Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we can justify it and we will do that when we present our budget in this House. All the PYs are there and all that information will be available to the Members. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. Mr. Patterson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question for the Minister of Housing. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Minister said that notices of "change to rent have been either hand-delivered or sent by double-registered mail to tenants" and he went on to say that over 95 per cent of the public housing tenants had got these notices. When most people get a notice of change of rent, they expect to know how much their new rent will be, how much it's going up or down. When public housing tenants got their notice recently, was their new rent a part of that notice? Thank you.

Minister of Housing, Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Patterson was good enough to send me this rent scale change that his constituents have received. My understanding from this is that tenants were informed of the maximum rent they could pay for the unit they're in. They have been directed to go into their local housing authorities and sit down with the local housing authorities to work out what their rent would be and the process that would take. It's also my understanding that tenants were given packages. For example, in North Slave, they received their package on January 16th; South Slave, January 30th; western Arctic, January 19th; Baffin, January 23rd and 24th; Keewatin, January 29th and 30th; and, Kitikmeot, January 31st and February 1st. In that package, there is a lot of information. We have 7,000 information packages printed in English and 2,900 printed in Inuktitut to keep people informed. They were given those packages, and in the package was information on the new scale including examples and answers to some of the basic questions tenants may raise, as well as information on the corporation's new home ownership programs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Item 6, oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. Patterson.

Mr. Speaker, the honourable Minister has told me tenants were informed of their maximum rent, the most they might pay. He has told me they were informed of the home ownership programs. They were informed of the complicated process of calculating the rents. But he didn't inform me that the tenants were told about how much their rent in their house will go up or down each month. So I would like to ask the Minister, is it fair to Members of this House and the public to say that notices of changes to rent have been hand-delivered to 95 per cent of the households when, in fact, those notices of change of rent, although they give lots of information about the process to change the rent, don't tell a tenant how much their rent is going to go up or down? I would like to ask the Minister, is it fair to say that tenants have gotten notices of change of rent when none of them, unless they go in, have actually been told their rent in each household is going to go up or down? Is that fair? Thank you.

Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Tenants have received notice of what their maximum rent will be. This is not a new story, this rent scale has been in the works for at least two years. It has gone through broad community consultation, regional consultation, it's been on the air, it's been in the newspapers, it's been on posters in the communities and tenants have gotten their package. They're encouraged to go into their local housing authority and sit down and discuss their incomes with the housing authorities who have all been trained to deal with it now and work out what their rent will be. Every tenant is different. Whether they're working at the time or not

working, that reflects on their rent. Hopefully, people will go into their housing authorities and sit down with their own people and discuss what their rent will be. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 6, oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. Patterson.

Mr. Speaker, in my riding over half of the tenants have not gone in three days before the Minister's deadline, before the boom is lowered and they're assessed the maximum rent on their unit for not going into their local housing authority and verifying their income. I would like to ask the Minister, rather than telling the House about how many people have got these notices about the process and about the maximum, can he tell this House how many people have actually now got notice of the rent change for their household? What percentage of the households in the Northwest Territories have been given the detail of how much their rent is going to go up or down for their house? That's the real question. Thank you.

Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'll go back to the Housing Corporation and get them to get in contact with every local housing authority to get the numbers of actual people who have gone in.

Item 6, oral questions. Ms. Mike.

Minister of Housing, Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The information is translated only into Inuktitut and English. It's in both languages. But in all the western Arctic communities, as well as in the eastern Arctic communities, this change in the rent scale has been explained to people by their own people who speak their own language. Thank you.

Supplementary, Ms. Mike.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This rent scale has been talked about for more than two years. Don't you think that it is reasonable to expect to have this information translated into other official languages, other than just Inuktitut?

Mr. Morin.

Thank you. Mr. Speaker, if people request that this rent scale be translated into, for example, Cree, Chipewyan, Dogrib, Gwich'in, North Slavey, South Slavey -- and I understand, from the Official Languages Act that we passed in this Legislative Assembly -- those people have a right to request that and then it would be translated; it has to be translated. However, we haven't had that request. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 6, oral questions, supplementary. Ms. Mike.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm surprised at the Minister's response because with this type of initiative or implementation of rental increases to the public, you would think that the government would have the initiative on their own, without being asked, to have the material that is being passed on to the tenants translated to all the languages. How can the Minister justify that he has to wait for somebody to come up to him and say they would like to have this translated? Is that reasonable?