Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will commit to that fully. We want to keep everybody in the North apprised of this, especially the beneficiaries of this program. It's a very important one. As things progress, we will be keeping everybody up to speed. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services and it is about the Somba K'e facility on the Dettah road. I had occasion to visit the facility. It's in a beautiful, pristine location. Mr. Handley was kind enough to take me on a tour of the facility in his constituency. I guess it was amazing to find, for me, that no clients had been at the facility and this was a couple of months back. No clients had been there since early February. I know that both the Department of Health and the Standing Committee on Social Programs are very interested in getting that facility reprofiled as a youth drug and alcohol treatment centre. The Minister was having Public Works and Services do a technical assessment. I wonder if the Minister can provide me with an update on what that technical assessment is and how close we are to getting that facility for youth drug treatment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct, the health and social services department and Yellowknife Health and Social Services in particular had an interest in exploring the possibility of using Somba K'e as a child welfare facility. We currently have some funds in the capital plan to upgrade the current facility and territorial treatment centre, but it seemed very old and possibly not worth fixing and the money possibly better invested elsewhere. We did have some discussions with the Housing Corporation and the Somba K'e board. We did some preliminary assessments with Public Works and other technical people. The indications were that it would cost more money than we had in our budget to upgrade the building to make it acceptable by Canadian standards for the specific needs we had in mind for a child welfare facility. So at this point, Health and Social Services is not an active player in the future of Somba K'e. The building is under the care and custody of the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that's very disappointing news to all of us. I am wondering then, if it looks to be cost prohibitive to make the facility suitable as a youth drug and alcohol treatment facility, is there some other capacity in which the Department of Health could see this facility being used to meet the needs in our social envelope? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the interest that we had for use as a possible child welfare facility as a replacement for TTC was clearly because there was money in the capital plan that would have allowed us to make that investment and make that possible change if it was appropriate. It was not seen to be appropriate, so we will deal with the child welfare concerns for a facility on a different path. The fate of Somba K'e I can't speak specifically to. I agree with the Member that it is a facility that has potential and there may be an opportunity for various groups in Yellowknife to come together to come up with a plan, but at this point the Department of Health and Social Services has no clear identified use for that building. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has been very upfront with this Legislature in the past in saying we didn't have money for bricks and mortar. I think the frustration here is that we have the bricks and mortar, at least lumber and nails out at Somba K'e, and we would like to get use of that facility. Am I to understand the Minister when he says that if he were approached by a community group, does this mean he would be amenable to an overture from a community group interested in using that facility as a drug and alcohol treatment facility? Thank you.

Thank you. The honourable Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The NWT Housing Corporation holds the mortgage on this facility. If there is an identified program need that comes to light that has consensus and makes good program sense, be it with health and social services or any other program area in government, then I would say that as a government we are interested in seeing what is possible. We know the needs exceed our resources. As the Member says, if we had the bricks and mortar, then is there a constructive, creative way to put those resources to use? I would hope that there would be. That work has not been done yet, but Health and Social Services would have to be at the table to do what they can to assist in that process.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, thank you. My questions this morning are for the Minister of Justice, Roger Allen, and concern the issues I raised earlier today about response to the 500 signatures seeking some redress to the issue of rent increases here in the city. I made it plain, Mr. Speaker, that I don't like the response that was given. I believe it is quite inadequate and I would like to ask the Minister how he can account for this totally inadequate response to the concerns of 500 people seeking redress for affordable rents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it's important to give a bit of a background too. We had agreed at some point over the last several months that rent control legislation would not work in the small jurisdiction of the Northwest Territories. So, if I may, with the concurrence of Mr. Speaker, I'd like to speak in the context of what we have been doing jointly between Justice and the Housing Corporation in its mandates. Recognizing that rent control legislation would not work in the Northwest Territories, we began a consultation process with the developers and had spoken at length across the territories. They have agreed that rent control legislation wouldn't work as well. What we may have failed to do, Mr. Speaker -- and I would like to acknowledge that today - is we may not have met with the people who signed the petition to find a solution to their concerns. I am prepared to do that as I do with all other interest groups -- to meet with them and find out what their concerns are, as well as finding suitable solutions. I am prepared to go that next step as soon as we can. Also we need to confirm that we have developed a consensus amongst the territorial developers that their affordable housing strategy is not working, but again we cannot control market rents. Hopefully at some point in the near future we can eradicate some of those questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I hope that we can put to bed now any more reference to rent control. I don't want it. Nobody wants it. It doesn't work. If the Minister is prepared to undertake an expanded consultation, I would hope that he would look at other jurisdictions as well and see what they have done. In some of my research offshore in Europe, there are some communities that are trying to address this situation too. There are answers out there. The Minister, Mr. Speaker, I hope will take all look at not only this but also at amending the entire tenancy act that we have that's some 15 years old. I wanted to ask the Minister, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister initiate steps to look at all conditions of the act that could perhaps be addressed by the next Legislative Assembly? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased that the Member has raised this because we tried to introduce some legislation for the Residential Tenancies Act, although it couldn't fit in this legislative agenda due to other pressures such as the Family Violence Act that we pushed to have as a priority. Certainly, we will continue to entertain that thought and support it. I think there is indeed research compiled to see if we can introduce other methodologies. Of course, the cost drivers are something that concerns the developers and we want to respect that. Again in order to address the housing shortages, as we heard in October and February, we encouraged the development of new facilities and the numbers are on the increase. We have 335 new rental units in Yellowknife to try to eradicate the pressure. It's difficult to try to implement some sort of rent control versus facilitating housing developments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, the Housing Corporation and developers in Yellowknife and the NWT are to be complimented for responding to the need, but the act itself...The Minister has said he would be prepared to go out and talk to people about specific rent increase measures. Would he expand that then to include a consultation to form the basis of modernizing the entire act? Can we get a commitment to go that far? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Allen.