Yellowknife (Feb 2o/06) - A Yellowknife MLA is worried a government plan to
convert 1,420 work camp shelters into Northern homes will turn into a major boondoggle.

Sandy Lee: Wonders why government isn't pursuing other housing opportunities. Where they'll go: Aklavik: 6 Colville Lake: 20 Deline: 20 Dettah: 21 Enterprise: 13 Fort Good Hope: 20 Fort Liard: 43 Fort McPherson: 21 Fort Providence: 42 Fort Resolution: 14 Fort Simpson: 88 Fort Smith: 215 K'atlodeeche: 30 Ulukhaktok: 24 Inuvik: 255 Jean Marie River: 8 Kakisa: 5 Lutsel K'e: 24 Nahanni Butte: 8 Norman Wells: 66 Paulatuk: 37 Behchoko: 202 Trout Lake: 3 Tsiigehtchic: 11 Tuktoyaktuk: 93 Tulita: 47 Wekweeti: 18 Whati: 53 Wrigley: 13

The government has signed a memorandum-of-agreement with Calgary-based international firm ATCO Structures to supply "Novel" trailers to the Mackenzie Gas Project during the construction phase of the pipeline down the Mackenzie Valley.

After completion of the pipeline, the trailers will be shipped to 29 NWT communities and converted into homes for aboriginal residents to ease the desperate need for housing many of these communities face. The government estimates aboriginal communities will need 1,600 new homes by 2014.

Cabinet ministers and many MLAs from smaller communities call it "an opportunity of a lifetime," but Range Lake MLA Sandy Lee questions why the government is so eager to climb into bed - a "marriage," she calls it - with one company, and whether the plan will even work.

"Every time I say anything around here all the small town members say, 'Sandy, we need the housing.' They don't care how they get it," said Lee.

"It doesn't matter how they got there, it doesn't matter if there was a competitive process. This is a sole-source negotiation," Lee said.

The government says there will be $220 million worth of work and contracts for Northern companies in converting the trailers, but Lee said they should be doing more to seek out proposals from other manufacturing firms, particularly those in the North.

The plan hinges on several different factors. First and foremost is that the Mackenzie pipeline group actually goes ahead and builds a pipeline.

The pipeline group has so far made no commitments to the government's trailer scheme, which would require that the pipeline group hand over the trailers for free once the pipeline is built, and pay ATCO an estimated $234 million to build them.

The government also wants $119 million from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation to go along with a territorial government commitment of $116 million to convert the trailers into suitable public and private housing.

Private purchasers are expected to buy half the homes at $62 million, while the rest will go into public housing.

The government believes it can deliver the homes within three years after the completion date of the pipeline - expected in 2011 - at about 460 to 470 houses a year.

The trailers will come from three main work camps along the Mackenzie Valley. The conversion entails electrical work, installing heating systems, bathroom fixtures, kitchen cabinets, water and sewer tanks, and new flooring.

Lee said the government has no way of knowing whether people will actually buy any of the homes, or whether many will simply wind up left in the bush to get broken into and vandalized.

"The problem for developers isn't getting the trailers up here (because they'll be barged), it's developing lots that is the problem," said Lee.

Developing lots for the trailers to sit on is usually a job for the private sector in larger centres. That takes time and preparation.

"The government's going to do it all... and ATCO won't have to worry about any lot development," Lee cautioned.

Finance Minister Floyd Roland argued that the ATCO trailer scheme is simply too sweet a deal for the government to turn down.

He estimates that once converted, the average price tag for the two- to three-bedroom units will be less than $120,000 each.

"It's aimed for the smaller communities where the average income is much less than the larger centres," said Roland.

He admits that moving 460 trailers a year will be a huge undertaking, however.

"We'll have to consider the ability to mobilize those units, have the groundwork done, and have subdivisions developed," Roland said.

The minister wouldn't say what was written into the government agreement with ATCO.

"They have a patent on this new system of converting workplace housing," said Roland.

"If they're going to share this type of information, they don't want us to go shopping around and get three bidders to say, 'Can you provide a better concept than this?'"

The government is not without backers in the legislative assembly. On Thursday, other MLAs weighed into the ATCO debate, with most in favour of the plan.

"Used trailers, they call them," said Sahtu MLA Norman Yakeleya.

"I call them affordable homes we can build up with our own people. We need these homes."