I think committee will be looking to see how we improve that contractor/contractee situation. With the remaining minutes here, I would like to comment on what I'm hearing out there about this transfer of housing subsidy, or housing program, to ECE, some part of it. Sitting where we are sitting and having been advised and briefed about why this transfer came about and what its objective is to achieve, it sounds good sitting here; however, listening to the people out there, there are a lot of problems.
As a committee, we heard of people losing jobs because they couldn't go through the training program properly in the communities. We heard of backlogs in application process for housing and everything being forced to move to the regional centres. In the city of Yellowknife we are hearing, and I think the Minister might want to check this, and I guess now with the ECE department, but I understand that the rental complaint from those people who are having problems with arrears because of the changes and calculations and what's being included. I mean the number of appeals filed to the rental office as a result of this transfer, as I understand it, has tripled, if not doubled, in the last year.
From where we sit, I remember hearing that ECE was going to take the money and that they were going to come up with a detailed plan on this before we would have a chance to do this. I don't think we had a chance to go through all the details, and I'm still not clear as to why we had to do this, other than making everything consistent. However, I don't think our objective is to make sure that,
you know, that...Not all programs are the same and we don't need a situation where someone working in Income Security Program telling somebody who's in the Housing Corporation that, you know, I know that you sold something in YK Trader website and you have extra income and you have to come and report that or people who have...People who get housing assistance from the Housing Corporation aren't necessarily those who would be eligible for income support, for example. I'm not saying that any one group is better than another or anything like that. I'm just saying we have all sorts of programs in government that are aimed at different people with different needs at different points in their lives and I don't think we, as a government, with this transfer, have done enough to make sure that we don't lose sight of the program end, you know program objective we're trying to achieve.
I guess I'll have to ask the Minister, what role does the Housing Corporation play anymore in this regard? Or is it just all being transferred to ECE and you have nothing to do with it anymore in terms of some of the complaints that we're hearing? Thank you.