Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation spoke about the sometimes challenging circumstances with limited resources that the Corporation operates under. I have a solution for the Minister. That is to let the private sector come in and help unburden some of those resources for the people who don't really need them. In many communities, GNWT employees are being given Housing Corporation-owned property. Will the Minister agree to enter into market lease agreements for 50 percent of private market inventory owned by the GNWT Housing Corporation? Thank you.
Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Members know, and when we go and visit our constituents, sometimes one of our biggest issues is finding housing for our nurses, RCMP, teachers, and we want to try to address that. The Housing Corporation typically is the sole housing provider in some of our rural and remote communities. Sometimes, our developers have a hard time doing business or building houses. At the same time, we don't want to be disrupting the market unit. We have tried in some communities and we have had some contractors bring concerns.
One thing that I can tell the Member, as the Members know, I did make an announcement here in the House on that $60 million carve-out fund of the co-investment fund. I would encourage private developers to reach out to our office and work together to see how we can provide affordable housing throughout the Northwest Territories. That fund is going to be a game changer in the Northwest Territories during the life of this government. We are trying to get that information out and work, whether it is a private industry or some of our Indigenous governments, as well.
So, no. I think what I am hearing is that there is this new funding made available, that there is an opportunity for co-investment, but what does that really mean to people who want to get into market rent, for people who want to build equity through their properties to potentially resell them, potentially rent them out and turn it into a business opportunity? Is that something that this fund will facilitate?
As I mentioned in my Minister's statement, as well, we are looking at doing a needs assessment with all of our communities and community housing plans. We would also encourage the private sector to invest in affordable housing. We do have the Community Support Initiative that we can work with, whether it is Indigenous governments or private industry. The Co-Investment Fund is another opportunity that we can work on addressing these issues. I encourage the private industry to reach out to us at the NWT Housing Corporation to have those discussions. Obviously, if we can get other partnerships and stakeholders to help us address our housing needs across the Northwest Territories, we are more than welcome to have those discussions.
Before anyone assumes that this is a Yellowknife-based issue, it is not. The Norman Wells Chamber of Commerce has published a letter that is asking for the GNWT to allow fair market rent to be established by the market supply and demand and for the GNWT to base its programs around that through the Housing Corporation. Is that something the Minister is willing to do in the community of Norman Wells and in other regional centres?
I will just take, for example, the partnership that we have with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation. That is a great partnership that we have developed with them. It is a good opportunity, as well, to share with other Indigenous governments as well as private industry on how we can work to address whether it is market rent or public housing needs, transitional housing.
This co-investment fund, like I have mentioned, we did get a $60 million carve-out on that. It was application-based and very flexible on how we spend those dollars. We want to make sure that information gets out to anybody, any of our stakeholders and our partners that we are working with. I also agree and understand about the regional centres and how we can address those through the community housing plans, but also working with stakeholders to help us address our housing needs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is a difference between self-governments, community governments, and private sector, and that is really what is at the heart of this. You know, it is not about building the units. It is about allowing the private sector to offer that market space and to provide a private sector solution. I am hearing more of a top-down approach, more of a maintenance of the government monopoly. Let's let the private sector come in here. Will the Minister at least reach out to the NWT Chamber of Commerce, to the various chambers of commerce and businesses that wish to be involved in this enterprise, and work with them to develop a solution that works for our private sector here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Yes, we are already doing that. We have reached out to private sector. We are having partnerships. We are doing some pilot projects across the Northwest Territories. We are learning from some past decisions that were made and have taken a better approach to ensure that our investments, the dollars that we are spending, is going as far as they can and meeting the needs of our housing situations throughout the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
