Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When we looked at the allocations to the local housing organizations, we realized that some of them actually, like you said, had surpluses. Some of them actually had differing numbers. It is a formula that we need to look at, the amount of funding. As stated, we will be looking at and watching the monitoring very closely. I am committed to ensuring over the next two years that, if the local housing organizations may need more financials to be able to meet their needs based on, because they don't get all of the housing units, at that point, then we will look at reinstating...

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize a constituent of mine. I'm going to try again, Mr. David Wasylciw, I think I might as well stick with "W," and a friend of mine, Nora Wedzin, in the gallery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would really appreciate if the MLAs from the different regions would be able to help to get that information out. It is available on the website for the CMHC, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, so, if you can access it there, that has the best description of the program and more than welcome to help to dissimilate that information. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We did a review of the local housing organizations, and we found that a number of them actually had surpluses, so we have scaled back so that those surpluses, it is not okay to have local housing organizations having surpluses. We lowered the amount of funding to them, and we will be looking at different opportunities for them to actually bring in revenue and, if needed, we will increase those as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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.