways of streamlining how we do our business but also get into the area of making it more economically affordable, and also on the operational side that we don’t spend one-third of our money.

I will use an example. In Tulita we are spending almost $400,000 a year just on power. That is a large expense that is being expended. We have to find ways of streamlining our dollars, but being more competitive and also finding ways of being more economically sufficient in the way we deliver our programs, especially on the operational side. We are looking at that. We are looking at building more multiplex units, six or eight-plex units, and also ensuring that it is a more affordable way of developing housing. We also need a bigger client base that have these individual units constructed. We are looking at that. It is part of our 10-year plan.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Supplementary To Question 221-15(3): Private Sector Investment In Housing Development

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I take it from the Minister’s answer that there is a considerable focus going on in the Housing Corporation for social renewing and modernizing our social housing inventory. I certainly support that. I restated or refined my question to look at the market communities, Mr. Speaker, where we already have a private sector base of developers and builders. But, for whatever reason, just in keeping up with demand, therefore, affordability and availability is very difficult. Is the corporation looking at all at anything beyond loan guarantees to the private sector to stimulate more construction in market communities? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.

Further Return To Question 221-15(3): Private Sector Investment In Housing Development

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are doing exactly what the Member is stating. We are working with the private sector through loan guarantees. They are building units here in the city of Yellowknife. In regards to that market, we presently have loan guarantees with companies here in the city of Yellowknife which basically are in the retail business. We are open to that business with any other corporation that is out there. There is that program that is there to stimulate that segment of the economy through these loan guarantees.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Final supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Supplementary To Question 221-15(3): Private Sector Investment In Housing Development

Thank you. I think I have my answer there. The areas that I believe our corporation has not explored and that I would like to see some more action on, more investigation on, Mr. Speaker, are things like tax breaks to developers who create housing for lower and middle income people, and modest grants. I am not talking about something that is going to be a market disrupter, but I would like to see modest grants to developers for that area. Work with tax-based municipalities in order to help them afford some tax incentives for people, investors, to develop this kind of thing. That is where I believe we have room to grow. Be more innovative and be more aggressive. I will ask as my final question, what is the appetite of our Housing Corporation to continue these other innovations in incentives to builders? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Krutko.

Further Return To Question 221-15(3): Private Sector Investment In Housing Development

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now a lot of programs that we do deliver are programs that we administer on behalf of the CMHC. A lot of the direction we do get is federal programs. We just administer it on behalf of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation. I have had a meeting with the federal Minister of Housing. We did discuss looking at the whole mandate of the corporation and look at restructuring it, as we heard in regards to the address by the Prime Minister and also from the Governor General in the Speech from the Throne. Basically, it was clear that housing is an issue that we have to look at nationally. It doesn’t only affect us here in the Northwest Territories, but we also have to be able to look at ways that we deliver housing by looking at a unique system that works for the Northwest Territories. Right now, the direction I was given as the Minister is to look at the mandate of the corporation and streamline the corporation so that we are focusing more on affordability of housing in the Northwest Territories, but also ensuring that we have the resources to continue to meet the demand that is out there.

Like I stated, right now, we have 2,300 units in the Northwest Territories. We realize that, from the information we are getting, we are going to need another 3,000 in the next period of time. At the rate we are going, we are not going to get there. We have to be unique with regard to how we deal with that, but more importantly, we have to work within the confines of the dollars that we do get from the federal government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a few more questions in regard to the North Slave Correctional Centre. I would like to go back to what the Minister was saying in terms of his being satisfied with the staffing levels at the North Slave Correctional Centre. I would like to ask him how he maintains his satisfaction level when, in the last four years, his department has gone through no less than three wardens, five deputy wardens, three deputy wardens of programs, and three deputy wardens of administration? How is that satisfaction? What is the Minister’s definition of satisfied? Has he or his department got any long-term senior management plan for that facility? Perhaps stabilizing these key positions would be a good start. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. There are probably two or three questions there. Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Return To Question 222-15(3): Senior Management Turnover At The North Slave Correctional Centre

Mr. Speaker, I heard way more than two. I am not sure I can remember them all, in fact. We were talking about staffing and vacancies earlier. I pointed out that the number of vacancies has reduced over the past year and is going down very quickly because of the numbers of new trainees who started on October 4th. The Member has pointed out that there have been some changes. We have had a lot of changes related to people working in new positions and learning more about their jobs. There is ongoing training. The training programs are being set up to be online training programs so that all of the staff can participate in them. They can study at their own speed and move forward to take advantage of opportunities. There has been a lot of use of secondment in order to take advantage of knowledge from people from other jurisdictions, for instance. We have had people on secondment from Corrections Canada so that we…

---Laughter

Excuse me. Sorry, Mr. Speaker. We have taken advantage of people’s knowledge from Corrections Canada by bringing them into the system. I am aware of a number of other changes that have been made in order to further opportunities for people for personal growth so that they can apply successfully on senior positions as they open up. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Time for question period has expired, but, Mr. Ramsay, I will allow you a supplementary question.

