Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document entitled Promoting Independence: NWT Housing Corporation 2002-2003 Annual Report. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I haven’t personally reviewed the initiative by the Nunavut government. However, I will take the first opportunity to do so. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to commit and reassure the workers and those staff or employees that may be out there listening that the intention is not to put anybody out of a job April 1st, that we want to work with the communities. There may be some transition time required, and we want to be sensitive to that. This is supposed to be a good news story. The intent here is not to get into a conflict situation with communities or staff, but to work through the questions and to work through the process. We have done that in the majority of cases, and those cases...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have begun drafting a chronology of events. We’ll have it prepared and provided to the Members as soon as possible. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in this whole initiative, our goal was to provide affordable housing to the non-market communities and our intention was to bring it to a cost where it would be affordable and people would like to utilize it. We contacted a number of different organizations and boards and agencies across the North and we did have a very positive response. We felt because we had an open bidding process that we would go that route. The manufacturing community does have an opportunity to bid on this, as does everybody else. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I just got the package and it’s being copied right now and will be distributed to the Members. It’s in the works as we speak and I apologize for being late by a day. The commitment for Monday was a tough one to meet.

---Laughter

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my information tells me that we have had over 30 tenders picked up today and of those 30, 17 are from the North. Now we will consider, we have committed in yesterday’s question period, to reviewing this whole initiative with Cabinet on Thursday. There is going to be some concern because there are a number of tender documents being processed right now. However, if there is a concern raised by the Member needing more time, how much more time that is I’m not sure, we do have a real tight time frame in this situation. A portion of these units are intended to go...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I couldn’t say to a great certainty that it is different. We are having a number of developers interested in coming forward. First of all, the facility has to be mobile so that we can move it, however, for the rest of it there are some interesting concepts and designs being put forward that would allow us to build these units fairly close to what a normal stick built house would be, smaller and 16 feet wide, but it would also be mobile. So I think the concept that they are totally different, the building construction methods are different, and I think we are moving...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would have to seek the information. We were expecting these trailer units to last for the term that we have amortized, and for years longer than that, and that is a 20-year period. I don’t have any estimations to refer to, I don’t have that information in front of me. So I don’t know, I can’t say in any certainty. Our amortization and full cost recovery is based on a 20-year period, I can offer that much. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we demand the same quality, the same warranty conditions whether the contract is allocated to a southern supplier or a northern supplier. I am sure there are many owners or trailer owners or mobile home owners in different trailer courts in the NWT that would be very interested to hear that the houses that they are living in and are perfectly happy with are substandard, as the Member has indicated. These units meet a certain standard, they have to have CSE approval and we expect at least a 20 plus year life out of them. Thank you.