Bill Braden

Well, that’s a disappointing bit of news. It obviously takes away from the ability of this Legislature, and I would think others across Canada, to be able to make good decisions. We are handed a huge bill of goods, given the size of our airport and our population -- $11.2 million -- and we’re told pay it. There are good reasons for it -- security -- but I need to be convinced that as part of the Canadian traveling public and under the demand from a federal system, that we’re getting as square a deal or perhaps as bad a deal as anybody else in Canada. Mr. Chairman, I’m sort of layering this...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Honourable David Krutko, Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.

How many market housing units will be installed, in what community and by when?

As of today, how many units are occupied?

By what professions?

What market research did the NWT Housing Corporation undertake to identify potential tenants and determine their needs/expectations before committing to the market housing initiative?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Chairman, this sounds good. How much then is actually being spent for the detection system in billing requirements itself and then how much for these additional up-fits, I think is the word of the day? Thank you.

Okay, so $11.2 million. I'm just doing the math on the fly here, Mr. Chairman. We're going to get $6.6 million from the travelling public, we've been asked to approve $3.4 million, that makes $10 million. Where's the other $1.2 million coming from? Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ramsay and Mr. Dent have covered some of the ground on this project. I should state from the outset that I, too, have some big concerns about this. On one hand, I appreciate the need to be part of a secure and responsible screening and security network of Canada, and the government and the travelling public in the Northwest Territories should accept some of the inconvenience and the cost of doing so. However, the scope of this project and the urgency in which it is being implemented speaks to some shortcomings in our system. I'd like to start with just getting...

Mr. Speaker, there was a news account a few weeks ago now, about I believe it was in one of the South Slave communities that a teacher who should have been one of the target tenants had to decline the unit because he found it unaffordable by the time it was installed and in place in that given community. This is the kind of thing that indicates to me that the Housing Corporation perhaps hadn’t done its homework. This is what I’m trying to determine, Mr. Speaker, is that so far we don’t have too much of an indication that the initial part of the program is working. Why should we continue...

Saying no sounds like an easy way about it, but we cannot easily accept this and roll along. I also have some real concerns about the design/build approach, we’re not very good at it, we lost control of the North Slave Correctional Centre through this stage. We have a hospital in Inuvik that is costing an extra $1.8 million more over two years to run the utilities for than anybody could suggest. We’re not very good at these big projects, and I must say that I don’t have a lot of confidence in starting something like this and believing that we are going to get away with $11.2 when we haven’t...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course, I would welcome that information. I would like to ask further though, the corporation undertook at a considerable urgency and expense to put these units on site. Did it really know which communities required these units and whether the intended audience was indeed going to be satisfied with the services? Did the Housing Corporation really do its homework before engaging in this program? Thank you.

That’s okay; we get each other's mail all the time. It’s okay, Madam Chair.

Mr. Speaker, in news reports last week there was indication that the mine has missed some critical deadlines in this process. I won’t go into the detail here, of course, but I would like to ask the Minister if our government is taking any notice of this and what pressures are we bringing to bear on either the process, or DIAND or the company to comply with rules that really have already been in place? Thank you.