Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The growth that we're projecting in the workload in the Sahtu region would account for about a .75 increase across the whole region in the workload. So what we're looking at doing is, where we've got part-time staff, their jobs may be increased somewhat in order to cover off the increase in workload. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Dent. Next I have Mrs. Groenewegen. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I've been listening with interest to this somewhat of a debate, I guess, about this one-stop convenience for income support clients who are receiving other types of subsidies, and I still have a few questions. I have to relate it to the community I represent, though, because it's hard for me to understand how it works in other communities. There's even been acronyms referred to, Mr. Pokiak said you go from door-to-door and he named the GRO I think he said, and I don't even know...What? TRO? Oh, tenant relations officer, TRO. See, I didn't even know what that meant.

So I want to talk about Hay River. I understand what happens there. Now, Mr. Chairman, if a person is a housing client, but not an income support client at this time, what will their new involvement be with an income support worker? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Their new involvement with the income support worker would be to apply for the housing subsidy for which they would qualify. So just as the circumstance now is that if somebody goes and applies to a landlord for a unit, they have to have a letter accepting them as a tenant and stating what the income is, and they can come back and then get income support for it. If they're in public housing, they would still have to go to public housing, apply for the unit, and then the application for the subsidy will be completed at the income support office. Now, that doesn't mean that they would necessarily have to come back every month. As I said earlier, people who are in stable situations may have it set up so that their subsidy is left stable and they're just required to come back and report to income support if their economic situation changes, and so may only wind up going into the income support office once a year.

Thank you, Minister Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, a lot of people's financial circumstances change more often than once a year. Some of them change on a month-to-month basis. Now, when you say if the housing client is in a stable income situation, then they may only have to go to the income support office once a year to report in. Who's monitoring that, because right now the local housing authority is monitoring whether there's any changes in the economic situation, income situation of their clients, because their clients come to see them generally once a month when they come to pay their rent. That is where that point of contact is. So who is going to monitor those kinds of changes? Who's going to trigger a re-evaluation of rent, for example, if there's a change? Is it based on an honour system? Are people supposed to come and tell the income support worker if their circumstances have changed? Perhaps they've improved. Who is responsible for monitoring that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It would be similar to the situation that is in place now. I understand that not everybody who is seeing or is receiving the public housing rental subsidy necessarily goes into the office every month. They may drop their cheque off; they're not necessarily seen by somebody at the centre every month and this same sort of situation would continue. It will depend entirely on a person's situation and, depending on each individual situation, the circumstances may vary. So we will have compliance auditors; we will have regular meetings with clients as they're seen necessary. But there would still continue to be the usual rigour attached to making sure that the proper subsidies are being given out. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I don't understand why we will still continue to have meetings with clients. Who will have a meeting with the client and how will they monitor what the financial situation is? Yes, of course some people do drop off their rent cheques to the local housing authority, but in most cases that I'm aware of, they do stop by the office and the LHO does play a large part in keeping their ear to the ground on changes, different people occupying the units, changes in the household income. The local housing authority has traditionally done that. Who is doing that now? Are you taking that responsibility away from the LHO? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In terms of assessing whether or not a person qualifies for the subsidy, then, yes, that job is being taken away from the LHO. The exact level of the subsidy is one that is being taken on by income support. There would still continue to be the government service centre. At the government service centre there would be continued cooperation and collaboration between the service centres and the local housing authorities and that we expect would make sure that the compliance continues.

