Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We've been working with the RCMP and the Treasury Board on this for many years, actually. If it was my say, then we would be moving ahead at a faster rate, but it is not up to us. This is the RCMP at the federal level who are delegating this. At one time, they were looking at getting right out of providing their housing, but now they might be looking at retaining some, so I am not even sure that they are actually really clear at this time on what they are doing. So we are watching them closely. We are supporting them. We have told them we have the capacity and we are...

Thank, Mr. Chair. So, currently, we are looking at not as many individual units. We are looking at more of a multi-unit design where the energy efficiency would be better. We are looking at boilers, biomass, solar heat. LED light bulbs have been but into all of the public housing units. So we are looking at a variety of energy-efficient means so that we can actually be more energy efficient. Within the day of climate change, it's important for us all to be conscious of what we are doing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the 2018-2019 Main Estimates for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. While the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation's estimates propose an operating budget decrease of $845,000 or 0.8 per cent from the 2017-2018 Main Estimates, the Government of the Northwest Territories contribution is increasing by $1.5 million to $76.4 million.

The proposed estimates include forced growth of $550,000 for housing, water, and sanitation services, as well as an increase of $2.9 million towards the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Housing Initiative...

Thank you. I was just trying to think of the name of the infrastructure or funding that we just announced today with the federal government. That one I believe is called the Building Canada Plan, Phase 2. I may be incorrect, but I believe it's called that.

That infrastructure money that was announced today actually is not to address the housing. The housing infrastructure, the housing money is actually coming through within the National Housing Strategy. I have a FPT in the middle of April, if they don't change the date, because they've changed it a couple of times so far. We'll be looking at...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As stated before, the surplus that they are looking at now is going to build a six-plex. The intent is to actually provide more housing supports in every community, so, yes, the intent is to keep the monies in the communities. It's not to penalize communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It isn't the responsibility of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation to pay for the rental officer. There are a lot of services. If there are not enough building contractors in the communities, does that mean we should start new businesses? If there are not enough suppliers, should we start the suppliers? Our job is to keep people in houses, and that is my priority.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have met with the Seniors' Society, who are helping us to get this information out. As well, as stated earlier, we recognize that our website needs to be changed, so we are working on that currently. We are also looking at a communications plan on a regular basis so that not only this program but all of the changes need to be out.

I have given direction, and it was followed through, to make sure every local housing organization, every Aboriginal government, every municipal government, actually had the information on our changes.

Just from the past weekend, one of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We just have started the design work for that currently. As soon as we have got the design finished, construction will begin. It's not okay for LHOs to have $600,000 in reserves. I am not okay with that.

I do want to also state that, when we are doing the cuts across, like I said, over the two years, it has been 1 per cent last year and 1 per cent this year, some of the communities are only getting a reduction of $2,000 per year. Like Mr. Martin said, we are closely monitoring them on a case-by-case basis. If the smaller LHOs do run into a problem with that, a deficit, we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we do monitor the applications to the rental officer. I do want to give credit to the Minister who was responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation before my time.

Previously, many years ago, people were in debt, like $60,000, $100,000. The debts were incredible, insurmountable, and people, they're going to be evicted at that point. The last Minister actually spent a lot of time actually getting people to try to pay their debts. It was very successful, with a 110 per cent collection rate, which means people were mostly paying up their current rents and dealing with...

The primary reason, yes, is the copayment. Like I have said many times, people that are making $20,000 can't afford to pay 10 per cent. With the changes where anyone under $60,000 doesn't need to have a copayment towards the CARE programs, we are hoping that there will be an increase in uptake within that. Again, this is one that we are watching carefully.

It needs to be noted that the Housing Corporation has gone through a lot of changes and more changes to come. Within that, there may have to be some reallocations of funding to make sure that the programs we are changing are adequately funded...