Kevin A. Menicoche

The Minister must be talking about some O and M dollars, because I don’t see the amount of repair dollars reflected in the pages that are before me. Maybe the Minister can just clarify that? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to support this motion. I will be voting in favour of it. It’s something that constituents have been raising with me for the past seven years, Mr. Speaker, because they always say every time I make extra money, I have to give it over to the housing the following month when I don’t have that extra money. So this is the type of thing we’re talking about. It’s not only for the seasonal workers, Mr. Speaker, it’s also for the ones with a steady job that for whatever reason run into bonus income from overtime, or even VTAs if they’re lucky enough to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. In terms of the eligibility guidelines, should you have a community that doesn’t have enough applicants or else a lot of applicants are being rejected because of those guidelines, is the Minister willing to consider reassessing or relaxing his guidelines so that people in the upper limit, people that are over this net can be eligible for programming and some flexibility for the lower incomes as well? I believe that the people who can afford it should be in those units. Thank you.

In some of our communities in the Northwest Territories we did get some new houses, but the number of affordability problems continues to increase and this trend raises questions about eligibility for housing programs. So just once again, perhaps if I ask a different question a different way, Mr. Speaker, if I can. The current intake was completed October 14th. Does the Minister have enough statistics to compare the number of clients that applied this year as compared to the last three years? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask my question to the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The importance of this day is that we as Regular MLAs will let government know once again of how important housing issues are to our people.

Last week I spoke in the House about how residents are having difficulty being approved for NWT Housing Corporation programming. Many of my constituents are frustrated, because they cannot get assistance due to the eligibility criteria. To be eligible, a person or family cannot make too much money or too little.

This window of core need income threshold guidelines, I feel, is very small. The same problem exists for homeowners who want...

What exactly does lot development mean? Is it the same lot that the unit’s going on so there’s only one other lot being developed, or what’s the process with the lot development?

Thank you very much. That kind of clarifies it to me. That four-plex building, I’m glad to see that it’s back on-line and is being utilized. It’s something that the community of Fort Liard has certainly wanted to see up and running again.

Just in terms of Wrigley, the two units, the duplex, this says replacement of the current public housing unit. Maybe the Minister can comment on that as well.

One of the ways, if you’re going to create a study there, Mr. Chair, I believe that you should address those needs and we’ll certainly have that discussion when we talk about the business planning for 2011-12, Mr. Chair. But in terms of this budget, it’s not really reflective of the identified core need. I was very pleased to see that study, because that study actually only confirmed what my constituents and I have been telling the Housing ministry for years and years, that these needs have to be addressed. In fact, when I go to Fort Liard, they’re saying that they actually need 30 homes to...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I’m pleased to review the infrastructure investment by the NWT Housing Corporation. In my riding, of course, this is one of the regions with the highest core need. So I’m interested to see how the corporation is addressing that fact in the capital plan that’s before us, Mr. Chair. If I could get the Minister to review some of the capital expenditures for the Nahendeh riding just to see how it reflects to address the core need that’s there. I’m just kind of counting quickly and by comparison to other ridings, I don’t see that much, but perhaps there’s more in the...