Welcome. The committee has agreed to forego general comments. Does the commit agree to proceed to the detail contained in the tabled document?
Agreed.
Committee, the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation begins on page 71. We will defer the corporation totals and review the estimates by activity summary beginning at page 72 with finance and infrastructure services, with information items on page 73. Are there any questions, comments? Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So I remember sitting here last year, and there was quite a big fight that the Housing Corp was only spending $10 million on capital. And that's kind of the same number that has appeared in every capital budget. And now I see for the first time revised estimates of the current fiscal we're in, and we're spending $104 million. So it probably would have saved us a lot of time and effort if we knew we were spending $100 million and not $10 million. But can someone just update me on where that money came from. You know, I know this I know we had that $60 million carve off, and there was two $30 million announcements, I believe. But, sorry, I just didn't know we were actually spending $90 million this year on capital at present. So can someone tell me where that money came from. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We were very successful, I guess, in our federal engagements and conversations within this year. I'll have vicepresident Jim Martin elaborate. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Vicepresident Martin.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The revised capital estimates for 20222023 of approximately $104 million is comprised of a few components. First off is the typical basefunded capital budget of approximately $10 million. And then in addition to that for this year, we've had approximately $7 million in capital carryovers from the previous year. And this is a result of the additional federal funding that Housing NWT has been receiving over the last couple years. We received $25 million from CMHC in 2021, and we received another $25 million from CIRNAC in 20212022. And those dollars went directly into the capital plan, which is supporting the delivery of 100 new public housing units for the territory, and these are projects that are continuing to proceed and multiyear in nature and, as such, they were carried over. And then the third component is an additional approximately $24 million that has been allocated this year from the initial $30 million allocation from CIRNAC, again under budget 2022. So that's reflected in this year's revised capital estimates as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you. I guess I'll ask the same question about the $35 million we're spending this fiscal. Can someone tell me where that money is coming from. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That is coming from the federal engagement funding that we did receive from CIRNAC. I'll have president Young elaborate. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. President Young.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And so as the Member noted, we had an approximately $10 million capital plan before we signed a new funding agreement with CIRNAC. Once we did receive that funding coming out of the 20222023 budget, we were able to adjust the portion of the $30 million that's going toward capital into this budget and that is what results in the $35 million capital plan. The balance of the $30 million is going into O and M type expenditures, and that's why it's not exactly 30 plus ten. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think I kind of understand that. I guess, does the Housing Corporation have a bit of a I mean, there's I'm looking at, you know, $100 million being spent this year and $35 million for next fiscal and, you know, maybe they'll even be more money. But do we have some sort of public facing other than this page capital plan of where things are going. I admit that I think many MLAs have been confused at times with the different funding pools and what's being built where, but is there a bit of a fiveyear outlook of what we're going and how much we're spending. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have a list of where these projects are going to be and looking at the retrofits that we're going to be working on this year, I'll just have president Young respond as I'm not too sure if we could put this out there publicly or I'm not too sure. I'll have president Young elaborate. Thank you.
President Young.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And, yes, we have historically provided this to committee when requested but, again, because many of these are small projects that we are tendering to not impact the tender prices, we don't put the number of each individual project out publicly. But if requested, we can absolutely share that with committee. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
No further questions. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Just further to the questions from my colleague from Yellowknife North, further than just the tendering process, there's definitely a sense in communities of kind of not knowing what direction Housing is going in or when their units might be updated or retrofitted or what kind of the future of housing looks like in the Northwest Territories. And that's not just even in small communities; that's regional centres. That's even here in Yellowknife. And so even though there's not, I guess, a willingness to put out a public document talking about tendering dollars, is there a willingness to put out a document of the capital plan of what retrofits, what new houses, kind of what is the capital plan, not talking about dollars but talking about how houses on the ground for Housing NWT. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We have a number of retrofits and improvements that will be made throughout the Northwest Territories. We did complete the core need report was well too. I'll just have Jim respond because I just if we were to provide this and provide a technical briefing to share this information that we do have and what has been identified, but it's quite a bit of repairs that would be happening within the next couple of years. I'll have Jim elaborate.