Supplementary To Question 222-15(3): Senior Management Turnover At The North Slave Correctional Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As part of my four questions, the last one was, if the department had a long-term senior management plan in place for that facility, and by the sounds of it, it is a revolving door, Mr. Speaker. I didn’t hear in the Minister’s response whether or not they indeed had a plan to try to get some stability in these key positions. By the sounds of it, they are moving people in and out at will. I think that is part of the problem that is currently at play at the North Slave Correctional Centre. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 222-15(3): Senior Management Turnover At The North Slave Correctional Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, we have been trying to take advantage secondments to learn from other people. Yes, we have continuous training going on. We have people who work within the Department of Justice to help the staff in all of our facilities develop their skills so that they are better managers. Yes, we are working with staff to try and improve the jobs that they do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Supplementary To Question 222-15(3): Senior Management Turnover At The North Slave Correctional Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I go back to something else the Minister said. That is in regards to people speaking out. The Minister said that they wouldn’t be hung out to dry. In my experience, Mr. Speaker, these people have had a bull’s eye squarely put on their back. I don’t think that is fair. I wanted to ask the Minister why he said this would happen, when, in fact, through my experience, it happens. People that speak out are painted with a bull’s eye squarely on their back and they are left to fend for themselves in that type of environment. It is not fair, Mr. Speaker. I just want the Minister to clarify what he meant that they wouldn’t be hung out to dry. In some instances, they definitely are. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 222-15(3): Senior Management Turnover At The North Slave Correctional Centre

Mr. Speaker, that is pure speculation on the Member’s part, that that would happen here. I don’t believe that it would. I don’t think that the department or the administration now is interested in doing that. I think the interest is genuinely there to make sure that we are doing procedures properly and to identify areas if we are not so that we can strengthen the good and replace the bad. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Supplementary To Question 222-15(3): Senior Management Turnover At The North Slave Correctional Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some more questions, and perhaps tomorrow I will ask these questions, but the last question I have for the Minister today is I just wanted to know how this experiment of going from a security type of institutional setting that typifies a correctional facility to this healing and holistic type of programming is going. What success has been seen to date? If I could, Mr. Speaker, I also wanted to ask how including federal inmates that are housed in the North Slave Correctional Centre impacts this healing and holistic approach and how they are dealt with with the federal inmates as well? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 222-15(3): Senior Management Turnover At The North Slave Correctional Centre

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My learned colleague on the other side has certainly found a way to get in 23 questions when you are only supposed to have four. I will answer those last two, though. In regards to including the federal inmates within the population, it is important to remember that the institution is not maximum security. So the types of individuals who would be considered for placement there by Corrections Canada are going to be consistent with the type of individual that we have in the population generally right now. We certainly take a look at people. If somebody is not suitable to the population, they don’t have to stay within our population. They could find themselves transferred to an institution down south very quickly if they turn out to be not suitable. I have been aware of a number of times that that has happened just in the months that I have been Minister. I know that that sort of issue is watched very carefully. In terms of whether or not this experiment has turned out to be a success, that is like asking, after we expand schooling to include kindergarten, whether or not it is a success after six months. You can’t say that. It is way too early to give that sort of answer. This will take a number of years to prove whether or not it was the right thing to do. What we do know is that the old standard of throwing them into jail and throwing away the key wasn’t working. It wasn’t accomplishing anything. It wasn’t helping people to stop from coming back. Jail was just a revolving door. They got out, they came back. There was nothing that we could point to that was helping people to become ready to participate in society. We are hoping that this experiment will work, but it will be some time before you can point to empirical evidence to show it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are to the Minister of MACA regarding the water treatment plant in Fort Good Hope.

At the Sahtu elders’ gathering in Deline on August 9th to 12th of this year, several of Fort Good Hope's elders wanted to know about the quality of the water at the Fort Good Hope treatment plant.

How often is the water "tested" for quality purposes?

What types of maintenance are done on the treatment plant and how often?

Are there other water treatment plants in the Northwest Territories similar to Fort Good Hope's?

Will the department meet with the Fort Good Hope elders to talk about the results of the report once completed?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I call Committee of the Whole to order. Before us today for Committee of the Whole we have Minister’s statement 48-15(3), Sessional Statement, from the Premier, and Minister’s Statement 49-15(3), Fiscal Update, presented by Minister Roland. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Menicoche.

I move for a break.

---Laughter

I will ask again, what is the wish of the committee with respect to these two Ministers’ statements?

We wish to consider the Sessional Statement, Madam Chair.

Is the committee agreed?

Agreed.

Okay. We will take a break.

---SHORT RECESS

I will call Committee of the Whole to order, and the first item we have today is Minister’s Statement 48-15(3), Sessional Statement, that was presented by Premier Handley. Are there any general comments? We’re going to ask Premier Handley to respond to any comments and questions from where he’s sitting in the Chamber and I would ask the Members if there are any general comments. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Certainly I’m really pleased to see some of the updates and some of the achievements of our visions that we had when we began the Assembly, that we developed in January and February; in particular with regard to the challenging needs of our health and social services needs of all the communities and our whole territory. There was also some progress on addressing our formula financing needs. In particular, I think one of the best things that we’ve achieved so far to date, of course, is balancing our budget for the 2003-2004 fiscal year. That was quite an achievement in itself and that’s one of the things that the constituents that I represent certainly were looking for when they asked me to represent them as MLA for the Nahendeh riding.

