Mr. Speaker, Return to Written Question 3-14(4) asked by Mr. Bell and responded to by the Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation concerning the Fuel Rebate Program.
- The extension of the program from March 31, 2001, to April 30, 2001, was not advertised in any NWT newspapers or other media due to the volume of applications still arriving at the headquarters office of the NWT Housing Corporation after March 31, 2001. This extension allowed 600 additional applications to be processed. Many of the original applications that were received were either incomplete or had incorrect information. Rather than reject all of these applications outright, Housing Corporation staff contacted each applicant and worked with them to correct the information. Although this process took time, it did ensure that qualified applicants would receive one of the subsidies offered.
- Although only 70.5 percent of the original budget was expended for the duration of the program, we believe that the majority of qualifying clients did access this program. Due to significant new employment opportunities in the resource sector and the fact that many more households already received some sort of fuel subsidy from their employer than was originally anticipated, some of the projected eligible clients either exceeded the income thresholds or were disqualified for not meeting other program guidelines.
As with my last response to a written question regarding this subject, I would like to reiterate that these are still preliminary numbers only as the Housing Corporation is still processing the final applications that were received. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.