Thank you. Vicepresident Martin.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Housing NWT does develop a range of documents which speaks to planned capital investments. We do go through publishing an annual report every year and that gets tabled here in the Leg. We also participate in the annual business planning process of the GNWT and also provide information regarding capital outlooks in that area. And most recently, we've also developed a core need report which took into consideration the age of our assets and provided a 20year outlook for capital investment needs. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The beauty of the internet is I've now got the annual report in front of me here. And the annual report doesn't tell us what houses in what communities are going to be retrofitted by Housing NWT. It doesn't tell us what communities are going to see new houses. And what I'm thinking of here is that if there are community governments or Indigenous governments that want to get involved in housing and don't have kind of the ability to see where Housing NWT is going, it's hard for them to work in partnership with Housing NWT and to really support that work and to work together. And I know that some Indigenous governments are getting more involved in housing delivery across the territory, and I know that there are intimate conversations happening between Housing NWT and these organizations, but we also know that there are grassroots organizations that want to be involved as well, and they won't have those same the same ability to sit at those tables either. And so in order to have everybody, including NGOs, available to really work on this together, it requires a little bit of foresight into what that capital plan will be.
But I want to go on to my next question, and what I want to understand more is when I look at the statistics of housing in NWT communities and the last kind of overall snapshot we had was in 2019 of done by sorry, Statistics NWT, and what that showed was that Colville Lake had the highest percentage of dwellings with housing issues in the Northwest Territories, and it showed that Colville Lake had 90 percent of its dwellings had housing issues. And what I see when I look at this list is that one unit is earmarked for Colville Lake. And so I'm wondering if the Minister can explain how Housing NWT decides what communities it works on projects in. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister responsible for NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just having a hard time to hear. My earpiece keeps on kind of shutting off and on I guess. But the Member had asked about the number of units that were going to be retrofitted in Colville Lake and how those numbers are determined, is that correct? Thank you.
I'll have vicepresident Jim Martin respond to how the information is collected and how these communities are identified in determining what retrofits need to happen in those specific communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Vicepresident Martin.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Each year Housing NWT goes through a fairly comprehensive review of our housing stock. We take into consideration factors such as the age and condition of our housing assets. We work very closely with our district offices, our local housing organizations, to get a really good sense of things such as maintenance history and other issues that may be emerging throughout the year such as failing foundation situations, etcetera. So it's a fairly comprehensive process to look at the current condition of our stock. We then once we have that baseline information, we then look at our available resources for the year within our fiscal framework, and then we do have to enter into a prioritization process, and we come up with a proposed plan based on need within the resources available.
And Colville Lake, for example, there's two public housing units in the community. And right now the average age of those two units is seven years. And there's other communities that have assets that are much older and that are in greater need of investment. And as a result of that, our limited dollars would be directed to some of those higher priority areas. But we certainly recognize the importance of ensuring that Colville Lake, those units are maintained in a safe condition for our residents. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So as was already noted, last year was a great year with lots of additional investments from the federal government to Housing NWT where they saw revised estimates of $104 million. And so given that at this time last year we didn't know that this was coming, is Housing NWT anticipating working towards the same type of investment in the territory, where they've kind of set that bar and know that hopefully we'll all be able to be seeing the same kind of success next year with revised estimates in the capital plan? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And the Member is correct, and we did receive a out of the federal budget, we did receive 30 $60 million over two years, and we do see carryovers on this submission as well too that just increases that number to $104 million. So I anticipate that we probably would see something very similar as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Are there any further questions, comments to NWT Housing Corporation? Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I look at the list here and it's fairly extensive, and then I look at Hay River and I see 29 units. And I'm just for retrofits, major retrofits. With the flooding that happened this last spring, I'm just wondering where we are with those retrofits; has flooding impacted the work that's being done? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And this delivery here for the retrofits are for public housing. I wanted to just clarify that. And I'll have president Young elaborate on the flood response that happened this year in Simpson and the surrounding communities in Nahendeh and Hay River. Thank you, Madam Chair.
President Young.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And just this morning I had an update so I can provide a fairly timely update to the Member on the work in Hay River.
We are happy to report that we haven't had an awful lot of supply chain issues with the contractors in Hay River. At this point, we're pretty confident that we should have our seniors back in their accommodation by mid to third week of November, and the single family homes very close to that. The only possible slippage we may see is we had one unit that was identified late with the foundation issue. Depending on what our contractors tell us there, that work may have to be completed in the spring when the freezing lets up but we will find that out in the next few weeks. So very good progress from our contractors there in doing the recovery from the flooding in Hay River, and we're really pleased with that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And I see that in Hay River you have the RCMP units going up, and they seem to be moving along fairly steadily, making good time on it. There's two other units I think in Hay River as well, individual units that are going up in the same vicinity. Are they on schedule? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, they are.
