David Krutko

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working with the community of Fort Liard. The leadership in the community is in the process of establishing a community housing board to deal with these housing issues, and that will establish an officer to work with the community to take on more of that responsibility. Right now, it is administered pretty well out of Fort Simpson. By doing that, we will devolve more of that authority to that community and allow them to make decisions with housing. We are working with the community leaders, the hamlet, the band council, and also proceeding...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regards to Fort Liard, we have had a problem with the Kotaneelee units. We have put $1 million in there to do renovations of the units. We have completed four. We have had meetings with the municipality, the hamlet and the band council for them to conclude the remaining six units. But in this year’s budget, we are looking at allocating five more units into Fort Liard. With that and ongoing funding, we hope to address the housing needs in Fort Liard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to recognize a constituent of mine, Mr. Donnie Roberts, who is also a regional vice-president of the UNW in Fort McPherson. I would like to welcome you, Donnie.

---Applause

Mr. Speaker, I have a return to oral question asked by Mr. Lafferty on October 25, 2005, regarding the rent scale used by the NWT Housing Corporation for public housing.

Specifically, Mr. Lafferty asked how the rent scale is determined.

The rental amount is derived from a household's monthly income. This is the same in all communities. The cost of living and unit condition reductions are then subtracted from this. The cost of living reduction is a variable number and is dependent on the community and the number of people in the household.

The rent scale embodies the principle that residents of...

Mr. Speaker, just to clear up the Member's issue regarding the $20 million, we have made no investment in this project. The only time there will be a financial investment will be at the end of the pipeline project, when we will consider looking at acquiring these facilities. So there is no investment by way of dollars switching hands here. It is not going to happen for the next five years.

Right now, it's basically a concept that's being put forward, which is unique in regard to the possibility of having a way of solving our housing crises up and down the valley. I think, in order to do...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I will commit to that. I think it’s important that we do move on this very quickly. With the announcement of the pipeline, there will be a decision made on who will get the contract to build workforce camps for this project that will be purchased through the Mackenzie pipeline project itself. So they will have to make that decision. I am committed to that, but we do have to move on this.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I did have an opportunity at the Far North Oil and Gas Conference where there were some members of the Hay River council. We offered them a tour of the ATCO Novel facility. We also put them in contact with the people who work for ATCO with regard to this project. The issue of the possibility came up of developing some sort of plant facility in the North. There are certain components of these facilities that can be built in the North by these portable plants. They have plants all around the world and there is no reason why we can’t do that. Through those...

Mr. Speaker, again, I met with the individual a year ago. Basically, at that time, we asked him to put a proposal forward. It has to have a good business case behind it, and it has to be financially sound. That was the offer given at that time. To date, we have not received any correspondence regarding that proposal. So unless we have a proposal, we don't really have anything to talk about. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have met with people in the private sector; I've toured different plants in the territory; and I've talked to a lot of people in the private sector about coming forward with a proposal that's a good business case and has financially sound information in it, so that we can proceed on pilot projects. I have not received anything from any of these companies to date, yet they're asking for $3 million to make an investment from this government, with no documentation to back that up. So unless we get that documentation, we will continue to talk with other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will commit to look at my schedule, and see how we can fit in one or two days in November. Thank you.