EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
Since the Nunavut Housing Corporation is a brand new entity, I wonder if the communities who might have concerns or problems or issues, are you going to be seeking information as to what problems are of concern to the communities.
Here in the Baffin region a few months ago we had the general conference for Housing Associations and we spoke to them about our plans and our strategies so that the communities could be informed through the local housing organizations.
We want to keep the public informed about everything that is going on in our department.
A newsletter is published which we promised to distribute to each one of them as it comes out.
In addition to that, we encourage them to forward their concerns to the regional offices, because these are always sent over to us and when we have the opportunity, we try to deal with those issues.
So we had those arrangements in place.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you for your immediate response.
The only other question I had in regard to the opening comments were actually made by the minister in her Public Works statement that related to Housing and I decided to wait until Housing to ask.
It was her comments regarding the staff housing policy.
In there she had indicated that she plans to table it sometime during the next year.
I am just wondering if I could get a little tighter deadline other than the next year.
Because as I know members are all aware this is something that I have been asking about specifically for the last year and I am just wondering, I would like to find out when the minister plans on tabling it.
This has been an ongoing question and it is a complex piece of legislation.
I am sorry, I said that I would table it in the House and that I would present it as the minister, but when we were doing the Main Estimates under Public Works, I don’t quite recall what I said.
I apologize Mr. Chairman.
But according to the policy that we have in effect I can table it because although the cabinet has not approved it I can still produce it in the House in the very near future.
Mr. Chairman, I would just ask, I would rather see a final policy approved, I wouldn’t want the minister to table something that wouldn’t be a final product.
When does the minister plan, if it is all done, when does the minister plan on bringing it forward to cabinet for approval.
This is what I just said.
I can produce a policy that I gave to the cabinet already, this is a temporary interim policy in effect.
When the cabinet has a retreat or a get together in Pond Inlet we are going to discuss that issue further.
In the interim we have a temporary policy that still needs adjusting.
The cabinet still has to look at it in May, so I cannot produce that one yet.
Chairperson (interpretation): I could not see the faces behind.
I am trying to hide this.
I do not know if this is a fair question to the minister.
But I have to get it out.
Is or are we looking at someone in the Housing Corporation or someone from Public Works to be sort of a Rental Officer in this Territory.
Hon. Manitok Thompson: Thank you.
I will just pass the question.
I believe that the Rental Officer is actually under the Department of Justice and is not under the Department of Public Works or Nunavut Housing Corporation.
Because a Rental Officer will actually deal with rental issues not only with public housing but also with the private sector.
The reason why I bring this up is we know there is tremendous growth at this point and with my conversations in the last week with different landlords in this community, it is a renters market.
Maybe I will have to ask the Department of Justice.
I think the housing people have to realise that not everything is going to be guaranteed in the private sector.
I was talking to a landlord today and there are zero vacancies.
I enquired to rent a house in this community and it is anywhere between 2 thousand 600 to 3 thousand a month for a three bedroom house.
Frankly how can people afford that because I know anybody on this side of the room it’s a month’s salary net.
And there would not be anything for anything else.
Probably on the other side of the House too.
Is there any mechanism that is going to encourage the private sector in this community to build some units at a cost effective manner to rent out to people. At this point I know for a fact that the government units that we subsidise are all taken up and you have to be a Government of Nunavut employee to get into them.
If you are not a Government of Nunavut employee you do not get that subsidy which is over 40 or 50 percent.
You could add anywhere between 12 and 18 thousand dollars a year as hidden income.
Unfortunately we have the working poor out there I do not know how they survive in this community if they have an entry level position and try to rent a place to live in.
We all know this community is going to grow.
The private sector I think will look at us with them as leases for government employees at a subsided rate.
I am not aware of it.
I think there is a housing crisis in Nunavut for low-income families.
Is the Nunavut Housing Corporation looking at any ways to alleviate the housing crisis in this community for middle to modest income wage earners.
We are well aware of the situation in Iqaluit and other communities within Nunavut regarding the rental market.
Or the lack of rental market or an affordable market although the majority of the mandate of the Nunavut Housing Corporation is under the social programs and not necessarily the private market.
That is something that we can take into consideration when we are looking at our 5-year strategy and it is also something that we could talk to other departments to try and find a collective means of addressing this issue.
Because when you look at developers costs to build private rental housing we have to look at the cost of leasehold land, which can be very expensive in communities.
The cost of obviously the construction and they have to look at financing and recouping them over a period of time.
