Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I do appreciate all the Members’ comments on this particular item. It has been a true discussion that we have been having here. The transfer of the program itself since 2005, it has been four years now. We are, as I stated earlier, making progress. We have compiled information on what we have done to date. The Minister of the Housing Corporation and I will certainly meet with the standing committee to show them this is where we are at and this is where we want to go.
I just want to reflect on some of the comments that were made here today. We were told that this whole thing is broke today. I think I don’t see anything broken today. We continue to deliver the service that we have been providing for the last four
years, even before then. But since the transfer, I think we have made great strides on delivering an effective program into the communities. Sure, there are gaps here and there, but we are improving those areas, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there were talks about the positions, that it is costing us additional to deliver a program. That is not going to change even though it is transferred back to the Housing Corporation. It will still continue to cost us to deliver a program, because we need to reach out to communities. That is what we are doing today. We train our own client services officers. We train community members, LHOs and board members. We are doing what we can as a department to give them more detailed information on what is available, what is working and what is not working. How can we fix it? Let’s find a solution. We continue to strive, Mr. Speaker. Maybe that is part of the reason why it is costing us money. If we don’t do that, we get criticized for making decisions at a headquarter level. I am a firm believer in going to the communities and reaching out. The 33 communities that we service, we will continue to do so, Mr. Speaker. Yes, there has been some improvement in assessment and also income security reform that the Members have alluded to. That will be before the committee. We did make a commitment today.
Arrears have been brought up. Arrears were there before the transfer happened. Even up to 1996 I remember there were arrears, people being evicted. That is nothing new. We took it on and we are making efforts to change that. We are making progress. As the Minister of the Housing Corporation has alluded to already, we have made great strides; 70 or 80 percent on average on rent collections since we took over the program. That is a huge progress to date that we have made. It wasn’t there before. Members need to be aware of that also.
Mr. Speaker, the ECE, when we took over the program back in 2005, we have not made any policy changes. We still continue to deliver the program under the regime of the Housing Corporation guidelines at that time. But, then again, we have improved in some areas. We do continue to make changes as well.
Just talking about transferring back to the Housing Corporation, some are saying that it should be done right away, like today. It would not be an easy transition. When it was transferred to us, we had to learn the last four years. Transferring back will certainly cost. We don’t know how much it is going to cost us. Time will tell. Those positions did not transfer to us, so we created our own positions dealing with all the subsidies that we currently deliver. The last four years the positions were there and are there now. I don’t think they are, because
they are probably spread out to other areas so that means transferring back over there, hiring more people. Try to keep those in mind. There are additional costs of transferring back, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to highlight some of the areas that we talked about, how our staff, the committees, the regions happen through the system. I would just like to say, I guess, I give some kudos to my departmental staff that has worked tremendously hard to make this a true success. I think we are achieving the goal, Mr. Speaker. It is not an easy ride. At the same time, we are doing what we can to deliver the most effective program in the communities, the regions and the Northwest Territories, and most especially those client service officers in the regions and in the communities.
Mr. Speaker, as you know, this is not an easy position to be in. This is a real stressful job that these client services officers are undertaking. They don’t get any credit whatsoever. It is always a negative aspect. They need a pat on the back every now and then. The last four years has been a tremendous struggle to make this a perfect program that we can deliver. At the same time, Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of pressure and stress pertaining to these roles that individuals are undertaking in the communities.
On behalf of the government, I am not going to speak for long, Mr. Speaker, because we are going to be presenting to the standing committee. They are either watching or listening today. I would just like to say thank you for your hard work and patience. I would just like to say to them, keep up the good work. We deserve every effort that you put into the system. Mahsi.