Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I'll just reiterate what a lot of the other Members are saying about district operations and how they negatively affect the effective delivery of our housing programs because of the communication gap that happens from the grassroots to the headquarters. There's always a buffer zone that the district offices stop a lot of communication that should be going to the headquarters because a lot of it relates to district operations in general and the lack of support and communication that clients are receiving from their district personnel.
Just another point with the LHOs with respect to the support and monitoring and assessment that the district offices provide to the LHOs. I think that's pretty much nil. As far as what my experience is with the LHOs, the district offices or the district manager never did any kind of a monitoring or assessment or asked any questions as to the decisions that the LHO board makes or why they make those decisions. I think that's why a lot of the complaints from clients about nepotism, favouritism, only family members are getting houses, I think that's where it all stems from, is because they have been telling the district offices about these things but nothing ever comes out of it. The district offices say, well, it's the LHOs' responsibility, they made the decision and you have to abide by it. Even though their decision is clearly a decision based on favouritism and family. There's no appeal process for people who are eligible for a house but don't get a house because they have the wrong last name or something like that.
There's nowhere for them to go and ask for a review of that decision, and I think that's up to the district offices to provide and we don't get that out of any of the district offices, as far as I know. I think the South Slave district office is connected to all our communities by a short highway system, except for one community, Lutselk'e. I haven't seen a district manager there once since I've been in this position, and I don't think he's been there once yet, as far as I know. I just don't understand why he doesn't jump in his vehicle and do a tour every month and go talk to the people and find out what their concerns are and address them head on, instead of waiting for the people to come to his office with complaints of no progress or no communication and the likes.
Also with the support and the delivery of programs, I know five years ago the government had proposed that the LHOs would take on the social housing fabric or the responsibility for public housing, and then they would move on to carry on with more programs and stuff like that. It hasn't happened. That hasn't happened either because, again from my experience in the LHO, I was building capacity at the LHO level and then the district office would take the staff from my office away after they were trained with my training dollars, and they would go and be employed at the district office where they wouldn't really do anything then. That was a good job, because you'd be sitting in a nice government district office, whereas at the LHO level, you're always working and busy. So the vice versa was happening, and the office was actually built in a way that it could provide some room for some expansion, more office space so we could take on more programs and the like, but it hasn't even developed into anything more than the LHO still is, whereas the district offices have become bigger. They're all cramped in one office space, there are more staff and there are more dollars at the district level, yet each year the LHOs have to kick and scream for any extra little dollars that they get. There are no more training dollars in the LHO budgets. There is no incentive for people anymore to go and work for these LHOs, because they're always clawing back. If they come in under budget, they have to give it all back to the government. If they go in over budget, they have to come up with the funds themselves. There's something wrong with that system, I think.
I think in all the years I came in under budget, you had to turn it back into the government to go back in the general revenue, where if you go $100,000 over budget, you have to eat it, you have to bite it somewhere, lay off some staff or whatnot, and I don't think that's fair for the LHOs. I know that the district offices are constantly growing, and I think the dollars have to go through those district offices down to the LHOs.
Just another thing about some district office employee performance reviews. I think if this government sees employees in their district levels, good, long-term employees at the district level, handing in resignations because they can no longer work under the conditions that they're put under, then the Minister has to question what's really happening at that district level and get right to the root of the problem to find out why these long-term employees are moving on and don't want to be there anymore. There are a few instances I can name, but we're not here to do that.
I just wanted to make those concerns known to the Minister. I know the feedback he gets from the district level is all pink and rosy and everything, we're doing our best and whatnot. But a lot of times, it's all fabricated information and it's all la-ti-da, things are just status quo, nothing's worse, nothing's better. But things are getting worse, and I think the people are starting to just bypass the district level and just come straight to headquarters and the MLAs and the Ministers, instead of going to their district manager who is the guy who should be handling all of this stuff. When everybody is bypassing that level of authority, then I think that's something that should be examined. The Minister is probably going to be looking into that; I hope he will be anyway. Thank you.