EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Mr. Chairman, we look forward to your comments and questions in reference to our capital plans for 2004/2005.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Minister Ng. Mr. McLean.
As the Chairman of the Standing Committee on Community Empowerment and Sustainable Development, I am pleased to be able to provide the Opening Comments as we begin the review of 2004 and 2005 Estimates of the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
Mr. Chairman, the Standing Committee had the opportunity to meet with the Minister responsible for Nunavut Housing Corporation earlier this month to review the 2004-2005 Capital Estimates.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to congratulate the Minister on the recent announcement of strategic infrastructure funding for new public housing in Nunavut.
The Committee has consistently advocated for unique solutions for the housing crisis in Nunavut and applauds the Government of Nunavut’s efforts to work with the Federal Government on this never ending issue.
Committee Members caution the Minister to ensure that adequate ongoing Operation and Maintenance funding is made available.
As every homeowner knows the cost of maintaining a home can be more expensive in the long run than the initial outlay.
Mr. Chairman, Committee Members are aware that this new injection of funding into public housing will not address all the needs in the Territory.
Members continue to urge the Minister to seek opportunities for partnerships with the private sector and other Government of Nunavut Departments to increase the housing stock.
Mr. Chairman, the Committee realizes that homeownership programs are an important way to encourage people to move into private homes and out of public housing.
However, Committee Members continue to urge the Minister to provide more transparent, detailed information to the House as to the Corporation’s allocations of homeownership funding.
Mr. Chairman, the Committee recognizes that our meeting with the Minister preceded the recent Federal funding announcement and therefore, information on community housing allocations was not available.
However, Members are disappointed that draft community allocations were not provided to the Committee for review.
Sorry, on that, we had them today.
So, thank you Minister for giving them to us.
Mr. Chairman, the Standing Committee noted that Government of Nunavut jobs in many communities, not just in Iqaluit, continue to be advertised, but do not offer housing.
In addition, there are no Capital Dollars in the 5-Year Plan for staff housing.
Committee Members are concerned that positions will be increasingly difficult to fill and urges the Minister to Table in the Legislative Assembly a long-term staff housing plan and a report on the access of the Condominium Ownership Program.
Mr. Chairman, Committee Members realize that the Corporation is undertaking a review of the current staff housing rent scale and look forward to discussing this with the Minister.
Mr. Chairman, Committee Members recognize that reliable vehicles are necessary to enable Local Housing Organizations to properly maintain the housing stock.
However, the Corporation’s plan spending in new vehicles in coming years represents a significant amount of money, $2 million over the next five years and Members urge the Corporation to develop a Vehicle Usage Policy that will curb the perceived personal usage of Corporation vehicles.
That concludes my comments of the Capital Estimates of the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
Minister Ng, do you have your Officials here with you?
You can go to the Witness Table with your Officials.
Sergeant-at-Arms, can you please escort them to the witness table.
Thank you. Minister Ng, if you can introduce your staff for the record.
Hon. Kelvin Ng: The one to my right is Mr. Peter Scott, President and to my left is Mr. Chris Darcy, Director of PPD being Policy Planning.
We have 10-minutes for General Comments to the Minister of Housing for his opening.
First person is Mr. McLean.
Mr. Chairman, my comments will not take 10-minutes, I don’t think, but I would like to welcome Peter Scott; Mr. Scott goes way back in the Housing Corporation.
He has a vast background in Housing Corporation policies and procedures and it’s a pleasure to work with Mr. Scott.
So far, he’s been very, very good to me as a Member of the Legislative Assembly.
Mr. Darcy has been around for a long time too.
It’s good to see experienced staff at the helm of this important department.
It doesn’t have as much money as it should have.
I would like to see it double and triple to satisfy the needs of Nunavut. But on that, Mr. Chairman, there is always going to be a shortage of public housing in Nunavut.
There always has been.
We try to address that and the Government tries to address that.
They’re very vigilant on that.
I don’t think the Minister has not taken the responsibility of public housing issues in Nunavut seriously.
He’s been working at it and he takes it seriously.
On that issue, there’s another issue that I’d like to bring up and we don’t seem to be talking about it enough and that is private home ownership.
It’s a very good program that we’ve got that someone gets 25 thousand dollars for a down payment on a new home and there’s 15 thousand dollars existing out there for a used home.
In my community, with decentralization, all the government staff houses are full.
It took a while but they’re all full now, I can gladly say because I was harassed quite a bit in the last couple of years with them being empty.
There was pressure on me to turn them into public housing.
And at this point I was saying, well, if we turn them into public housing, there will be no government jobs in Baker Lake.
