Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize. I should have actually done an update. As soon as we hear more from the RCMP, we will do a Minister's statement to keep the Members informed of what is happening with the RCMP initiative. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do want to address it even though it was just brought up as a comment. The Transitional Rent Supplement Program would not be one that I would look at to address with seniors in its current form, in that it is only a two-year program and it is one of the policies that I do want to change. I do not believe that a twoyear program is the most effective use of that funding. I also state that, when it comes to the till, to the money for housing, we are strong advocates federally. We have been knocking on the federal door. Our Prime Minister has promised us that there will be exciting news in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on affordability, within the market communities, we try not to compete with them when it comes to public housing units, so we are not going to flood the market and build a whole bunch of new public housing units when we actually have vacancies within communities. Like I said, I am not a fan of the transitional rent supplement program. It was not, in my opinion, an effective program. We did not give people the training that they needed to be able to get off after two years. So, instead of a transitional rent supplement program, perhaps we need to look at a rent...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the Government of the Northwest Territories did actually acknowledge that seniors aging in place is a priority and so, therefore, we agreed to do the $500,000 increase to the SAFE program on page 362. So we actually have an extra $500,000 that we are putting into assist seniors to age in place, so it's not that we're not working with you. Then again, like I say, we are expecting the federal government to come with substantial -- in fact, when Prime Minister Trudeau was in Yellowknife he said that there would be billions of dollars for housing provided, so we are...

During the current fiscal year, actually, we are building fourplex shelters within the communities of Aklavik, Behchoko, and Fort Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Currently, we have positions for 10 to 15 apprenticeships. At this point, nine of them are filled, but it will be an area that we will be looking going within our program renewal because providing capacity within the communities is part of the answer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The program renewal is the biggest priority of the corporation this fiscal year coming up, and so I see that the rent supplement program will be like I said, there are easy, medium, and hard ones to do; it is one of the easier ones. It is not something that we have to go crossdepartmental or crossjurisdictional, so I see it as happening within the first six months from today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although I do not want to be known as the Minister who always says yes, in this case I will say yes that we will consider that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do recognize that there is a huge need to provide seniors' housing, so we are looking at that. For many years, we focused on multifamily units. We are looking at continuing with multifamily, but also looking at singles' units that will work with seniors, as well. We are looking at seniors' market rental units so that we can actually have combined seniors' units, and that will bring in some income. So, it will be a combined seniors' centre that has some market rental units that people can afford and some public housing, which would supplement that, as well.

Like I have...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize for the miscommunication. No, the money that the federal government gave us we used to renovate the other four family violence shelters. Tuktoyaktuk actually, above and beyond the federal money, the Government of the Northwest Territories through the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, so outside of this money, we provided them a unit that they can use for their shelter because their shelter was beyond economical repair. That is on top of the federal money. Thank you, Mr. Chair.