David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, we are working with a few seniors’ societies to look at expanding their senior allocation. Aven’s Centre is one of them. We are also working with the group out of Hay River to look at seniors’ housing. Also, we can get the Member the historical allocations because we do have a lot of seniors’ facilities in a lot of communities. Most of them have been transferred over or used for other uses such as public housing or market housing or whatnot. So I would like to give the Member that and provide him that information in regards to historical numbers. But as...

I think this question is probably better answered by the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if we don’t get the federal funding, we will just deliver the formula we used before, which is 118 units. We have the resources to build 118 units with our own money this year. We are pretty positive we will be receiving the money from the feds; the $50 million over two years.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the whole idea of the Supported Lease Program is to get individuals who have been social clients for a number of years and get people into owning their first home. Through the Supported Lease Program, they lease the unit for two years and pay the costs we would have had to pay, the operational costs, and also ensuring that they are able to maintain the unit over two years. Once we’ve gone through that two-year period, we sit down with the client and work with them to go to the bank and get a mortgage through EDAP, so that we are able to get individuals...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the allocation we're looking at for the federal government is $50 million over two years. If we don't get any of those dollars from the federal government, it will have an impact on our ability to deliver the number of houses we're looking at: over 500 houses over the next three years. It will have an impact on that. The crucial thing is that we have to have that federal funding to be able to deliver the 500 houses. It's just that without that federal funding, we will not be able to deliver 500 houses over the next three years.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there is the only one company in Canada that has a patent on this idea. The company that has the patent is ATCO Structures out of Calgary. No other company has patented the idea. That is what it is. It is an idea of how you take workforce camps and, at the end of the project, and once it is over, you are able to convert it at a cheap cost, useable modular homes. Again, it is all hinging, like the Member mentioned, that once the project is concluded, we will work an arrangement out with the Mackenzie gas pipeline group, not with ATCO; with the outfit that...

No.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In regard to the mandate, this process has been ongoing since last year. It’s something that we’ve been working on. We’ve been having workshops with our local housing authorities. We’ve had workshops with all our maintenance people in the LHOs. We’ve had our regional directors involved in this process. We have done a lot of consultation already with the local housing authorities, with the maintenance staff in those organizations, and also the board of directors that was overseeing this was the regional directors. We have one in almost every region. I think it is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have offered to the Member to travel to Calgary to see this for herself. The offer is out there. It still stands. If she wants to take it, it’s there. The Member also has to realize that by 2011, the project will be completed. So you will have a lot of businesses that will be looking for additional work once the pipeline project has been concluded. Logistically, that’s why we are going into communities to identify with the communities what lands have to be developed and also where they want these Novel houses put. Also, we have to deal with MACA...

Madam Chair, as we all know, the federal Cabinet was just pointed today, so it will take them awhile before they are able to sit down and formulate the dollars that have been approved through Treasury Board, and then it will have to flow to their Cabinet colleagues for approval. So we can't dictate to the federal government on exactly how fast this transition will take place. But it is, basically in order for this government to operate, they will have to approve expenditures. By way of that decision, by way of the Cabinet and Treasury Board, it's out of our ring to dictate when that can...