Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, the 90 percent collection rate was the percentage we have been able to collect historically in the year 2004-2005. In 2005-2006, the collection started slipping in the area of rent collection and it dropped down to 76 percent in the year 2006-07. We are now back up to 87 percent collection in the area of rents. Jeff can speak to the mortgages and the collections.

Mr. Chairman, with me I have Jeff Anderson, deputy minister or the acting president of the Housing Corporation; and Revi Lau-a, vice-president of finance and infrastructure services.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, first of all I should thank the Member for his office to help us try to come to some resolution on the issue. I should mention on the land issue we have put together a committee that involves MACA and CMHC and Indian Affairs, I believe, and ourselves to see how we can find our way through this. We are, of course, going to have to make a decision on the carry-overs at some point if we can’t resolve the land issue. Putting into retrofits is certainly an option. Any retrofits or whether it’s a modular unit we’re going to be putting together, that number that was asked about...

Yes, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation’s main estimates for the fiscal year 2009-2010, which requests a total GNWT contribution of $37.820 million.

This is a decrease of 28 percent from the 2008-2009 main estimates and is primarily due to the sunsetting of the Northern Housing Trust, which provided $50 million in federal housing investment over the past three years. Together with other revenues of $69.673 million the corporation will have approximately $107 million available to spend on housing in the Northwest Territories this fiscal year.

As...

Mr. Chairman, that is our goal. The numbers are very much correct and our target is to bring the core needs down. They are all relatively high. Based on 2004 information, we have to remember that and we should have our new core need figures for review or for public release in early summer of this year.

Our target, our goal, is to get all the core needs in the communities down to the national average, which I think is around 12 percent. We are still a long ways from that. We have, or will have, spent well over a million dollars in the last couple of years on housing and housing repair. We need...

We are trying to do something. We have a number of communities that are in the same situation. We are looking for options of how we can accommodate that. Our dollars come with rules. There are criteria. There are accountability issues. We have had requests from a number of band councils, aboriginal governments, to look at the concept of block funding. We are exploring that right now. We haven’t come to any type of conclusion whether that is doable or not.

Mr. Speaker, I am sure all the people in the gallery and all the Members in this House and all people listening on the radio and watching on television can feel the tension in the air. It’s so thick you could cut it with a knife right now and it has been for some time. Mr. Speaker, it really is a tough situation we are in. It’s tough for all of us. We heard from many Members here speak with great emotion and voice some real concern.

Of course, Mr. Speaker, I have to mention it’s really a strange situation we are in also, because usually a government’s confidence is voted on after they present...

I think we already have that mechanism in place as part of our process. If there’s a project that’s not going to go forward or has been dropped from our budget, and there is a requirement through our Financial Administration Act to notify the Member and notify the appropriate committee. So I think we already have that mechanism in place. If that’s not enough, then I’d certainly have to have that discussion with the Member to see what he’s looking for. Thank you.

The difference is timing and a longer planning period and the ability to have more discussion and have more people on the ground, whether it’s contracted or our own forces. It will allow us to get the contracts out earlier. It will allow us to have more attention paid and more diligence at the project level. We expect that will help us deliver. Mr. Speaker, we are starting to see some of the dollars flying from the federal government, especially in the area of housing, where we will have to spend all the money. It’s a use it or lose it agreement so we expect to do that in the housing front...

Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard the Member loud and clear on many occasions now speaking about Highway No. 7 and Highway No. 1 and other transportation infrastructure in his riding. We’d be glad to work with him and it’s our goal to have our roads strengthened and reconstructed and at some point have chipseal applied or other dust suppression measures.