Thank you, Minister Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you. I hope that there would be, Mr. Chairman, a formal structure or process set up for communication between the LHO and the government service centre, because somehow, at one end or the other, somebody has got to get information about change of circumstances, otherwise there is no monitoring of the situation unless you're just counting on people automatically reporting if they have a change in their income situation. If you're counting on people doing that themselves, I would suggest you're being optimistic. If you are thinking that the LHO is going to find that out and then take the time to contact the government service centre, I don't know what kind of incentive there is for them to do that. So I would suggest that you need some kind of a formal communication process in place to feed information back and forth to these two organizations, which seems a bit cumbersome, but I'd be interested in knowing how the Minister plans to accomplish that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There will be formal mechanisms in place for communications between the two agencies. The government service centre will be involved in compliance audits. So even if somebody doesn't report on that in a month if they've had a change, they may find themselves then responsible in the future for making up a subsidy that they shouldn't have received. So there will be a continued level of watching for compliance. There's been really good collaboration between the LHOs and the income security workers to date. Just as we've gone through the process of understanding how we will now have to work with their clients, there have been meetings on a regional basis, there've been meetings where we've brought in workers from across the Territories to work with our staff. So there is already a clear level of communication and we'll work to ensure that continues.

Thank you, Minister Dent. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I still just want to draw attention, one more time, to the fact that you're dealing with some regular income support clients who are housing clients, and you're dealing with some housing clients who are not income support clients, who are now essentially going to become the responsibility of income support workers even if you call it a government service centre. That is a distinction and I think it calls for a different approach in terms of how you're going to manage and monitor that.

One other thing I want to ask the Minister about, Mr. Chairman, is the area of communications with clients right now, because I believe the people who are out there right now in public housing are very confused by what's going on. I don't think that the communication has been very clear. I don't think it's been very consistent. I'll give you an example. In Hay River where a senior citizen living in a facility owned by the NWT Housing Corporation received correspondence from the local LHO, which you would expect because the LHO manages that facility, it was about three or four pages of correspondence attempting to explain this shift, but in the process, even though in a couple of sentences it says if you are a senior basically this does not apply to you, it was kind of hidden in the text and there was a blank to be filled in, which spoke to the actual economic or market rate assessed to that unit in this complex. So all these senior citizens got this letter from their local LHO signed by the manager, which I'm sure was sent out on instruction to inform them, very, very complicated.

I read through the whole four pages just so that I could try and put myself in the position of the client who received this, and it was absolutely no wonder that they came running to our constituency office and thought their rent was going up $794 when, in fact, it was not. But, I mean, it just was not presented clearly. So I want to know who is responsible. Is the housing authority and the Housing Corporation responsible for the communication on this new methodology and new system, or is it ECE that's responsible? If ECE is responsible and is going to control that communication, then you need to do a better and a different job of that. If it is the housing authority, well, then I guess you still need to coordinate with them how you are going to do this, because I could provide you with copies of this correspondence that went out to this individual and it had everybody in a seniors' complex in quite a bit of concern for a number of hours until they could get clarification on this, but it's just unnecessary stress, and communication needs to be very, very clear for everybody and it needs to be consistent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree totally with Mrs. Groenewegen. I think that we need to make sure that our communications are clear and concise. I actually would appreciate it if you would share with me that letter so that we can have a look at it and see if perhaps we might be able to provide some clarification to people who are in similar situations, and make sure that they understand what is happening. If there has been an incident that has caused concern, we'd like to be informed about it so that we can try and address it on an individual case-by-case basis if necessary.

The goal has been, right now, to try and coordinate communications. The local housing authorities, or LHOs, are still the ones who are responsible in the communities for delivering the program. As of April 1st, ECE will take over. So we have been working with most of the LHOs quite well at coordinating the communications, and ECE has instituted a 1-800 phone number. There's been an extensive advertising campaign and community radio and newspapers. This 1-800 number, we can deal with aboriginal languages should people want to speak their own language when they call that number, and we are doing our best to try to make sure that we get accurate information out there. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Dent. We're on page 9-35, activity summary, income security, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a quick question in regard to compensation and benefits. In 2005-06 you had $2.083 and then in 2006-07 you've got $3.166 with an increase of $1.083. Can the Minister indicate what the increases are for, and I'm assuming that there will be more positions available or staff required. Can the Minister explain that, please? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Minister Dent.