Nunavut MLA wants housing minister out of cabinet

Iqaluit West MLA Paul Okalik says he wants Hunter Tootoo, the territory's minister responsible for the Nunavut Housing Corp., to be removed from cabinet over $60 million in cost overruns by the Nunavut Housing Trust.

Speaking at the start of the Nunavut legislature's latest session on Tuesday, Okalik said he will put forward a motion on Thursday, calling for Tootoo's removal from the executive council.

Okalik's motion comes nearly a month after Tootoo announced that the Nunavut Housing Trust had overspent by $60 millionover the past five years.

"The minister assured our assembly as recently as last spring that everything was fine, and that the trust was fine. That's called misleading the house, so we expect better of our government," Okalik told reporters outside the legislative assembly chamber on Tuesday.

"We look forward to a good discussion and strengthening accountability in our assembly, so that ministers do their jobs harder and expect of their employees better."

Overruns 'quite a gap': Okalik

Managed by the housing corporation, the Nunavut Housing Trust was created in 2006 and received $200 million in federal funding to build between 700 and 750 affordable housing units by 2010.

Housing corporation officials cited poor budgeting, poor expenditure tracking and high labour costs as factors behind the cost overruns.

A full independent audit of the housing corporation is expected to be completed later this year.

"When you have a $200-million trust and you go over by $60 million, that's quite a gap," Okalik said.

"There's requirements that have to be followed in our assembly, where a minister is not meeting our expectations [and] they're accountable to their assembly, to the members."

Don't want to lay blame, Tootoo says

Tootoo said he was not surprised by Okalik's motion to oust him from cabinet, but he was more surprised that none of the regular, or non-cabinet, MLAs questioned him in the legislature about the cost overruns.

"I had a good meeting with the regular members this morning to give them updates and a briefing on exactly what happened with the Nunavut Housing Trust," Tootoo told reporters on Tuesday.

"My guess [is] they're going to take some time to go through that information, and I'm sure there'll be many questions forthcoming on that."

Tootoo maintained that his government is not looking to blame anyone for the housing trust's problems not even the previous territorial government, which was led by Okalik.

Tootoo noted that nearly $38 million of the housing trust's overspending occurred during the last legislative assembly, which ran from 2004 to 2008.

"We're not blaming anybody. It's clear mistakes were made in the past," Tootoo said. "What we've done is we've identified the problem and we've taken steps to address it."

Government proposes plan

Finance Minister Keith Peterson outlined some of those steps on Tuesday, saying the housing corporation will have to come up with $18.9 million to help make up for the overruns.

The territorial government will cover the rest by putting off $22 million worth of capital spending until the next fiscal year, Peterson added.

Delaying some training programs, and leaving some government staff positions unfilled, will save another $16 million, he added.

"We've carefully balanced the needs of Nunavummiut in developing a plan. Housing is an essential component of our Tamapta mandate," he said in the legislature.

"The plan seeks to ensure that the Nunavut Housing Trust is completed, as originally envisioned, [and] minimizing the impacts to the departments."

Peterson added that starting Wednesday, MLAs willcan ask specific questions about the government's plan to cover the housing trust's overruns. A vote on whether to approve the plan will follow.