Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to talk about the core challenges being faced by our communities.
You may have been listening to the radio during the last day, this morning and this afternoon, in regard to the housing crisis we have in our community, providing housing to our professional people who are supplying services from education to policing to health care, mental health, social services, SAOs, band managers — you name it. Without adequate housing in our communities for professionals to provide those services, those services will not be acted on.
Mr. Speaker, a critical component of any society is to ensure that the social and economic well-being of the community is sustained by ensuring that programs and services operate, such as education, health care, policing and municipal services. Yet we find ourselves in a predicament that was dealt with several years ago in regard to a government initiative called market housing in communities to provide housing where there was a non-market community.
As we hear in the news, teachers have to face the challenge of finding housing and the high cost of operating and maintaining units in our communities. The situation is not unique to any particular community or region, but it is essentially clear that those communities that are affected most by this scenario are the non tax based, non market communities. As a government we have a responsibility to find unique initiatives, unique ways of dealing with these challenges.
I don’t want to use the bad words by saying staff housing, but we might have to face the reality that that’s what it possibly will be. This government decision, made in the 13th Assembly, to sell off staff housing has come back to haunt us. As a government we have a responsibility to ensure that everything is done either through Market Housing Initiatives, assistance through loan guarantees — such as corporate loan guarantees, which are provided to the Housing Corporation — and any other initiative that can be there to assist communities.
Mr. Speaker, I will be asking the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment questions on this matter later. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
