Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a couple of questions for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. In the Northwest Territories the impediment to a lot of first time home buyers is a down payment. I know that we do have programming at the Housing Corporation that helps people in that regard, but oftentimes people have monies locked into pension plans, such as superannuation and whatnot. I’m wondering if the Housing Corporation has ever given any consideration to looking at implementing a program where people could access or…. They can’t get this money, but they could use it as collateral toward a down payment and then pay it back over a set period of time.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe we’ve…. At least I haven’t been involved in any discussion where loans would be provided on the basis that the Member has mentioned. I could indicate to the Member that we are right now reviewing our thresholds and different ways we can help homeowners deal with the projects that would enhance their homes in terms of energy efficiency. I could certainly include this as part of the discussion so that we can get a better understanding and see if there’s a potential to do something with folks that have dollars locked in and want to utilize some housing loans to help them.
I know the Housing Corporation has helped many people in the North get into their own homes, and I appreciate the help that they have given. I think this would just augment it if they could look at something like this. It could augment a person’s or a couple’s ability to get into their own home. I think that will stimulate the economy. The more people we can have purchasing their own homes and living in their own homes, that’s always a good thing.
I’d like to ask the Minister regarding what he was speaking of earlier. Is that going to come through committee? It sounds like he’s interested in this. Will he be working with the committee to try to get our opinions on things that the Housing Corporation could be looking at?
Yes, Mr. Chairman, it is something that we’d certainly like to consider. My direction to the Housing Corporation was to do a number of things on a number of fronts. One of the areas that had come forward from the Members was the concern over housing projects being left empty because people can’t get into these units because of financing situations — whether it’s low income or high income. We are currently reviewing the thresholds. We can make sure every threshold on the low end for the communities is able to accommodate people adequately. There are different income levels, different costs of living in each community.
We’re also looking at the thresholds on the higher end so that maybe we can increase the number of people that would qualify by opening up by $5,000 or $10,000 more. We certainly wanted to be able to address the high number of people that we are starting to see in the community with high incomes but who just are not in the situation where they can go to the bank, either because they don’t know the process, they’re not able to qualify for loans for various reasons or they just don’t have the ability to wade through the process that’s there. That includes designing units from our organization. So there are a number of things we’d like to do, even though they’re over the threshold. The possibility of providing loans is something we can look at, as the Member has suggested.
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Minister. I welcome his comments. Given the fact that it costs so much to live, especially in the smaller communities, people’s ability to save money for a down payment for a home is inhibited by the cost of living itself and the high rents that they have to pay.
I thought I heard the Minister commit to looking at monies people have locked up in things like superannuation as a ways and a means to perhaps allow them to get into home ownership. Again, I think that was a commitment I heard from the Minister, but he may just want to reiterate the commitment. I look forward to further discussions with the Minister. Mahsi.
As our budgets shrink and the commitment for federal dollars falls off the table, we certainly have to look at being creative, and I welcome any suggestions from the Members. I’ll make a commitment to the Member, as he’s requested.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