That being said, a lot of the constituents have been saying housing is indeed a priority for all the residents and communities, not only in my riding, but throughout the NWT as a whole. My opinion on that is that it doesn’t seem that the government is making it as high a priority as everything else. Some of our achievements to date could make room for making housing more of a priority. I believe over the last three or four years we say housing is a priority, Madam Chair, but our budget continually seems to decline in the housing area. I’d like to bring that to the forefront and say if housing is such a priority for our government, then let’s actually do something about it. I know that we’re trying to address that the best that we can now, but some of the things we’re going to need even I don’t like saying, but we need a huge capital injection just to get some sustainable baseline for housing.

I’d just like to know what the government’s plan for housing in the next year or few years is in terms of making it an actual priority for our government. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments and we have been working hard to achieve our strategy that we collectively set out. I also must say that I’m satisfied with the progress we’ve made in a number of areas. I agree that housing continues to probably be the single biggest and most widespread problem. There are very few communities without issues around housing.

I just want to make a few comments and then I’d like to, Madam Chair, ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation to provide more detail on what we may be doing. We have, as you know, as we’ve said in this House, tried the non-subsidized or unsubsidized housing project which, I think, worked with considerable success. I know Mr. Krutko has met with the federal Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation along with our MP, Minister of Northern Development. He has also looked at some potential projects that we could undertake with those who are providing temporary accommodation for pipeline workers, assuming that the pipeline goes ahead.

In terms of capital injection, yes, we probably do need a capital injection in housing, but at the same time we also need to continue to work toward having people become more self-reliant, more responsible for the care and maintenance of their own homes, so they have that sense of pride. That will continue to be a theme that our government will carry out, as well as trying to meet the capital needs that are necessary.

Madam Chair, I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation if he would like to elaborate on this further. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. I’ve had several meetings with key stakeholders in this. I have met with the Minister responsible for Housing, Mr. Fontana. I’ve met with Ethel Blondin-Andrew, who is now the Secretary of State responsible for Northern Development. I also had a meeting with Bill Erasmus with AFN. They also are looking at housing being one of the critical issues, especially for First Nation communities across Canada.

It is high on the agenda across the nation and I think by building these working relationships through reorganizing and realizing our challenges are different in the North, I think we do need a major influx of program dollars. CMHC backed out of the whole area of social housing a number of years ago and now we’re feeling the effects of that. In the last two years we’ve had a decline in the amount of money we get for social housing from CMHC. I think because of that, we have to be motivated into finding new ways of continuing to deliver programs and continuing at a faster pace.

I’ve also been meeting with people in the different sectors with regard to people in the manufacturing sectors and also with our market housing. Regarding market housing, as far as I’ve seen it, we have put 22 units in place. They’re still not occupied yet. Again, there are 66 beds in seven communities that weren’t there before. We have to try these different initiatives of trying to meet the many restraints we have, especially in smaller communities. The investment has dropped off, but I think we have to work with other organizations.

We have a major project on our doorstep with regard to the pipeline. We’re looking at 300-man camps that are going to be constructed up and down the valley for the construction of this pipeline. I think working with industry, making them aware that we have to have a legacy that when these projects happen that at the end of the day we’re not left without anything. One of the things I’ve been working on with the different companies is looking at the pre-design, preconstruction of these units that are going to come to the Northwest Territories and design them in such a way that they’re able to configure them so they can be converted from industrial trailers into usable residential units. That’s another way that we can look at not only saving costs for ourselves, but making these units affordable to people in communities that can use them right after these projects are over. That we don’t have these massive camps which get trucked in, put on a barge, taken up to the project, used for three years and then demobilized, put back on the barge, sent back south and that’s the end of it. I think we have to be unique in how we look at housing. So we are looking at it in different areas.

But I think as Members of the Legislative Assembly and ourselves, we do have to look outside the box. We’re always restricted to CMHC standards. We have to follow their rules. They tell us what programs to deliver, but I think we have a unique opportunity here now with looking at the mandate of the corporation. We should be tabling here shortly phase two with regard to our needs surveys. We need to look at the seniors, single people and disabled people, how they fit in this picture and come forward with our 10-year plan and see where we go in the next 10 years. We want to work with Members in the House to find ways to get us out of this hiccup. We have to do something drastic to find the money to build almost 3,000 units just to meet the demand that’s there right now.

We have had the private sector come on board, assisting us in different areas, but again, we have to find new ways of building these partnerships with the federal government, with AFN through the aboriginal funding programs they have, ourselves as government and people in the private sector. So those are some of the things that we are looking at to try and move ahead. But definitely having an influx of resources in this area will definitely help, because there are some communities where we’ve seen a little bit of decline with regard to the needs surveys and seeing that we have made some gains in that area. In other areas we have not seen the change. The numbers are still constant. We have to start trying to find ways of being open-minded to realize that we may need to try something different. Thank you.

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