Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The total at the end of the fiscal year was $5,762,221 with the local housing organizations. I agree, it is not appropriate. We have asked all of the local housing organizations to provide us a game plan on what they are going to do with their surpluses because that money should be going into people's homes.

Also, in our budget, you will see there is a decrease of $212,000 that we have put into the local housing organizations. The reason we are doing that is, if they have over a $5 million surplus, we need to reuse that money for different areas, but it will be casebycase...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do try to do the apprenticeships through the local housing organizations. We have made exceptions, though, when the local housing organization does not have the Journeyman certification to provide the training. So again, clarification saying that preferably within the local housing organizations but we will make exceptions if there is no other option. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The increase to the Nahendeh District is actually $310,000. That is the modified SAFE program for seniors. We will get Aging-in-Place, we will get $82,000 of that and they amortization increase is $228,000 for additional assets coming into service. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have already committed to exploring the idea of more cooperatives as an option. I will also commit to bringing that to the other departments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That is correct that we only have 12 certified. It does, again, lead an area that we need to look at. We do have nine who are in currently in our apprenticeship programs, and it does identify that we need to look at the reasons that people are not completing our apprenticeship programs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point, we know exactly what we spent on the program. We do know that there has been low uptake on the program. We have not done a formal evaluation, but we can pull together a report that we can actually share with the Members. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left is Tom Williams, the president and CEO of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. On my immediate right is Mr. Jim Martin, the vice-president of Finance and Infrastructure Service. On the far right is Franklin Carpenter, who is the vice-president of Programs and District Operations. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Sorry, Mr. Chair, I will need clarification of the question.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm a bit confused. I'm going to try to answer it if possible. So again, we're open to a lot of different areas so that we can look at home ownership. If the survey comes back and says that people want us to look at cash and carry to the bank, then we'll look at that, but at this point we aren't looking at doing a new program that addresses giving out mortgages. We are more looking at using the available stock that we have and turning those over into home ownership packages for people, people who have been constantly paying their rent, have been showing that they are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, the cooperative housing unit that the Member does speak to, I used to live in that just a couple of years ago, so I am very familiar with that unit that he addresses, and it is a nice unit. We, the NWT Housing Corporation, actually provides partial funding for those, as well. We provide funding to most of the cooperatives. In all honestly, I had never thought about that, but I am hoping that it will come up within the housing survey. Now that it has been brought to my attention, I will consider that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.