My question is for the Minister of Housing. As I mentioned in my statement, energy costs are down right now. We have an opportunity to move on this, and move in ways that keep energy costs down in the long run for us. One, of course, is the Housing Program, a cost-shared program. Housing has committed to doing an evaluation of a sample of houses to determine requirements to bring them up to meet the EnerGuide for Houses 80 standard. Given the recognition of a need for an economic stimulus and the availability of federal dollars not matching funds, will dollars be accelerated and the program be accelerated so those assessments, which were planned over a year, I believe, could be done very quickly and we can get on to actually reducing energy requirements through those renovations? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Honourable Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The new housing trust dollars was announced a short time ago and we’re still working with our staff to come up with plans, and we’ll be drafting a letter that we’ll be submitting to the chair to request some time to make a presentation before we go out in the public as what we’re going to be doing. It’s expected that our dollars would be invested in the areas of homeownership in our public housing stock, and repairs and upgrades for energy efficiency. Thank you.
Again I repeat, the opportunity is there. There is also a Green Infrastructure Program that this program could be applying aggressively on. Is the Minister aggressively going after these dollars and looking at this program to recognize this opportunity and act on it to bring these houses up in a much more accelerated way through the economic stimulus packages that we have before us?
I like to think that I was actively pursuing dollars, as a result of this investment in our Territory. We’ve also had some success in a Home Repair Program that was announced recently. We’re calculating what our share would be, and I think there’s an additional three and a half million dollars. Yes, we are pursuing any additional dollars out there. We’ve been to Ottawa. The Premier has also been travelling to make that pitch to the people in the federal government, to help us with the situation in the area of housing and the high cost of living in the Territories. Thank you.
All kudos to the Minister. He has been highly successful, and I recognize that. But today our public demands much more than just throwing dollars at issues. They want to know they’re getting good value for dollars. Where is the green infrastructure? Where is the cutting down our future expenses? What is this Minister doing to take those dollars and turn them into double the value through these energy efficiency programs?
We had a small window of opportunity before our dollar value, oil value goes through the roof for our expenses. When are we going to take advantage of this window on the energy efficiency with public housing?
Again, I’d like to have further detailed discussion through the committee process. But we intend to look at our current housing stock. We have 2,400 units and a lot of them are coming to the point where they need a midlife retrofit, they need to be looked at in terms of energy efficiency, and that’s what we’ll be doing. We’ll also be working with the homeowners in the different communities to provide programs that will help and assist upgrade and look at energy efficiency as part of the requirements. Of course, we’ll be looking at investing in Homeownership Programs.
We certainly have many areas that need investment and we need to have that discussion with committee. There is probably a need for another 2,300, 2,400 units across the Territories. That probably is going to be a real challenge at any point to build, because these dollars are not coming with O and M dollars and the focus has to be what we have currently in our public housing stock, with energy efficiency in mind. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks for those comments from the Minister. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss these things, and I’d like to think that the Minister has made a commitment to discussing all the opportunities. Certainly, if we do deal with operation and maintenance costs in the short term, we’re going to have dollars for housing in the long term. We can no longer do business as usual. So can I assume that the Minister is committed to having discussions on ways to turn those dollars towards energy efficiency in ways that will give us many more returns than just building houses and business as usual? Thank you very much.
Absolutely. In the area of public housing, we really don’t have a lot of choice. We either have to look at lowering the cost of operating these units through energy efficiency or through alternate fuels or things of that nature or we really have to consider reducing our stock or raising our rents. Those are our options in front of us. The federal government has been reducing the investment and the support for operation and maintenance for public housing for many years. This year it’s three quarters of a million and it just continues to the point where in 2038 we will have no investment for operation and maintenance of public housing. So it is something we are looking at very seriously and any way we can save money or any way we can introduce projects or programs that will help us save so we can reinvest in the O and M, it would be beneficial for us. We are interested in all areas. Thank you.
