Thank you, Mr. Speaker. WHEREAS there are serious problems associated with the transfer of responsibility for the administration of social housing from the NWT Housing Corporation to the Department of Education, Culture and Employment;

AND WHEREAS residents of the Northwest Territories living in social housing are being inconvenienced by the disconnect between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, which calculates the amount of subsidy, and the local housing authority, which determines the unit's rent;

AND WHEREAS in the absence of centralized government service centres, some tenants attempting to pay rent on their social housing are compelled to attend at least two government offices, and possibly a banking institution and, as well, are not able to pay their rent in a single visit;

AND WHEREAS the inability of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment to calculate subsidies in a timely manner and pass that information on to the local housing authorities has had a downstream effect and has negatively affected the cash flow of local housing authorities and may impact on their ability to maintain their units;

AND WHEREAS the local housing authorities have in the past demonstrated their competency in calculating subsidy eligibility and rental rates;

AND WHEREAS it would be desirable for there to be one-stop access for social housing clients attempting to pay their rent;

NOW THEREFORE I MOVE, seconded by the honourable member for Range Lake, that the responsibility for the administration of social housing be once again placed under the control of the NWT Housing Corporation;

AND FURTHER, that the responsibility for determining the methodology of calculating social housing subsidies remain with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Motion is on the floor. Motion is in order. To the motion. Honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is a motion that I was more than happy to bring forward. The transfer over to ECE has had an effect on a lot of housing tenants. I think when we were up in Sachs Harbour we were spoken to by a lady that had to fax her information to the Education, Culture and Employment office in Inuvik and wait for it to come back. We're heard many stories, Mr. Speaker, from tenants that are having trouble with this new program. The government likes to say that they're having one-stop shopping and I challenge that, because I think, Mr. Speaker, that it may be easier on the employees of ECE to have everyone there, but they're having trouble getting a lot of this information back to the housing authorities on time. It's affecting the housing authorities' ability to do their business. When the Housing Corporation looked after the money, it was put in their accounts on a quarterly basis and that gave them the ability to do all the work that's required. I'm not sure what the vacancy rate is on some of these units. It's just been a real problem, Mr. Speaker, to a lot of housing tenants; not only housing tenants, it's affecting some of the housing authorities. Some of the Members have spoken to it in the past in some of their Members' statements and in some of the questions.

So I think, Mr. Speaker, with this motion what we're hoping to do is ask the government to transfer the responsibility back to the NWT Housing Corporation and the $35 million along with it, and allow the local housing authorities to do a job that they've been doing for years and years, and they've been doing it well, Mr. Speaker. It's an easier process for the tenants and we have to listen to what the constituents are telling us. I'm not sure how it is with the transfer over to ECE, if they've been trained well enough; it doesn't seem to be. Tenants are having to wait three weeks to have their assessment done. A lot of people that have never been in arrears before are in arrears because of the lateness of the assessments getting back over to the housing authorities. So what we're asking today, Mr. Speaker, if for this government to big enough to realize that this is a program that's not working, and be big enough to say that we'll listen to the constituents, we'll listen to the residents on this one, and we'll move it back to the responsibility of the NWT Housing Corporation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to comment briefly in support of this motion, as the seconder of this motion. Mr. Speaker, I must say I have tried to remember all of the arguments in support of this transfer that came about in some of the discussions we had in the committee meetings and such, and I have to tell you I cannot really think of one good rationale as to why this move was made, other than to say what the Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes has already mentioned, which was that there should be one-stop shopping, so to speak, for housing subsidy programs.

I remember being advised before all the details were worked out about the implications of moving this program. The statement was made that the money should be transferred to ECE and that the details and more of the merit of the case will be brought before the committee

members after the fact. Now that I have heard from the constituents all over the Territories, I am more convinced than at the time, and I was not entirely convinced at the time, that this was not the right move. If it is the right move, the government has not met the burden of making their case.

Mr. Speaker, when we went out on the road over the summer months to do pre-budget consultations, I cannot tell you...There was not one community where the issues about this did not come about. This is a big issue for those people in Yellowknife who are getting housing subsidies through the Housing Corporation who are now having to go to ECE. When we were in Sachs Harbour, I learned, once again, how we are so insulated from the implications of a small decision, which we thought was more of an efficiency situation, about government doing things more efficiently. There was not any new additional money being put forward for housing subsidy and, in fact, I think this transfer has cost the government more money, because now ECE is having to create new positions to do that.