There are a lot of circumstances that must be taken into consideration and I guess the only thing we can do for the member is to let him know that we will take it into consideration while we are developing the 5-year plan.
Also to work with other departments to look at ways to lower the cost of construction and to encourage the private sector would also help us in the construction of social housing units as well.
Myself I did a few inquiries around town again and houses that were built 7 years ago with a selling price of 97 thousand dollars are on the market today for 200 thousand dollars.
To me I know the developers or the bank and interest rates have not gone up that much.
What I am getting to here in this town not all of them have government leases.
I would like to have that arrangement in a booming town.
But what it does is it does not create any rental opportunity for lower and middle class wage earners, entry level people.
To me we are creating a problem, a serious problem for a town like this.
I do not know what the building costs are now compared to 7-8 years ago.
I am sure they have not jumped 100 percent.
Like I say I do not know if you’re the right organization to pick on.
But to me what we are creating here is two groups of renters.
The haves and have nots.
In order for you to fill positions in the government, we say we are not up to capacity.
We have to attract a certain element that can afford to pay rent and pay houses in a town like this and it is usually the double income earners.
If we are going to bring people from outside of Iqaluit from other communities that are into entry level positions how on gods earth are they going to survive in this community.
It is Nunavut and the dream of Nunavut was to create opportunity for jobs for people in Nunavut.
One of the biggest problems outside this centre is looking for affordable housing.
Like I said earlier it is a renters market.
But are the renters being fair and equitable to people out there that are not government employees that we as a government are probably paying for a lot of these buildings through nice government 20-year leases.
I emphasise that and I get a little testy seeing that.
When I talk to the landlords in this town, I have talked with them and I do not want to say much here in an open forum, but if it is me talking to them how are they talking to the ordinary Joe out on the street about finding a place to rent.
And the cost of finding a place.
That has to be addressed here.
I know we all have housing problems in other communities.
Serious housing problems.
This is a drawing card. This community is a magnet.
There are lots of jobs.
They are high paying but once you get here the high salary and the opportunity surely fades pretty quick and a lot of dreams are fading for people that want to have something to do with this Nunavut Government.
I am not lecturing you or anything like that.
It might sound that way but I am not.
It is just that I see a problem developing in this community.
I think the Housing Corporation has to look at something at doing something for it.
I hope you have it in that strategy.
For people to come here and fulfil their dreams and aspirations and starting out in a entry level position and maybe making it to Deputy Minister someday.
We are not really at this point making it very acceptable to them.
Like I said if you have an answer for that I would be thoroughly pleased it would really make my day.
The individual private companies that provide housing must be listening to the debate.
I hope they are listening because I have heard it myself in Iqaluit and I have friends in Iqaluit I speak to as well.
I have heard someone say there are many houses being built in the capital.
But there is still a shortage of housing, maybe because they are too pricey to rent.
I hope those private companies provide accommodations to individuals that are listening to our debates today.
Perhaps the Member for Baker Lake should have been a Member for Iqaluit and the Iqaluit people would listen and private developers would listen to what he has to say.
We can also put this in our strategy in a 5-year strategy, the concern of the member.
Along the line of the concerns of the other member that was a very good comment.
And it is true.
I would like to ask another question on the same line.
I just wondered whether the people that get their own homes go through the Housing Corporation. I am just wondering if they pay their mortgages through the Housing Corporation or not.
When we got Nunavut all the houses that belonged to the Nunavut Government and everything has been given to us from the GNWT Government.
So the people who get their own homes pay their mortgage either to us or to the banks.
But if they encounter any problems they usually come to the Housing Corporation to get some kind of assistance from us because now we deal with the people of Nunavut.
For those people that want to get their own houses but do not make enough money would this program continue.
Say for instance if they are in a wage bracket to get their own home.
I just wondered whether those people would get access to housing.
I am not sure what he is talking about.
Whether he is talking about the people that are not making enough money.
I am not sure what the member is talking about.
The person that owns a home will have to provide payment for their own homes.
We have to look at the applicants and make sure they are able to pay for their mortgage.
If the individual is not going to keep up with the mortgage payments, the individual will have to get their housing taken away.
We have to do a careful assessment of each individual.
If that is the case sometimes the individual has a good job and sometimes they use their job.
I am just wondering if that has been considered for an applicant to get their people to get their own home.
For those people that own their own home or for people that are applying to get their own home we do an assessment for each and every one of them.
The individual makes up his or her own mind to get their own homes only on the basis that they can pay for their mortgage.
