Asked by Mr. Roland on January 28, 1998, with respect to the loss of staff housing revenue.
The honourable MLA from Inuvik asked a question regarding the loss of revenue to the Inuvik regional health board, due to their inability to collect rent from its staff.
I am pleased to be able to report that, in fact, there has been no net loss to the government. The decision to remove the government from the role of landlord to its employees has resulted in a positive financial impact. Revenue that traditionally had been collected from employees living in staff housing was always far less than the cost of providing this housing. In the case of Inuvik, as elsewhere, one time revenue was realized from the sale of owned units and savings were realized as a result of the government no longer being responsible for maintaining and paying utility costs to these units. Additional savings were realized when unnecessary leases were not renewed on expiry.
The government fully recognizes that the Inuvik regional health board no longer has access to the rents that it had previously retained from its employees who lived in staff housing in the town of Inuvik. For this reason, Supplementary Estimates No. 3 for 1997-98, includes funding to replace this revenue and the FMB has approved an ongoing adjustment to the board's funding.