Thank you, Mr. Chair. The associate deputy minister Saturnino has been working with the forum, and they're at the stage of initial scoping at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. So in terms of scoping, I suppose, how are we contemplating how that process will look like? I recognize it's early days; you probably don't want to speak to specifics, and I can respect that as things are underway. But if there is anything that you can elaborate on at this point, I'd appreciate it. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Kelly will provide more specifics to that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So during the renewal, a number of areas were brought up, including the relationship between the LHOs and Housing NWT. The intention is to work with the housing forum and then engage more with other partners on that legislation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thanks. Well, I'm hoping that's hinting at more collaboration, more ability to be locally appropriate for Housing NWT and the LHOs. But I -- again, I don't want to preclude those conversations; I just want to sort of understand the vision. So unless the Minister has anything further to add, I'll leave it there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to elaborate on that, and with Dr. Kelly here, the one thing that we have discussed with Housing NWT and our strategic renewal approach was working with Indigenous governments. And part of the mandate for the Government of the Northwest Territories is working more closely with Indigenous governments, especially concerning their distinction-based funding and having that as part of the change in legislation for Housing NWT. So, again, like the president indicated, there's initial scoping, there is ideas, but we will provide that more to the committee when we have more information. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Was there any further questions from Great Slave? Thank you. Next on my list I got the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just switching gears here. Oh, thank you. I just wanted to ask about the pretty significant, almost million dollar, reduction to the policy and planning division. Can the Minister and her staff explain what those reductions entailed. Is there a reduction of capacity of that division as a result? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Policy and planning division, so $748,000 decrease. This is primarily explained by additional staffing for the homelessness section, plus $370,000 in addition, federally funded training and development for shelter staff. So there was some federal funds to the policy and planning division. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I do apologize, I'm a bit confused by the Minister's answer because what I see in the budget is a reduction from 2167 to 1305, and the Minister just described increases.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
My apologies, Mr. Chair. Yes, I was in the wrong line item here. It's been a long day. Anyway. So sunset for internally funded positions, initiative positions, including the manager for community housing planning, community housing planner, homelessness specialist, and a manager of communications. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And these are funded again -- Mr. Martin just indicated these are funded internally. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'm going to go to the Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so, yeah, just to be crystal clear on this, have we lost these positions, or are they -- just the way that they're being funded has changed? So -- okay, Ms. Reid is over here -- sorry, Member from Great Slave seems to be confirming. But I just want to make sure that we haven't lost that capacity because certainly we -- you know, when I look at the policy and planning division description, we definitely need that going on in the department, housing being such a high priority of the Assembly. So if the Minister can just confirm we haven't lost the capacity within the department. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just to be crystal clear, I'll give it to Mr. Martin here to provide that answer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the vice-president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the adjustments from 2024-2025 mains was to remove the manager of community housing planning, the community housing planner, the homelessness specialist, and the manager of communications. These were previously included in the prior year mains, and we moved these initiative positions to internal resources to be funded internally. Now, the position's so that have been carried over to 2025-2026 to be funded internally, we now are going to be funding six positions out of internal resources. And the six positions include the associate deputy minister, senior advisor to the associate deputy minister, senior planning and evaluation specialist that was mentioned previously by our president, manager of communications comes forward, manager of community housing planning came forward, a policy analyst, and the final position for 2025-2026 is a pathfinder position, integrated services delivery for housing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Okay, thank you. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I really appreciate those answers and understanding better what's going on within the division.
I do note that the president kind of mentioned in her answer the community housing plans, and I am curious is that -- was updating the community housing plans, has that project been completed? Is there -- or is that ongoing work?
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. President Kelly will provide an update on the community housing plans.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the community housing planning initiative predated some of the funding that was provided to Indigenous governments, and so -- for housing. And in some cases our focus with Indigenous governments and communities has shifted. So what we've done is those that want to continue to work on those community housing plans, we're working -- working with them, and if they want to work on different -- and focus on different options, we're focusing on those. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all my questions for this page.
Thank you. Are there any further questions? Okay, seeing no further questions. We will move on to non-residential building operations starting on page 396. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to ask whether Housing NWT is considering getting out of the business of leasing buildings, I mean, to other GNWT departments or other community-based organizations and whether, for example, this activity would be better housed under, like, Department of Infrastructure. I guess -- okay, I'll just leave that as my first question to the Minister. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Kelly will provide an answer to that question. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're not considering that at this time, and we would prefer to keep them with Housing NWT because the revenues fund some of the repairs and other things that the housing corporation does. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I don't -- under the expenditures related to this, I don't see anything listed by way of, like, the staff costs of managing these leases unless I'm missing something in the list there. But is the cost of staff time managing this included anywhere in this budget laid out on page 397? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. President Kelly will provide information around the staff costs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the president.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any costs from a staffing perspective would be in the section that -- where we just came from, where it speaks to the staffing costs for the corporation. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go back to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay. I mean, I'll just -- I'll just point out at this point, I understand that housing gets revenues from this that it can recycle into its other operations and that that is a benefit. But given that, you know, most of the funding for Housing NWT is coming from the GNWT, if it was determined that, like, leasing of commercial or non-residential space could be done more efficiently by another department that's doing a lot more of this and that somehow the revenues from that could still be guaranteed to go to Housing NWT, I would just urge that that could be something that might be a worthwhile measure given that I'm not certain how it fits with the mandate of Housing NWT to be managing, you know, commercial or non-residential leases. But I'll just -- I'll leave it there for now. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Any further questions from Members? Okay.
You want to answer that?
You want to answer that then, Minister? Sorry, I'm ahead of myself here.
