David Krutko

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to thank Mr. Ramsay for his questions. I definitely support the Member in regard to his request that we do look at more multi-constructed facilities, because it does cost us less to operate and you are able to house more people. We have made a decision that the 75 units that we’re looking at replacing in public housing are going to be multi-constructed facilities. They won’t be single dwellings. We are shifting away from that. So the 75 units that are identified to replace public housing will be multi-plex construction. You mentioned six or eight units and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have had quite a few people looking at this. This is not only coming from us. We have people at CMHC, the federal agency that looks at housing in Canada. We have had people from ATCO, ATCO Frontec, and also we have been working with communities to see exactly what lands are going to be available after the pipeline project is over. I believe that the Member is correct; this ain’t going to happen until 2011. We can’t make a commitment here on something that is going to happen possibly in the 17th Legislative Assembly. Because of that, the federal...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we are committed to the 185 houses that we have budgeted for, but it is hinging on federal support. As we know, there was a call for election. The majority of this money that has been identified has already been approved by the federal House of Commons July 28th when they passed Bill C-48. Bill C-48 was $1.6 billion for housing in Canada, and out of that we put a proposal to my federal colleague, Mr. Fontana, of which we gave him two proposals. One was for 530 houses, $60 million over three years. The proposal went forward to CMHC and he came back in...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we are doing that to ensure that are able to work with the other departments to ensure that we would have this smooth transition to get these units on the ground, and also working with MACA and the Power Corporation and also other departments to ensure that we are able to deliver a number of units. We are going to, but, like the Member says, there are implications in regards to water/sewer delivery, to extension of your power grid, to looking at your road systems and whatnot. I think it is important that there is going to be a major undertaking to do this....

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. None. The decision is made at the regional office.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we have been working with the Seniors’ Society of the Northwest Territories. We have worked out a contribution arrangement with them where we are meeting with them with our program people, explaining the different programs and developing pamphlets and whatnot that are simpler and easier to understand. Like I mentioned, we are trying to consolidate our programs to go from 15 programs to five areas. The seniors are very instrumental in helping us with that. Also, we do have liaison officers. We’re working with communities to sign universal partnership...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member is quite right. The seniors’ subsidy for housing is almost $670,000 and I think that now has been devolved to the Department of Education through the social funding transfer in which we will now look at all social funds in one area and at that time, they will have to look at exactly the cost of these programs. Again, under the existing program they will have to go to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment for the subsidy, which presently we provide by way of the cost to us is $370,000. So those dollars will be coming out of the...

Yes, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am pleased to present the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation main estimates for the fiscal year 2006-2007 for a total contribution of $26.828 million.

This is an increase of 2.4 percent from the 2005-2006 main estimates. Including other revenue sources, the corporation will spend over $120 million on housing in the Northwest Territories this year. This funding includes contributions from our federal partner, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

During 2006-2007, the NWT Housing Corporation is planning a significant increase in our housing...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman, we have identified 33 units to go into communities who are on the winter road system and they have been ordered. We’re hoping to get them in with the winter road this year. So they will be in those communities. We have 33 units already identified. Again, we’re hoping to have a response back as soon as possible from the federal government. Once we get, that then we’ll have a better idea of the rest of the allocations by way of barge and whatnot to the other communities. So right now, the allocation that we have, what they committed to is the allocation...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do have people that do work through the public housing board, which is the LHO, but we also contract that out to the private sector, such as for seniors or through aboriginal organizations.