What we learned, that really surprised me, in Sachs Harbour, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that the housing worker that has a job there and has always done this could not do it anymore, and now we are seeing situations where in small communities their files are being moved to regional headquarters and bogging down the system even more than it was before. If at all possible, government should be making changes to either enhance the program, improve the program, and have more benefits at the user level. I tell you, this transfer is something that didn't make sense at the time, that has not made it's case by the government thus far, and that until the government establishes their case for this and meets the burden of proving that, I am in strong favour of moving this program back to the Housing Corporation until the government establishes and proves their case.

So just in short, Mr. Speaker, I think this has caused nothing but heartache for the people who are applying it. It has not added any more benefits to the beneficiaries of the program. It has caused a great deal of stress to the workers in the field who are delivering these programs, and I think government has an obligation to take it back and revisit it and make it better before they come to us again to do that. So for that reason, Mr. Speaker, I will be voting in support of this motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. To the motion. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I read the motion; I've heard some statements made, both in committee and now. I will not be voting in favour of the motion. I think the concerns highlighted through disconnect means that maybe the government isn't working hard enough, but I believe in the theme and the concept of harmonization. There is one problem I will definitely say, and that is I think the day that the government took social workers out of these types of programs was a mistake of this government as a whole. Not this Assembly, the 15th, but the one that did that action.

I think housing officers need to be social workers to some extent. I believe income support workers need to be social workers. I think those are the people who can help folks out there who are in this category.

If there are problems paying rent, Mr. Speaker, you know, no system is flawless, but I believe harmonization is the way to go. I believe that if we're having trouble with subsidies in the sense of calculating them, again, that's why MLAs are here. If people are having difficulty getting their payments in, we have to consider those options, as MLAs, bring them forward to the ministry. That's what we do each and every day.

Mr. Speaker, as it's said here, it would be desirable if there was a one-stop centre. Yes, sometimes things take time, but I'm a big believer in service centre concepts. I believe it was difficult to finally get it to the next stage of the harmonization, so, therefore, I will be supporting it...Or, sorry; supporting my perspective, by voting against it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. To the motion. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will be speaking in favour of the motion. I questioned the sense of moving the housing funding to ECE at the time that it happened. I cannot remember, for the life of me, what the explanation was that the Minister of ECE came up with. He was extremely strident in whatever the case was that he put forward. I thought it made no sense at the time, and now that we see it actually playing out in real life, I think it is an untenable, awkward situation. I think the LHOs were doing a fine job of collecting the rent and assessing the rent for the housing clients. I think that everybody has been put in an awkward situation; most importantly, the tenants themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that when we're speaking in this House, the Minister who this affects does not take the time to even pay attention to what we're saying and has been talking during every presentation we've made to this motion, but anyway...Mr. Speaker, I will be interested in hearing again what the Minister of ECE has to say about what the good and valid reasons were that he had. In the process of conveying this money, 13 new positions were created at a cost of about $1.3 million to the Department of ECE, and I think we should just roll it back and I think the Minister should be held accountable for this disaster. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. To the motion. The honourable Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this issue has some considerable history dating back, by my recollection, to the 13th Assembly, where we started moving on the issue of harmonization and trying to better integrate the programs to make them more efficient and effective for the people that are using these very much needed programs. It carried over into the 14th and then again into the 15th before there was any decision to finally act.

Our job, as legislators, is to look at these types of issues that are very important. They require significant structural change and a commitment to stay and try to work things through. I recollect the concerns about housing at the

time were significant, about the way they were located, the disconnect with the social workers, the disconnect with income support, and that we had to do a better job of trying to deliver this service. I believe the concept is a sound one. I believe what we're struggling with here clearly are implementation problems. If it's an implementation problem, then let's identify what the specific issues are, set some timelines and take a look at what's going to be done to improve this circumstance before we try to roll back significant structural change, transfers of tens of millions of dollars, positions, policies. We spent months working with the public to get them ready for this, and the issue of changing horses in midstream, throwing out the baby with the bathwater, we have to be very careful how we do this. So I'm suggesting we look at the implementation piece on this and if it needs fixing, as it clearly does from the concerns being raised to the MLAs, then we should task the responsible department to lay out the timelines and how they're going to address those issues and be able to report back.

With eight months to go, to suggest we do a major rollback of one of the biggest policy initiatives in this government, in the life of this Assembly, I think is going to be very difficult to do, and is not the right step, in my mind, so I won't be supporting this motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. To the motion. The honourable for Nunakput, Mr. Pokiak.

