Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, this pertains to the area of dollars that we owe to the federal government.

Mr. Chairman, just trying to figure out how long this has been going on, I think it’s always been the case that the Housing Corporation units, public housing units are charged more than the residential rates. It certainly cuts into our budget and our ability to operate our units, but that’s been the practice and that’s what the communities are doing. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the core need assessment looks at the adequacy, suitability and affordability issues in the communities. The community of Dettah, I mentioned yesterday was over 30 percent. It’s actually at 42 percent. The last survey was done in 2004 and we have another one going on right now. We anticipate to have all the results compiled for public review by the early summer.

Mr. Chairman, we will have Mr. Anderson respond to that question.

Mr. Chairman, I will have to ask Mr. Anderson to see if he has that information. Mr. Chairman, I would just add that the issue with Dettah and Ndilo, the meetings continue to happen. In fact, they are meeting tonight again to see if they can resolve some of these issues with some of our Housing Corporation staff.

It is difficult to answer that question. We are not completely done with our discussions with the executive. There are a number of issues that are potentially out there that we need to be very careful we don’t breach. There is a collective bargaining discussion going on. There are also other legal risks that we have to work out before we move forward. We would be glad to lay out the program design to the Members, hopefully in a couple of weeks, as to all the details and how we expect to move forward. Those areas that were raised by the Member are the areas that we are exploring right now.

Mr. Chairman, the reason for that is the communities charge the NWT Housing Corporation a different rate than they do all of the other residents. We pay full, either full government rate or full commercial rate, which is considerably higher than the individuals or the private individuals that live in the community.

Yes, I do, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I would have to see what kind of documents we have. The Auditor General audits our books and they feel that this is proper. The federal government will cover about $45 million. We have the rest on our books, about $23 million, and we can go back and see what kind of documents we have that would shed some light onto the question that the Member was raising.

Mr. Chairman, I have to retract my comment. It says 60 units earmarked for this year.

---Laughter

It comes out to about $12 million, Mr. Chairman.