So that's from the $200 million?
Evidence of meeting #39 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was training.
Evidence of meeting #39 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was training.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Nunavut Housing Corporation
We recently were allocated $100 million under CMHC. Of that, $50 million is for the current year. That will go to 285 units.
Now, 141 of those units will use structured insulated panels; we've put in our order for them. They've been shown to be more energy efficient. They're going to be easier and quicker to put together. When they land on the shore, we can actually put the shells together relatively quickly. Throughout the winter season, we can actually be doing the interior and finishing off the construction. We're not limited with the weather.
So we'll have 141 of those delivered this spring. The rest will be regular stick-built--I believe we're doing a number of fiveplexes--which is the standard way of doing it. We're doing a mix among the 285 units.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
That's almost a thousand new units, and there are still more to come.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
That's on an ongoing basis, plus out of that urgent fund.
3:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Nunavut Housing Corporation
I believe, based on the population growth, we need something like 300 units a year just to maintain status quo with the population. The 725 units were over a three-year period, and the 285 units were over a two-year period. At the rate of construction right now, we're not even keeping up with population growth, let alone breaching the shortfall.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
3:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Nunavut Housing Corporation
We're not as behind as we would be--
3:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Nunavut Housing Corporation
Correct.
We appreciate the money. We just need more.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
Okay.
There has been a lot of construction around here. Take this facility, or some of the tourist-related buildings for accommodation and so on; are those private capital, privately constructed, or...?
3:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Nunavut Housing Corporation
We're not involved in any of the tourist buildings. We are strictly public housing and a small portion of staff housing.
Most of the staff housing we provide for GN we actually lease from the private sector. We have a portfolio of about 1,300 staff housing units, and I think only 200-and-something are owned. That's mostly in areas where there just isn't private sector to build units for staff. We supply all the staff housing for all of the GN.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
I guess my point is that the private sector is now pretty used to building these kinds of facilities? They could very well move into private housing in the future?
3:35 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Nunavut Housing Corporation
Yes. We utilize a lot of the contractors in our construction. We try to encourage private sector where we can, but not all of the 25 communities have private sector construction.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
Right.
Patrick, I have a couple of questions about broadband. You mentioned that it would cost a couple of hundred million to bring fibre optics to Nunavut. Would that connect all the communities? And where would it come from?
3:35 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation
I'm just in the process of looking at the Greenland Connect. They spent €90 million to do that. It was 5,000 miles of cable, I believe. I'm not sure what the relative cost would be here, but that gives you an idea, given geography and distance. Plus there's a maintenance cost per kilometre. It's not a static cost but an ongoing cost.
One of the four or five studies I'm looking at this year is to come up with a comparable figure. If we did fibre, what would it cost? When would it intercept the ongoing costs of satellite? It also has to take into account the changing technology in satellite, because it's a moving target.
I'm looking at those two things. I can't give you a figure for that now. I probably could at the end of February or so, when I finish that. Of course, it depends on my funders funding this study.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
John Duncan Conservative Vancouver Island North, BC
That doesn't make sense. Would it connect to Greenland or would it connect south?
3:35 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Nunavut Broadband Development Corporation
I'm making the presumption, without looking at it fully, that we'd probably try to link into that Greenland Connect, given that it would seem to be the closest infrastructure. I don't know what that entails, politically or legally or anything else, but it does hit Newfoundland at some point, so...
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bruce Stanton
Yes. It goes rather quickly.
Now we'll go to the second round of questions, and we'll begin with Mr. Russell, for five minutes. That will be followed by Mr. Clarke.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Todd Russell Liberal Labrador, NL
Thank you, and good afternoon to each of you.
What would your budget be for housing on a yearly basis, not including the northern housing trust money, the $200 million, or the urgent housing needs funding of $150 million? If that goes away within, let's say, one more year or two years out, what is your base budget? What do you work with per year?
3:40 p.m.
Chief Financial Officer, Nunavut Housing Corporation
Our budget for this year is $180 million. Of that, we get about $49 million from CMHC and internal revenues. In terms of costs, it's about $25 million we are actually paying back to CMHC for a debt that we hold with them.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Todd Russell Liberal Labrador, NL
Can you break down that $180 million? What does that do in a year for housing needs in Nunavut?