Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Today my questions are for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. Today, we learned via the media that the NWT Housing Corporation is planning to provide brand new housing units in Norman Wells, Inuvik, Fort Smith, Hay River, and Fort Simpson for the RCMP. Why is the NWT Housing Corporation taking on this role when the federal spokesman is quoted as saying that it doesn't provide value for money? Thank you.
Masi. Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The federal government, as people know, is getting out of the staff housing for the RCMP. They approached the NWT Housing Corporation. We look at this as two things. One is that to retain employment within our communities, we need to have housing for the RCMP to be in the communities. The other thing is it will be a revenue resource. With the declining CMHC funding, we are looking at the revenue that would come from that to be able to transfer into the operating and maintenance for public housing. Thank you.
I know from the same media source that this plan has not yet been taken to the Financial Management Board for approval, and I do wonder if that is putting the cart before the horse. But before going to FMB, can the Minister confirm there is no existing capacity to meet these RCMP housing needs in the privately owned market in the communities where they are getting out of housing?
The priority for the RCMP housing would be non-market communities where there are no landlords that provide it. Those would be the first ones that we would be looking at.
Thank you to the Minister. This list of communities, I believe, has some market capacity. Once again, Norman Wells, Inuvik, Fort Smith, Hay River, and Fort Simpson. It was the Minister of Justice who told us that the RCMP was looking at getting out of housing in these communities. I just want to reiterate my question, whether the Minister can confirm there is no existing capacity in any of those communities to meet current RCMP housing needs.
The agreement with the federal government was to look at the housing for RCMP territory-wide. We are, however, willing to meet with the SCOSD committee to be able to review it and see if they would like changes to it.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
I would like to ask the Minister whether she knows what is going to happen to the housing that the feds no longer want or need.
At this point, no, we don’t know what their plans are, but we can inquire and we can get back to the Member on that.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