So, it’s nice to see them all full.
But, on that issue, there is still a large group of people who are in public housing in Baker Lake who are government employees and issues like that and they’re scared of the idea of home ownership.
They would sooner pay the one bill a month and then they wouldn’t have to worry about water, sewer, garbage, fuel, electricity, all those bills and land leases and stuff like that.
But what I’m getting to here is that being a private home owner in Nunavut, on one income, is a really scary proposition today.
It’s very scary and I don’t know what the answer is.
I know people are consoled into becoming private owners, home ownership and they’re encouraged to get into it and stuff like that but in the last five years, I’ve seen a lot of people in my community have to get out of private home ownership because they couldn’t afford it.
So, I don’t know if private home ownership in this territory is going to get down to what you need or you must have two incomes, but I’m starting to detect that unless you have two incomes, it’s very difficult to get into private home ownership in Nunavut.
Probably, especially more in Iqaluit because the housing costs here are probably a lot more than they are in communities like mine. I don’t know what the issue there is.
Maybe raising the thresholds of the down payment, maybe giving more money to buying a used home.
But on that front, when people go to buy used homes, there are a lot of people in the smaller communities who buy a used home who don’t exactly know what they’re getting into.
The home may need major renovations and repairs down the road.
And I’m saying down the road three or four years.
And doing minor renovations in a community like mine is a major renovation.
I would encourage your department, and like I say, Mr. Scott there has a background in housing and he knows many people who are private home owners.
So, if there is some kind of federal program out there that people can access, outside of the corporation for re-insulating windows, doors and stuff like that, the corporation has a great reputation of fixing up houses in my community with doors and windows and stuff.
But, the more private home owners are getting into the market, the more pressure there’s going to be on the Housing Corporation to provide funding for home improvements.
I would look down the not distant road to providing, if it’s possible, no interest loans for home owners who want to fix up their houses.
I don’t know if that’s possible to do in this Government, but I’m sure if people could get no interest loans, and I know they do it in provinces to renovate their homes, or make them more energy efficient to fix them up, would probably be received.
With current interest rates today being at an all time low, I don’t think the government would lose a lot of money on it.
But for a home owner, a private home owner and I’m talking about under a certain income, to go to the bank and get a loan to fix up their house, is very difficult.
The banks may caught carrying their mortgage saying you know, you’re already in over your head now and I don’t want to lend you anymore money.
So, it’s just something to consider, because I know in some provinces they will give you no interest loans to fix up your house, and that might encourage more work in the private sector, etc., etc.
The next speaker is Mr. Havioyak.
Thank you for coming, as well as your officials.
I just want to make a brief comment right now in regards to elders.
They used to provide homes for elders when we were under the GNWT.
I think that it would be beneficial for the elders if we could find some kind of subsidized housing for these elders.
We all know that the Government of Nunavut does not have all that much money to try and provide housing for the elderly people.
If we can find some way to help and make some room for these elders in each community so we can provide some adequate housing for the elders.
Also the other comment that I wanted to make for those homeowners.
I would like to encourage the Minister and his Officials, to remember, and as Mr. McLean mentioned earlier that we have to try and encourage people out there to give them information about the housing that is available for purchasing, because some people have questions, or they say, “What am I going to do for housing, I do not have any income, I am not working.”
The Government should provide information to the public and to those people out there who might be interested in getting their own homes.
(interpretation ends) The business owners, the business people of the Chamber of Commerce members, where they have members who are interested in building, not only office space, but also apartment buildings.
I am sure that the Minister and the department encourage businesses to build apartment buildings where they do not have enough units, for example, staff housing, maybe.
I am sure that you made some contact with the local Chamber of Commerce; this is the route that we want to go in the future and work towards local businesses building apartment buildings to meet the needs of the Government for not only in de-centralization, but also in other communities.
That is going to make a difference.
Again, you are making some room for the people who are on the waiting list, if they move to an apartment building?
When I say they, I mean the Government of Nunavut staff moving to the staff housing.
That is all that I have for now, but I will be asking questions on this later on.
Mr. Netser, Mr. Anawak, Mr. Alakannuark, and Mr. Iqaqrialu.
During my campaign, part of my platform was that there are many private home owners in Nunavut communities.
It’s very nice to see private home owners.
In the past, there was a HAP housing program back in 1985, which had started in about 1980.
The units that were built with HAP housing and these units were deteriorating.
(interpretation ends) When you filled out the application, they said come next year, come back next year.
(interpretation) That continues to happen.
It’s not very nice to be told come back next year.