I think, Mr. Speaker, some of my colleagues already indicated...Oh, I'm sorry. I will support the motion, Mr. Speaker.

When we travelled to the communities during the pre-budget, we did hear a lot of the problems the housing association are having with income support workers. It's been over seven months since we implemented the program and they're still trying to figure out how it's supposed to work.

The intent, I guess, at the time, was to have a one-stop shop. We still don't see it in the communities. Right now, when you travel to Sachs, when I went with the Minister of Housing, the housing association managers were overseeing that program. Then you have to let...(inaudible)...you have to receive a fax to get information. Subsequent to our meeting in Ulukhaktok with the Housing Minister at that time, there were so many problems going on with the program that eventually the same week, the following week, the Department of ECE actually sent people from headquarters to the Inuvik region to go talk of income support work in Ulukhaktok and rectify the problem.

One individual in Ulukhaktok at the same time at the meetings said it was working before, so why change it? Comments like that, something was working; you try and change it and it is not working today. Mr. Speaker, I will support the motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. To the motion. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to speak to this motion today. I hear the concerns of my colleagues, especially my colleagues from the smaller communities. They are hearing the brunt of the issues that are out there facing their constituents. This whole transfer of responsibility for social housing from the Housing Corporation over to ECE two years ago when it all started was, and continues to be for me, one of the strangest and most bizarre things that I have seen here in this House as a Member of this Legislative Assembly. I will tell you a little story, if I could, in speaking to this motion.

Thirty million dollars was taken from the Housing Corporation over to ECE to roll out the social housing policy and look after it. Thirteen positions were needed at ECE to carry out the work that was being done by the Housing Corporation and the staff in the regions. There was no rhyme nor reason as to why the positions couldn't come over with the money. We left the positions in. I am still left baffled as to what exactly the people who were doing the social policy work in the Housing Corporation are now doing now that the money is over at ECE. Last year we took I believe it was in the neighbourhood of half a million dollars out of a supp to try to send a message to the government that it didn't quite add up for us. It didn't add up for me, and it didn't add up for a number of my colleagues over here, that the government wanted to hire 13 people in ECE to deliver the same thing that the Housing Corporation was delivering. We were successful in taking that money out of the supp. We turn around, and the next thing you know, $1.3 million is just grabbed from the Housing Corporation budget to fund the new positions. It is completely bizarre. Again, there was no rhyme, there was no reason as to why and how this all took place.

Fundamentally, I agree with some of my colleagues here that a centralized service delivery model is possibly the best way to go about things, but there are some serious concerns on implementation of this. If the problems out there are existing to the extent where Members are hearing concerns from their constituents and things aren't getting done and things are just a complete mess, I think that is, for me, why I am going to support the motion. I mentioned it the other day, too, when Ministers travel to various FPT meetings across the country, oftentimes they learn ideas or they see things that provinces are doing and these super service centres are all the rage now in southern Canada. We come back here and we try to think, hey, maybe we can do this here too. But it doesn't always work here. We have only 42,000 people and we have scarce resources. Yet, what happened? What took place there? I still cannot figure it out exactly what transpired there with the 13 positions at ECE and the people that were at the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, I have to chuckle because that, to me, was just completely absurd. I have yet to hear an explanation exactly how that all happened, Mr. Speaker.

I will support the motion in support of my colleagues in the regions who have heard the concerns and are hearing the concerns. Even in my riding, Mr. Speaker, I have heard concerns as well. So I will support the motion. I think some of the responsibility here, and let's be clear with this, lies with us, with the Regular Members, with the Social Programs committee. I am not on that committee, but let's try to work through some of this stuff. There has to be an easier and a better way to do things. Right now, it seems like a complete mess, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. I will allow the Member, the mover of the motion, to close the debate. Sorry. To the motion. The honourable Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I understand that some of the Members are hearing from their constituents the concerns around the transfer of social housing to the assessment part from the Housing Corporation to ECE. I know that housing is an important issue for all of our constituents in all of our communities, so I understand the reason for wanting to bring this item forward.

I like to point out that we are fairly early in the process of this transfer. It has only been some seven months since ECE has had full responsibility for administering the Public Housing Rental Subsidy Program. Part of the transfer that seems to have gotten wrapped up in the transfer is the fact that the Housing Corporation instituted the last phase of the rent scale change on April 1st as well. So there has been a change in the rent scales that happen that was brought in on units. It was brought in by the Housing Corporation. I think, in many cases, that is getting wrapped up in tenant concerns about the way the program is rolling out in the communities.