But if there happens to be someone that no longer has the same wage, they sometimes come to our department to see whether they can lower their mortgage or whether they can get some assistance through us.
But all the people that want to get their own home decide for themselves based on their wage bracket to try to apply for their own home.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you, Madam minister.
Mr. Havioyak (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I guess some rates, mortgage rates, earlier I might have missed it but I just want to know, my constituents are wondering about the rate that they are paying today.
What they are saying to me is it is a little bit too high on the mortgage rate because when you are paying that much you can not buy any other day to day items.
Let us say for example skidoos or other things.
What they are saying to me is they see the rate as too high.
Is there something you will put out sometime in the future so we can try to address this problem in the future.
Koana Itsivauta.
When mortgage holders can not keep up with their payments they usually approach our department and see whether we can assist them.
If their mortgage payment is a little too high and they can not make their monthly payment because of a change of their salary especially if they do not have enough to pay for their groceries after the mortgage payment, we have been dealing with this and we have been assisting them.
We can look at all the mortgage payments for the whole of Nunavut to see how we can solve the problem they are having right now.
Mr. Havioyak: Over the past year on the rate that we are talking about was there any increase for last year or a couple of years.
Just curious if there is an increase between last year and now.
Ms. Hine has the information for that question.
So I will pass it to her.
It basically depends under which program the homeowner is.
If they are under a program that is financed by the bank, the changes to their mortgage may have been the fact that their term is up and their interest rate might have gone up.
But that would have to be specially answered by the bank.
If the individual had a house and the mortgage is held under Nunavut Housing Corporation then what happens is on an annual basis if their income goes up they are looked at on an annual basis.
So this may have caused their rent to go up.
It would be, I would have to look at a specific example to tell you what the change would have been.
We are aware there are many concerns from the communities that the costs of living have gone up and it is making it very strenuous on the homeowners.
It is something that we will look at on a Nunavut wide level based on our own mortgage houses.
Again, we have very little flexibility if the client is financed through a financial institute other than the Housing Corporation.
And Thank you Mr. Havioyak.
Mr. Chairman another thing that the minister mentioned in her opening comment for Public Works was the development of the buy back policy.
I am just wondering if that could be mentioned in here. I am just wondering if we can get a little bit more explanation on it and some detail how that is going to work.
Chairperson (interpretation): Minister Thompson.
The buy back policy, staff housing policy, it is in the staff housing policy which states that staff who are living out of the region and who own their own housing if they want to sell their house and if it is bought by anybody or the public and if they do not get the asking price for that house the remainder would be paid by the Government.
We are reviewing that.
We have not said that we will buy private housing from our employees.
For example there is a department going up to Pond Inlet.
Once decentralization starts happening we have a department going to Pond Inlet.
If one of the employees had a private house and he put it up for sale and if it was bought below the asking price, the government would pay the remainder of the asking price.
It is under review and we are just considering it.
It is not just for the regions.
What we are trying to do at this point we are setting it up.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you Madam minister.
If what the minister is saying is it is only going to kick in if the person moving for a job has to sell it for less than what they want, what if they are not able to sell the house.
You know you have someone who may be looking at high rent or the purchase of a new home into the community they are going in to.
Plus having to maintain the mortgage in the event they are unable to pay for the house in the community they move from.
So I just wondered if you could answer that question.
Like I said it is only under draft.
The ministers are going to have a retreat in May.
We are just thinking about it.
We want to set up that policy because there are going to be some people moving around into the communities.
We are just trying to put together the staff housing policy at this point.
I do know the Standing Committee on Housing will have to review that housing policy.
We can not finish it right away.
We do not have the answers to those questions.
Now it is not finished.
It is only in its initial draft and now this member wants to see it.
The ministers will deliberate the staff housing policy in their retreat.
I get more frustrated with this staff housing policy as time goes on.
If it’s taken over a year, about a year to develop a draft, something as basic as this has not even been addressed in that.
How long is it going to take before we have a final draft to look at.
I think you know these types of programs and policies need to be in place today because right now in the next little while when we are looking at trying to hire people into jobs people are going to be afraid to move for those reasons.
I think this is something that is very urgent.
That needs to be done.
I am just astounded at the fact that it has taken over a year and they still do not have a policy on that.
Yes I do know that he want things done right away right at this very instant about everything this particular member.
I believe all members are like that too.
There are many things that are of concern to us.
We have to do them properly and put proper policies together.
And because of that we have to take time and it does take time.
If we bring up a policy and if nobody likes it that is part up of rushing it.
