Yes, Madam Chair.
Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber. Would the Minister please introduce the witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. To my right is president Erin Kelly, Dr. Erin Kelly, president of Housing NWT. And to my left is Mr. Jim Martin. Mr. Martin is vice-president, finance and infrastructure, excuse me.
Thank you. Committee, Housing Northwest Territories is included in the capital estimates as an information item, and the totals are not voteable. We will review these estimates as we do for the other departments; however, we will not vote on the totals. If Members have comments or questions, they can be raised at the appropriate time.
The committee has agreed to forego general comments. Does the committee agree to proceed to the detailed contained in tabled document?
Agreed.
Committee, Housing Northwest Territories begins on page 78. We will defer the totals and review the estimates by activity summary, beginning at page 79, with finance and infrastructure services, with information items on page 80. Are there any questions? Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I just wanted to say how pleased I am to see the announcement from the Minister on the large capital projects, and that's what I want to -- well, I want to ask questions about both, really.
So my first question is just about the O and M deficits. So I understand from chatting with the Minister's staff over a number of different briefings that there's this $50 million a year O and M deficit that housing has been facing. And I was perhaps a bit mistakenly under the impression that a good portion of the $50 million for this year -- of the $150 million annually would be going towards that problem. So can the Minister help us understand how we're addressing that issue through this capital spend, all these different houses being built. Is this related to the O and M problem, or are we getting at that problem in any way through these investments? Thank you.
Minister of housing.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's really important to understand that we operate almost 2,900 units across the Northwest Territories. And back in 1997, we signed the social housing agreement with the Government of Canada with CMHC to operate and maintain these units, but that funding has been declining over the last number of years. We were able to sign a bilateral agreement with Canada again in 2019, and this provided us supplemental funding for a 10-year period and, again, this number will drop 2028-2029.
With Housing NWT and the $150 million capital plan over the next three years, $5 million a year will be assigned to deferred preventative maintenance, and $5 million a year will be assigned to modernization and improvement of our public housing -- or social housing units. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that answer. So we're doing $5 million a year. So $10 million a year for effective maintenance. So I guess I would just ask again, and maybe some better clarification could be given, about the $50 million a year deficit that I was under the impression we were in. Can the Minister or her staff just help me better understand that and whether we are getting at that problem. Because -- and I'll just put it quite plainly. My understanding of the issue is that if we aren't addressing the $50 million a year problem of O and M, we're losing units. And so building them is great, and it is good to see us building units. I do want to see that. But if we're losing units at the same time, it all just kind of comes out in the wash. So I just want to ensure that we are actually increasing the housing stock. That's what I'm trying to get at. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Minister of Housing NWT. I haven't graduated yet to finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's really important that, again, we highlight the infrastructure deficit of Housing NWT. And we've done some work with that, including the operations and maintenance deficit. And President Erin Kelly could provide us more detail of the $50 million deficit that the Member is speaking about. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. President Erin Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So the average age of our overall portfolio is 31 years old, and our public housing units on average are 33 years old with 436 units over the age of 50 years. So as of September 2025, we estimate that the current major infrastructure need is approximately $307 million. With an investment of $50 million targeted for 2025-2026, this leaves the current deficit at about $257 million. So you can see that the contributions are helping, but they're not fully correcting the infrastructure deficit for Housing NWT. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think that point necessarily leads to another question, and that is, you know, I think it's very clear that the NWT can't do this alone. What kind of progress have we made at the negotiating table with the federal government considering they are -- you know, they just recently announced a very generous amount of funding to Nunavut. I'm curious where NWT lands in terms of the fed's plan to increase housing in the NWT -- or in Canada but also hopefully the NWT. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Housing NWT.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, something else that's really an important and critical discussion is our discussions with the federal government but also our discussions with Indigenous governments and NGOs and communities that are receiving funding from the federal government through Indigenous Services of Canada or CIRNAC. In my recent FPT meeting in Vancouver, this was something that was talked about, the affordable housing fund, the URNI funding, the urban, rural, north, and Indigenous funding, and also the new Build Canada Homes. And this is something, again, that was highlighted at the Council of Leaders, was the need for public and social housing in the Northwest Territories.
In terms of the negotiations and discussions internally, president Erin Kelly will provide you some insight to that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. President Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am pleased to report that in our discussions with HICC that they have agreed that we should be moving forward on negotiations related to updating our bilateral agreement, which is where those O and M questions come into play, and then also with respect to Build Canada Homes funding. And that was a comment that was made after the Council of Leaders meeting when they heard from Indigenous governments and the GNWT about our needs. So we will be engaging in negotiations on both those fronts with HICC coming up. Thank you so much, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm certainly very happy to hear that and very supportive of the Minister and department's efforts on that front. We certainly need it here.
