Caroline Cochrane

Currently, the implementation is not in the business plan.

As stated before, we have put forward a proposal to the standing committee; we are hoping that they will be reasonable and in recognizing that 911 is one of the initiatives that we are looking at if we can get the reductions that we need to be able to put money into new initiatives.

The policy that we are speaking about right now is actually not an easy policy; it's very difficult. The reason that we did put on a time line of the forgivable loans starting to come off after five years and up to a ten-year period is because we found that, when we were doing the loans to people — some people, not all, in fairness — some of the people that we were providing the loans to were actually turning around and selling the units soon after they'd gotten the loans.

So they had fixed up their house, gotten up to $100,000 on taxpayers' money, and then turned around and sold the unit. So...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently the policy for family members who inherit a debt from a deceased parent and get ownership of the house is that, if they decide to sell the unit, they either have to pay back the loan that was taken by the parent or else. If they wish to stay in the unit, they can take on the forgivable loan and they would just take it on. It is a forgivable loan, so if you stay in the unit over five years it starts to come off without financial contributions. So that is the current policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As stated many times, we are currently doing the engagement survey that will be coming out -- it should be in the MLAs' hands for the last review of the format and the questions. It will be going out to every user of Housing's services and every employee and local housing organization for their feedback.

We are giving two months for the feedback to be brought in, so starting in January we will be doing a thorough review of every single policy and every single program that we offer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the new Minister  I've taken over the Municipal and Community Affairs  I was aware that the audit was in the process, but it was only yesterday or the day before yesterday that the audit was shared with me. It is a confidential document and is not allowed to be distributed until it's finished. So, being that I've only just been presented with the audit by the auditors, and I'm not sure if it was yesterday or the day before but just within the last two days, I haven't really thought about all of the costing, in all honesty. I'm still looking at the recommendations and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, that is not correct. Price is one factor that we look at. There are a variety of factors that we look at when we define who will be the successful bidder, such as the northern -- the business incentive policy process, whether they are locally, whether they are community. So there are a number of factors that we look at when we determine who will be the winning component. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. At this point, we haven't actually made a formalized plan on what we are going to be doing because I did make a commitment to listening to the community members, but we have talked in draft about different areas, mortgages, lease to own, a variety of different options for home ownership that we will be expanding on once the survey results are in. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, as I had stated in the first question from the Member, actually I did explain that mould remediation actually is a specialized procedure and so not everyone can actually perform that work. There are two companies in the Member's area that can do that work, but they were at capacity with other jobs and so they weren't interested in taking that on. Therefore, we had no choice other than to look elsewhere because our priority is to deal with the mould. It was a priority, so we took what was available to us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the commitment made to MLA Testart, we have committed that in future we will change the names from affordable housing for the RCMP units. Thank you, Mr. Chair.