Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in the day I spoke about federal housing that was owned by the federal government that was not transferred to our territorial government.
I would like to ask the Minister of Housing, in his capacity does he know why we didn’t have access to that available housing? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister of Housing, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The initial discussions on devolution, the transfer of the federal houses over to the GNWT was not included in those initial discussions. Thank you.
It was brought to my attention that this is a huge opportunity to alleviate housing needs in Fort Simpson. I understand there are other communities that do have some federal housing that’s still maintained by the federal government. I think it’s Hay River, Inuvik, there might even be some in Yellowknife, but it’s huge opportunities.
I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, what process would our government undertake to see if we can get these houses from the federal government? Thank you.
The NWT Housing Corporation met with Public Works Canada officials in September to discuss their plans on disposing of these units in the regional centres. I’m not quite sure of the actual discussions yet or what the outcome of that was, but if there is opportunity for us to get those units and turn them into housing units or use them for homeownership in the communities, then I think it is one that we would have to look at. It would have to make sense from our point of view. They would have to meet all the proper codes that we require and they have to be ones that have to be pretty well move in ready. Thank you.
Perhaps I can ask the Minister if he can initiate the next set of discussions with Public Works and Services of the federal government and see what can be done about these units in these communities, because they can help our residents I am sure.
Mr. Speaker, with our move toward more multi-unit type configurations, they have a lot of single units that we are not too interested in; however, we would support eligible clients if they were to want to purchase one of those units using one of our homeownership programs, the PATH program for example. If they qualified and the unit was up to standards, then we would support them in their pursuit of trying to buy some of these former federal units. But we will continue to have those discussions and see if there are ways for opportunities for us to inherit those or get those into our inventory. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I think it begins at this point, I am not too sure if there will be another post-mortem with devolution with the federal government, but perhaps the Minister can raise this with his colleagues or else the Minister of Public Works and Services and say there is definitely a need. I know that in Fort Simpson, if we converted them over to the local housing organization, it would certainly alleviate a waiting list that is almost five years long. Thank you.
As I said, we will explore our options and if there are opportunities for us to do something with these units, if they meet the criteria that we have and if the deal is pretty good, then we will look at taking the next step.
I will have discussions with my colleagues, and the Housing Corporation will continue having discussions with Public Works and just see what opportunities are out there. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