Bjust noting that I'm starting to run out of time, I wanted to move to a different issue, and I do hope some of my colleagues take up the flag on some of the questions I'm leaving on the table with regards to housing money. But I wanted to speak about an issue that's been concerning me. We did ask about this in lead-up to budget. But I'm concerned about the department's capacity to bring all this to fruition. So I'm curious are other departments, such as infrastructure or -- I think infrastructure is the one I'm thinking of. But are other departments helping collaborate with HNWT with project implementation just knowing that this is quite a large thing that we've taken on, adding another $50 million a year on top of projects that housing was already doing but with federal money. This department's pretty busy. I'm just curious what are we doing to help boost up the capacity of the department and ensuring that we don't end up in the situation where we're talking about why we weren't able to bring all these houses to fruition with the money that we set aside. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Housing NWT.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think Housing NWT over the last year has been discussing how do we work in collaboration with the different departments to be successful knowing that our technical and infrastructure team's in place to deliver housing across the Northwest Territories. But the concern from the Member is a concern for many of us, is the overall capacity of the Northwest Territories to take on many of these large infrastructure projects. President Erin Kelly can provide you more insight to some of the collaboration and partnerships we're working together on. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. President Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Housing NWT is pleased to let folks know that we project fully committing the allocated new construction component valued at $120 million over the next three years by the end of the fiscal year 2025-2026. We've heard very clearly that we need to spend the money that has been provided and that -- and we see the need in communities for the housing.
We anticipate a total spend of $43 million in 2025-2026. Housing NWT has proposed to CMHC to use the $7 million that we realized as a savings from an economy of scale over the recent large bundled procurement for modular units to leverage $19.2 million to add another 20 units in Inuvik to the Blueberry Patch. This would result in public housing clients at Bompass Apartments moving to Housing NWT-owned assets and owned units which would increase the availability of rental units in Inuvik.
If we are not successful in that application to CMHC, we will add to the number of modular public housing units and/or the number of planned repair projects and/or potentially acquire and retrofit existing multi-unit buildings. So we have plans for that funding, and that's the total $50 million. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
I'm out of time, Madam Chair.
Okay. Anybody, any further questions? Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thanks to my colleague who asked some of the questions I was going to ask as well, but this is a great conversation.
To follow up there, in the previous exchange the president noted that we have an infrastructure deficit of still about $257 million, and there was discussion about how this ongoing infrastructure deficit means that we might be losing units because we're not able to address the deficit. Does the Minister or staff have any idea how many units we might be losing each year because we're not able to repair them or replace them? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Housing NWT.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Our current projection for this fiscal year is -- the infrastructure deficit is $307 million, which is basically $299 million is for replacement need. That's our current need for replacement of units. And retrofits is $8,226,000. Over the next 20 years, housing has done an appendix which projects the deficit replacement need is $1.2 billion over the next 20 years. And for retrofits, $339 million over the next 20 years. So we're looking at things in a 20-year time span so we can do proper planning and technical work. But can I ask President Erin Kelly just to provide more information to the Member's question. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. President Kelly.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So what we're doing at this time is looking at the units that we have available and focusing our funding to replace the units that are 50 years or older, the older units and those that have unit condition ratings that are lowest. So we're trying to avoid the issue that the Member is bringing forward and also increasing our M and I, which is, like, larger renovation so we can keep our units available in communities, the same number of units available. And we've been pretty successful at that. So I think we're working to try to address the issue that the Member is bringing forward with the additional funding that we have. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. Can the Minister tell us whether -- was there any carryover from the 2025-2026 revised capital estimates in that was there any money that wasn't able to be spent? And can the Minister account for that and what is to be done with that money in the coming year? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Housing NWT.
Thank you, Madam Chair. President Erin Kelly will provide you information to that. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It's important to remember that we received the money from the federal government for the 50-plex that's being built in advance. So there's been consistent carryover until that project's done, and it's not expected to be done until May of 2027. So last year we had a carryover of $65,877,000, and about $46 million of that was the 50-plex. There was also some carryover related to Aspen Apartments and the work that's being completed on that, and we're hopeful that we'll be able to have people in there in November. And then public -- some public housing replacement projects were also carried over and some other minor pieces, but the main item there was the 50-plex. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I return to that, if I have time, can the Minister just tell us so we're all clear -- so there's two projects for Yellowknife that are on the project list, one for 2027-2028 and one for 2026-2027, a public housing replacement of 24 units and a major retrofit of 12 units. Can the Minister give us details of what exactly are those projects. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Coming in as Minister for Housing NWT, I wanted to see, like, condition of units, especially in community and the city of Yellowknife considering the need to replace many of our housing units, the older units, and Hilltop was something that I visited, and it's in an extreme circumstance. So in the planning -- and President Erin Kelly will provide some more information to that, but the planning for Yellowknife over the next couple of years is to replace Hilltop. So if I can just defer this to President Erin Kelly. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So we have a proposal in with CMHC right now, two at Rockhill, have a multi-use build where there would be transitional housing, Hilltop replacement, and a daycare in that area. And we're getting near to the end of those negotiations. The other 12 that the Member is speaking about are M and I projects, so those would be housing -- existing housing units getting major retrofits. The way that the decision was made about those is we looked at mid life, 21 to 30 years, and made decisions on need based on the -- those that required major retrofits in that age range to try to increase the life of those assets. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And just to be clear, the retrofits of existing units, is that 12 units spread across different areas of town, or are those 12 units all together in a certain location? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Those units are spread across the city. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So I am excited to hear about the replacement of Hilltop, which is within Yellowknife North riding, and so I do hope that the Minister will keep me updated as much as possible because I am very interested in being involved as this project rolls out. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely, we can keep the Member for Yellowknife North updated. I'm excited as well to see that replacement. Thank you, Madam Chair.