It states here that the private home owners have access to funding for renovations and Mr. Chairman, I have questions in regards to that when the appropriate time comes.
Chairman (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Netser.
When we talk about housing, and how we can have more economic opportunities at the local level, when the local construction workers build a unit at the local level, I believe they could have cost savings there because when the construction workers come to a community from the outside, they end up including the cost of airfare in the mortgage because you have to ship those construction workers.
For example, if they’re constructing a unit in Cape Dorset, they have to pay the travel costs of getting the construction workers there.
They pay for the airfare, accommodations and meals.
If there are many construction workers, I believe that is one of the major costs.
This has to be rectified.
The Minister of Sustainable Development has been working very hard in regards to the Naujaat Challenge in order to economically develop the communities themselves.
How can we get construction material at a cheaper rate?
If we get our materials at a cheaper rate, then we can construct more units.
Right now for example, if there are three units being built in Repulse Bay, or Pond Inlet, or three units allocated to Cape Dorset, then there would be three different RFPs; one for the construction of three units in Repulse Bay, and construction of three units in different communities.
They would require three different RFPs for that.
I wonder how your department would feel.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be for the whole communities.
These are just examples If these units are going to be allocated to the Baffin Region, who would supply the materials before the actual contract is awarded?
If one company is awarded to do the supply, the material to the Baffin region, for 20 units, wouldn’t it be cheaper to RFP the 20 units instead of doing it separately for each community because each community is going to receive three units and they’re request for proposals for contract bidding is done separately.
I believe that you have to consider this area if we really want to build units that are going to be rented for public housing.
How can we look at costs savings so that we can construct more units?
They could be constructed at the local level.
And if we cannot do it for Nunavut-wide, and one supplier, one company could supply the material and then the contract could be split up after the fact.
Also, some communities who would like to receive units, for example, a young couple, or a single family cannot get into a unit, even if they are given $25 thousand in assistance, they are unable to afford it.
How can we build a small unit with room for expansion in the later years so that the private homeowner can at least put an addition to it, after they has paid off the mortgage?
I think that these are some of the things that you could consider, or at least focus on.
In the beginning they could get a two bedroom home, and then leave room for expansion in the later years, so that they can just expand the small unit when the family grows.
That is what we could do.
Also, the Member for Nanulik had just alluded to the HAP housing units that could be paid off within five years, with the five year mortgage, where they live in their unit for five years.
Yes, that is very good to use, and it was a very good system.
Nowadays, currently, some of those homeowners are no longer working, or the family had split up and they cannot afford to pay the mortgage.
How can we provide more support to these individual homeowners?
Even though they want to maintain their home, they cannot afford to pay off their bills.
Or perhaps, if no one is working within that family home, perhaps Income Support could pay for their mortgage.
Those are some of the ideas that you can look into.
If we are going to be encouraging homeowners in Nunavut, how can we provide them with more support?
In regards to what Mr. McLean had said that perhaps have an interest-free loan for the homeowners, one thing that I have considered often is that is in Nunavut, there are many economic opportunities out there.
One of the major economic spin-offs is to have construction of units built by the communities themselves.
If the unit is built at the local level, I know that it could take a little bit longer to complete the construction.
Since they are from the local community, they would put care into the construction of the unit, whether they are family members, or their brothers would move into that home, because they live in that house.
At least they could put in more care into the actual construction into the unit.
When we get outside construction workers, they rush to complete the unit, because of course, they are homesick.
That is why at times they do not really put care into the construction of the unit.
So therefore, I am urging your department to look into this.
If we really want to have economic opportunities at the local level, we could at least try it on a trial basis for one community and allocate the supplying of material to one, perhaps, if Housing cannot bid on it, or the Hamlet Council, or the local Housing Association can take on that contract so that they could get construction workers.
If they do not have any electricians, yes, they could bring in electricians, but at least money could remain at the community level, if the money remains at the local level, then they could generate more economic opportunities and there could be more capacity building at the local level.
So, these are some of the things that I would like to see.
If there are barriers in the community, to give the local contractor a contract, let’s get rid of those barriers.
I’m sure they would say that the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation has criteria and regulations that we have to abide by.
If there is room to go around it, let’s put the majority of the units to the community so that they can construct it at the local level and keep the money in the community so that the local people can benefit from it rather than just depending on income support.
Those are some of the things I wanted to point out.
First of all, I would like to say that I have a lot of friends out there all over Nunavut.
When they’re not meeting the needs of the people of Nunavut, it’s just as if they dislike just like my friends.
I would like to know if that applies to the whole of Nunavut.
