Caroline Cochrane

The Housing Corporation was formed in 1974. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I'm going to apologize in advance. Some of the terminology that I'm going to use was terminology of the day; it is not politically correct at this time, but the answer that I have is that the housing programs actually incorporated Indian and Eskimo houses that were built from the early 1960s to about the mid-1960s. Recognizing that, again, that is not the terminology of the day, but at that time, that was the terminology used to name people.

If the MLA sends me an e-mail, I will actually address that to him and more to define exactly what he is looking for. Again, I must state that there are 12 of the 23 local housing organizations that are actually unionized, which in my impression is that it is really hard to tell unionized workers what to do because they are unionized. That does not itself state that they have autonomy over what they do with their funding, and like I say, each one is funded fairly. They are paid based on what we would pay government workers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I respect the intent of this and I just wish it would have gone a bit further. I found that the voter's list was really inappropriate during the campaign period and I kind of wish that this motion was made stronger and actually had a timeline that said that, when the voter's list had to be updated, how many years, et cetera, because that is an issue. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to remind the Regular Member that, before I came into politics, I came from the non-profit sector, which didn't get paid for holidays as well based on if it is fair or not. The reality is that that is not our determination. We fund each local housing organization at a comparable rate to Government of the Northwest Territories levels. Each local housing organization has the ability to define their pay and their benefits and their compensations to their employees themselves. Those wages and benefits are determined by their board of directors. Some of the local housing organizations...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, I appreciate the efforts. I do understand the intent of it, and I agree with the intent of it. I will abstain from this motion just because I do wish that there was something more concrete as a solution, so it is not that I oppose it. It is that I just find that it is not concrete enough for me. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I believe those were two questions, but I will answer them. I do apologize. I had said that the contracts would be available on the procurement website and for some reason, I have learned that there is some issue with not getting them on there. If the Member would like, I will be able to provide her with a manual copy of the contract. I will commit to doing that.

As for the money, some money was provided up front to help. It is not a normal practice, but it was provided up front to support the manufacturing strategy and recognizing that this is a new strategy that we are trying. To date, though...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate the committee on this work. I think it is very progressive that you are actually making the amendments to reflect the current beliefs around gender and inclusiveness, so just my appreciation to the committee for this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

No, the original contract completion dates were between March and June 2017. There were some delays that have been happening, so at this point they have not met the completion date.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Since I do not know that exact figure at this time, I will have to take the question as notice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.