Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So it does sound like perhaps the focus is on training existing staff to sort of up their skills for what is coming and what's needed, which is super useful I understand. I think we do need sort of a more ambitious strategy around how we're going to ensure that we have people with the right skills in our communities to do the kind of repairs, renovations, housing maintenance, that we need to actually take care of our housing. And I know that goes beyond Housing NWT, and it requires working with other departments. I'll just put it out there now. I do think we need clear...

Okay. And can the Minister clarify, and maybe this is not all decided or sorted out yet, but who is going to operate the units? So if residents don't want to own them and they don't necessarily need to be kicked out, so -- and we're going to save money by not owning and operating them anymore, who is going to own and operate them and rent them to tenants? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Great. And I also noted, so in the business plan -- and here I'm looking at page 421 -- there's a goal to work with ITI to foster the development of innovative approaches to housing construction and expand capacity also in the repair and renovations sector. And so the specific goal there that Housing NWT has set for itself is 16 training sessions. I assume per year but maybe the Minister can clarify. And some of the examples so far are some sort of basic training sessions conducted with LHOs. Can the Minister explain what is the vision here, because it seems like a one-off training on safety...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure we could have a much longer conversation too about all the barriers and challenges. But we have a new homeownership initiative program now that's sort of superceded the old. So how has the current HIP program been designed differently to try to overcome some of those challenges, or what different result do we expect this time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask about the work with the LHOs, the local housing organizations, on apprenticeships. I'm hoping this is an okay segment to bring that up, but. I know that Housing NWT has an in-House apprenticeship program and have been trying to support up to 12 apprenticeship assignments each year. Can the Minister tell us whether or not they manage to actually find 12 apprentices in the last year or how many apprenticeships did Housing NWT actually support? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of housing today.

Following up on my Member's statement, so as part of the latest homeownership program that was recently discontinued, the homeownership entry level program, or HELP, 190 new units were constructed between 2006 and 2011. And does the Minister happen to know how many of those 190 units that were originally constructed actually ended up being transferred to the tenants to allow them to become homeowners? Or can the Minister commit to at least get back to me with that total number that turned into actually homeownership...

Okay, I'm going to have to maybe get that in writing to get the math straight. But it seems that this is a really valuable program to help people prevent, you know, their, like, larger problems from developing over time and the need for larger repairs and renos if they can just do that preventative maintenance early on. So what is Housing NWT doing to, like, raise awareness about this program and its availability and that people can take advantage of that to help prevent problems later on? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for that, Mr. Chair. I know that there are a number of seniors, at least in my riding and I'm sure in many others, who don't live within the boundaries of the city of Yellowknife but really want to stay in their homes and, in fact, we need people to stay in their homes where possible for the betterment of the whole territory. We don't want them to leave, and we don't want them to need to, for example, have to move to a long-term care facility if they could be accommodated at home. So I hope that we can make sure that that program can serve seniors who want to age in place everywhere...

Okay, I'll leave it there for now, that's fine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I mean, I do understand that, but I also think that by trying to spread the money thinner or sort of take for granted that we can keep this number the same and do other things instead, we're endangering the current relationships and arrangements that we have and then we could end up in more situations like the Inuvik situation where, you know, we -- the government has to take over operating a shelter and realizes that it has to spend much more money than it was paying before to the non-profit. Anyway, that's another soapbox for another day.

But my final question on this...