When there are too many things happening and application of rents and so on, this is something that I’ve been concerned about since the first assembly.
Its seems like all the money we make goes out to expenses we don’t have any pocket change left.
In regards to the capital estimates, I have no problems with those but it’s the expenses or the rents that I’m concerned about.
Many people of Nunavut are unemployed at the community level and even if we try to start up a small business, it takes a long time to get it going because you never have enough for start up because the expenses take up all your money.
As, I agreed with what Mr. McLean was saying, there is revenue coming into the Housing Corporation by way of rent.
If they paid for corporate taxes then they try to get it back through their rent revenue.
So, that is how most of the Housing Authorities go into deficit situations.
I think it’s possible to relocate the expenditures in the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
I’m glad that the Housing Corporation is here.
As we heard earlier, it’s an experienced entity but I don’t see that.
From that point and as was discussed in the Capital Estimates, we were also talking about the homeownership programs and the subsidies.
Once a person gets a house under the homeownership program, they have to pay for all of the expenses.
We also heard that there was a $25 thousand Down Payment Assistance Program and there is nothing in the House at all.
There is no other financial assistance for these homeowners.
Some of the homeowners in the smaller communities are working, but they do not have any money left at the end of the day.
Some of them make about from $25-45 thousand and some of them are casual workers and when they are casual workers the money that they make is usually between $18 to, $17-18 thousand. I think that we should factor all those in.
As people of Nunavut, we are finally learning about these programs.
I think that there should be assistance programs through the Nunavut Housing Corporation.
I am sure that we are not going to be all pleased, but there are programs that we can set up.
I have no problems, but one thing that I also wanted to mention is that we are given money from the Federal Government and the Nunavut Government provides the housing to Nunavut.
What other monies can the Housing Corporation access in order to increase the number of houses that are being built in Nunavut?
We have a severe shortage of housing and there is, in my household, there is myself, my wife and I have six children and when they are all over 20 it will have an effect on the rent that we are paying.
So, we have to think about those household expenses.
I wanted to make those general comments and I can tell you that everybody is my friend except when they are working.
And Mr. Chairman, I understand where everybody is coming from and I agree with everybody.
It is quite hard when we have a significant shortage of housing.
I believe that there are approximately 28 thousand people in Nunavut in 27 communities that all have a shortage of housing.
I am sure it must be pretty hard for the Housing Corporation’s staff when you have problems and because of course, you have to look at all of the communities.
I would like Members to know that the Nunavut Housing Corporation is doing it’s very best to decrease the shortage in housing.
In our goal as a Government and through the Bathurst Mandate, we have to make sure that we look at health and safety issues.
That is exactly what we are trying to do, but at times, it is quite hard when you do not have enough housing for the people of Nunavut and that is why the conflict comes in between the communities and the Government.
There is overcrowding in a lot of the communities and sometimes there are two or three nuclear families living under one roof and it is usually people who are related who live under the same roof.
At times it is quite hard, I am sure, for the staff, but here we are still smiling because our stomachs are full, we eat well, we are living in heated homes, but when you hear about the problems or the concerns at the community level, it is extremely hard at times.
The previous Government, when they were not getting enough money, they cut away, they did away with the homeownership programs and got into access housing where the clients had a 15-year mortgage and their monthly payments were based on their income, if I remember correctly.
At times, after I was elected as the Member of the Legislative Assembly, there were times when people approached me about their not being able to pay, make their monthly payments and sometimes it is quite hard to make your monthly payments and we also have to factor in the increasing price of fuel and an increase in their salary does not happen very often.
With that, there are many expenses that have to be paid by the homeowner.
Since we became Nunavut, we now do not have any money for public housing, although it is something that was initiated by the previous Government.
We feel for the people of Nunavut, and as a homeowner, I know exactly where the people of Nunavut are.
As a homeowner you have monthly expenses that you have to keep up with.
Mr. Chairman, another issue that I have talked about quite often during the Standing Committee meetings is I am familiar with the previous Government and when they went into a deficit situation; they made a decision for private businesses to build houses, any type of houses, apartments, duplexes, and so on.
The Government promised that they would pay for the O and M costs.
We have been going through very hard time up to today.
The homeowners have helped a lot and they have decreased the lack of housing; they have freed up some of the public units when they bought their own houses.
In 1999 when we became a Government, the Housing Corporation, did not seem to be able to meet the demands.
Probably in the future if we work hard, and if we access more monies from the Federal Government, we might solve our problem.
Mr. Chairman, I will have some questions at the appropriate time for the Minister.
I will give you the opportunity to ask questions later.