So in order to do things properly to have proper policies maybe it is very easy to do maybe from the outside.
But we have to treat everybody equally in the communities and we have to have the best policies set for employees.
Maybe we just set a record for setting up a policy.
One other question that I have, and the minister can take her time in answering it.
These are concerns that are not things we want done immediately.
These are policies and things that were in place.
There were policies there.
Poof they disappeared and everyone is in limbo waiting for something to happen.
You know it’s not only frustration on my part but a lot of other people out there in Nunavut as well.
It is not just this particular member the minister seems to be referring to.
I am sure other members here are just as frustrated at the pace of things as well as the people of Nunavut.
You know the capacity problem we are hearing about I can not wait until everyone is up to full capacity as we are getting tired of hearing the same excuse all the time.
In her opening statement she talked about working to empower and help develop the local housing organizations.
Are there any plans to provide training dollars to assist LHOs in developing their staff to be able to take on these additional responsibilities and train people that they have above and beyond the money that they already get for the grants and contributions to the LHOs.
The reason for saying this is I know for a fact the Housing Authority has tried on numerous occasions to train and to provide training to their foreman to increase his capacity and to other members of their staff.
Even just to provide basic receptionist office type course to them and they are not able to obtain that training here in Iqaluit.
They have applied for courses at Arctic College that always seem to be cancelled due to the lack of participation or the lack of enrolment in them.
So I am just wondering if this is happening here I am sure that it is something that is deterring the training in other communities and LHOs as well.
I am just wondering if there are plans to work something like that into the five-year plan, or the mandate that the minister was talking about.
Sometimes we hear about employees, we are dealing with the Nunavut Housing Corporation, let’s stick to the subject this afternoon during the committee of the whole.
If you would like to respond, Ms. Thompson.
Just recently the Baffin Housing Managers had a meeting with our department on March 21 and 22 I believe it was and the same question was brought up during the managers’ meeting.
At that time I told the managers that I have always worked hard in training and education fields as a teacher. I have always put a priority on training and education and we are going to be setting aside some funding for training housing association employees.
That will be through workshops and there is 109 thousand that will be used for training.
It will be in the plans on an ongoing basis.
At this time I have Mr. McLean on my list.
My question is just brief and hopefully one sentence.
When you have your staff housing developed would you bring it forward as soon as it’s done to the regular members and the standing committee to review before you pass it.
Like I said, I had already stated that I would make it available because we need the participation of the regular members.
I have no more names on my list.
We will then go into the detail.
Is that the committees’ wish.
These are the 2000/2001 Main Estimates, 12 - 5.
We will move onto 12 - 5.
Mr. Chairman, are we going to review the capital first and then go through the O&M like we did with the other departments.
We will do the capital estimates and then move on to the Main Estimates. 12 - 5.
Nunavut Housing Corporation, detail of capital.
Various headquarters region, total headquarters region, 620 thousand. Mr. McLean.
Could I have a brief description of what the fire damage replacement is.
Is that just a contingency fund.
Yes, that’s exactly what it is.
The Housing Corporation is self insured for all their single detached houses and we are required to repair and replace those houses or else we lose the CMHC funding.
So we have to allocate a certain amount in a contingency fund to offset any fire damage that may occur in the new fiscal year.
Just as a supplementary to that question.
Is there fire insurance on the units.
Ms. Hine: There is no fire insurance on the single-family housing.
That’s why we are self-insured.
We must replace and repair at our own expense.
We have insurance on our multi-plex units, which were through the NWT Housing Corporation, and we are currently negotiating with the insurance companies to renew that insurance.
Chairperson (interpretation): Thank you Ms. Hine. 12 - 5.
Total headquarters region, 620 thousand.
Baffin region, total 620 thousand.
Mr. Chairman, maybe just before we go out of the headquarters region it was indicated that CMHC provides another amount, I believe that it was 4 million dollars that was mentioned.
I stand to be corrected but would those figures be on top of what we receive here in the capital and where and how would those be recorded.
Chairperson (interpretation): Ms. Hine.
Yes they are on top of the information that you see in the capital estimates because the capital estimates are the estimates for the Nunavut Government budget.
The money that is provided from CMHC is provided to the Nunavut Housing Corporation decentralized or given out to the actual regional offices and used to cost share the modernisation and improvement units within the public housing program.
Chairperson (interpretation): Opposed.
Total Baffin Region, 9 million 500 thousand.
Mr. Chairman, just looking at the total numbers for the capital.