I think also that we have to remember that when you change a program of this magnitude, you are going to have some unexpected problems that are going to come about with the transfer. I know that, within three months of the start of the program, we set up a working group that involved people from LHOs, from the Housing Corporation, the regional managers from Education, Culture and Employment. We met in July. They set up a work plan. They have identified from the LHO side, the tenant side, from the ECE side, where the problems are. They have a list of tasks that they need to address. The plan is that they will meet in about two weeks from now to take a look at that work plan, see how far they have come along. But I would be quite happy to report to the Standing Committee on Social Programs what that work plan looks like and give an update on the progress that is being made.

Part of what has been frustrating, too, is that we have been under some pressure from Members in this House to make some changes, but before the transfer was made, Members asked that we not make any changes to the housing subsidy for at least the first year to make sure that ECE was aware of the program and how it was working. For this year, we have followed the exact same policies that were in place for years, set up by the Housing Corporation.

I think it is also important to remember that the transfer of the Public Housing Rental Subsidy Program is a critical part of a much larger project which is to address income security redesign. The focus of that program is to create a system that supports self-reliance for people to the greatest extent possible while ensuring we have support available for those who need it. We have, in this government, $128 million in subsidies that we pay out directly to people. The largest single part of that is the public housing rental subsidy. We know that these programs, because they were developed at different times by different departments and with different goals in mind when they were developed, we know that not all of our programs work very well together. I have heard many times from Members of this House, they have talked about how the rent scale doesn't encourage self-reliance. It doesn't help that the program is set up so there are clawbacks that don't engender that self-reliance when people get into work. As we are redesigning the Income Security Program, those are the sorts of issues that we are hoping that we are going to be able to address.

I am hoping to be able to come forward to the Standing Committee on Social Programs within the year, before Christmas, to outline some of the options we have to be able to better streamline our programs and better make sure the programs like the public housing rental subsidy do, in fact, not penalize people who go out and become more productive.

So I think that there is no question there was some teething problems. We hear about that from agencies. If LHOs are having cash flow problems, if those are brought to our attention, those are issues we can deal with. If the LHOs are advising the Housing Corporation that they have a cash flow problem, then we can meet together with the Housing Corporation and find a way to deal with that.

The first time the meeting was held in July, that issue was brought up. So rather than waiting for the assessments and transferring money after the assessments are done, now the money is being advanced to the LHOs from ECE. The money is being advanced to the Housing Corporation so that there isn't a need for LHOs to wait, and a reconciliation can be done on that funding later.

So, Mr. Speaker, government always pays attention to what it hears in this House. We have heard the concern that is being expressed by Members around this motion. I hope that Members will give government a chance to come back to the standing committee and outline our work plan for resolving the problems that are there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. I will allow the Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes to close the debate on the motion.

Well, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to some of my colleagues who are supporting the motion. We are trying to listen to what constituents are telling us. I really challenge the government to be big enough to listen to what they are being asked to do. If it's not working, let's go with something that works. Lord knows, if we find anything else that's working in the government, are we going to try to change that too? I think this was a program that was working. I think we should stick with it. We've received numerous concerns from constituents. I know I have personally and I want to act on those. I want to do what's right for the constituent here. I really do.

Talk about growing pains and maybe that's all true, but the fact of the matter is we're doing what residents are wanting us to do, what's good for the residents, not what's good for the departments. Isn't that why we are here, to do what's good for the residents and not what is good for departments? I thank the Members that supported me on this motion. I think it's a good motion. I think it's a motion that if you went from community to community and asked everybody if it's working, I would say 99.9 percent of the communities, LHOs, would tell you this is not a program that's working. Seven months is a long time. It's a simple little process. Get your rent assessed, pay it and you're done, but they've complicated things again. So, Mr. Speaker, I was more than glad to present this motion, because I believe I was doing what residents want me to do and I think the government should look at that and do what residents want them to do, too. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. To the motion.

Question is being called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried.

---Carried

---Applause

Motions. First reading of bills. Second reading of bills. Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 13, Committee Report 6-15(5), with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.

Mahsi, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the committee wishes to consider Bill 13, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2006-2007, and Committee Report 6-15(5), Accountability and Oversight Committee Report on Pre-Budget Consultations, 2006. Mahsi, Madam Chair.