Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to tell the Members of this House another story. This is a story about a strong woman struggling to make a good life for herself and her children. It is also a story about her illogical landlord. Years ago this woman had high hopes for the future. She got married and had four children. Then things went wrong. Her husband left her and the children. Although the courts said he had to make support payments, he never did. Rather than give up, she found a job, rented a home for her family and worked to provide a stable and healthy life for her children. Money was always tight with seldom any extras for small treats. Still she paid her rent and kept her kids well fed and clothed. Her landlord knew about her circumstances and charged her a rent he thought that she could afford on a small income.

In November, she got sick and had to miss many days of work. Unfortunately, her boss could not afford to pay sick days but he did keep her job for her until she came back to work. Her income was much less that month. Still her landlord said he had to charge her regular rent based on what she should have made. He could not lose any money just because she had become sick. In December out of the blue, a large cheque arrived from her ex-husband. Surprised and pleased that there would be a better Christmas this year, she told her landlord about the income. He quickly told her that her rent for that month would go up a lot because she had more income. She pleaded saying that this was the only payment received in an entire year and why was he considering all the income in one month and charging her such a high rent? But he would not relent.

Mr. Speaker, this sounds like a silly story. Unfortunately, if you are a single parent living in GNWT public housing, this is a true story. It makes no sense to me that we have a housing rent possible which penalizes you one month if you get a temporary additional income and ignores the unavoidable temporary decrease in income the next month. It also makes no sense to me that this government would penalize someone for receiving a single maintenance payment in one year. We should be looking at the circumstances of spreading that income out over the year when making a rent adjustment. This would make the total rent adjustment much less. We need to take a hard look at the public housing rent policy in view of some of these circumstances. Some of the rules seem very unfair and inconsistent with our government's programs designed to make people more independent. Other rules penalize people for misfortunes beyond their control. Mr. Speaker, for every person like this that we hear about, there are others afraid to speak out and I do encourage the Minister to look closely at this policy and make the necessary changes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.