Mr. Speaker, my Member’s statement today is in regards to helping the people in the Sahtu, especially the people in Colville Lake who have asked me on numerous occasions if they can build their own home, simple homes in the communities where these young families, older people that could build a simple log home, simple home in the communities that would help the GNWT with these resources. The benefits of these people in my communities in the Sahtu, again Colville Lake, is to harvest the logs and have some skill capacity development going on in the community, get people working. This would support the vision and the goals of this 16th Assembly in terms of a vibrant, healthy, educated people in the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, the importance of this has many benefits to people who could build their own homes in terms of passing on tradition, looking at basic ways that they could build their homes in their communities by improving the economy in the communities.
Mr. Speaker, there are 16 percent of homes in the Sahtu that are considered overcrowded. There are a lot of young families that want to build their own homes. However, they are looking forward to the initiatives under the Housing Corporation to see if this is a possibility where they can build some homes in the communities. I want to ask this government and this specific Crown corporation, the NWT Housing Corporation, if it is open to looking at ways that they can put more homes in the communities.
Mr. Speaker, the community of Colville Lake, again, expresses very strongly, the same with the people in Tulita and also in the other Sahtu communities, in terms of how do we get people into homeownership programs that would be basically having people feel that they have a home, something they can be proud of, something that they can pass on to the children, rather than living in public housing units from generation to generation.
At the appropriate time, I am going to ask the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation what types of programs are there to help people to get into their own homes such as constructing simple log houses in their communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
