David Krutko

General comments? Detail. Okay, we can turn to page 5-41, financial summary. At this time I’d like to suggest we defer that page. Agreed?

Just in regard to the latest report on the needs surveys, how soon is the department going to get back to us on how they’re going to deal with some of these statistics indicating core need, adequate housing, and stuff like that? I know that we’ve just concluded the allocation of units, because I was pointing out to Mr. Beaulieu that Colville Lake is getting $375,000 yet they’re at 95 percent core need. For that amount of money I don’t think we can really solve the problem. Hopefully this department will be able to identify those areas of intention, especially now that we have a needs survey...

Moving on to page 5-49, financial and infrastructure services, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. General comments in regards to the Housing Corporation. Mr. Yakeleya.

Yes.

Good question. Minister of Housing.

---Laughter

Does committee agree if the Minister brings in his witnesses?

Another question I have in regard to this page is the majority of the projects are in regard to retrofits. I know that the local housing authorities, in most cases, do most of the retrofits on their own. I’m just wondering, is there extra money available for a community housing authority to take on more capacity by hiring more people when they have to basically do these major retrofits. So I think that, if anything, this is a perfect opportunity, especially for our communities who are struggling economically.

There’s not much happening, especially in the Beaufort-Delta region and people are...

I think one of the most accessible programs that we delivered in the Northwest Territories where we don’t have LHOs or people basically still are pretty independent was the HAP housing program where people went out of their way. They cut their logs. They took the initiative on themselves. They got a lot. They basically went out, put sweat equity into this thing. They helped build the house. At the end of the day, they owned it. Yet, there was money there to deal with electrical issues, deal with the mechanical stuff which was separate from the program. I think that, if anything, that is how we...

I’d like to call the House back to order. At this time, I’d like to ask the Minister of the Housing Corporation if he’d like to bring in witnesses. Mr. McLeod.