Any questions?

Agreed. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you. Sorry for being so slow. I did want to just ask a question and I apologize if it was covered somewhere and I missed it, but there has been concern on the part of Members and I think local housing organizations, as well, about the number of clients that are in arrears. In some discussions we’ve had with Housing Corp, we’ve talked about a target of a 90 percent collection rate I think on mortgages, but I’m not sure. We also talked at one point, as a result of the Auditor General report, about how the corporation is monitoring these arrears and these collections of arrears in rent and mortgage. So I just wondered if I could get some comment from the Minister on where things are at. How do arrears stand at this time for rents and for mortgages and the 90 percent collection rate as a target? How close are we to achieving that? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, the 90 percent collection rate was the percentage we have been able to collect historically in the year 2004-2005. In 2005-2006, the collection started slipping in the area of rent collection and it dropped down to 76 percent in the year 2006-07. We are now back up to 87 percent collection in the area of rents. Jeff can speak to the mortgages and the collections.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Anderson.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Ms. Bisaro.

I think that is it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Next on my list is Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Chairman, under the corporate summary, in terms of municipalities and bands, the Minister had mentioned in terms of the unique challenges in some of our smaller bands and some of our charter communities or some of the hamlets or municipalities for the land. Has the Crown corporation designed a protocol with working with lands, band issues or municipalities? This came up in a discussion with the Fort Good Hope Charter Community that wanted to have some discussions with the corporation in terms of lands that are available and being worked on in the communities. I will ask the question in terms of the corporate summary in terms of how they are working with the municipalities and bands in terms of obtaining these lands in a very unique position to build much needed houses in the communities.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, in most cases or situations we sign a universal partnership agreement with the community, the band or the municipality that allows us to work together in a partnership arrangement. The other area and probably more challenging is the ability to build houses on IAB lands or federal Crown lands. Our requirements are that there is a land tenure or a document that testifies to that. In most cases we have two ways we can go and that is to deal with the federal government to give the person a direct lease or the community a lease or the band a lease. The other one is to set up a third-party entity that will allow the entity to hold the land in trust for the band or for the organization that we are dealing with. That seems to be working. We are bringing those strategies forward to some of the communities that have been giving us some concern.

The strategies that are going to be coming forward certainly would possibly help the communities, I guess. Mr. Chair, I would like to ask in terms of the issues here we are just discussing. I am not quite fully briefed as to the issues in the community of Fort Good Hope because it wasn’t given to me over the phone. Basically the request was to look at land issues in Fort Good Hope with the Housing Corporation. I am hoping that this corporation here with the Minister is flexible enough to look at issues such as Fort Good Hope in terms of the issues that they need to resolve to build units in the community and also what he mentioned about Colville Lake with the IAB lands to have units in the community.

Mr. Chairman, the community of Good Hope has already done some partnership arrangement with the NWT Housing Corporation. We were able to develop a number of properties in that community. There is, right now, a desire to start working towards a more formalized agreement in terms of a universal partnership agreement, or a UPA, and will continue to work with them towards that and explain to them and make sure everybody understands what the agreement states.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. We are on page 5-43 which is an information item, corporate summary, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just had a quick question on the operations expenditure summary, other expenses under mortgage and principal. I just want to know why that is an expense. I thought that would be a revenue. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, I will have Mr. Anderson respond to that.

Mr. Anderson.

Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Next on my list is Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to follow up on the land tenure question specifically with respect to Dettah and Ndilo and just find out if the third-party entity approach that the Minister had mentioned was actually being put in place for those communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, the communities of Dettah and Ndilo have been probably some of the communities that have been most challenging in the area of getting land tenure. We have been working towards a third-party entity and we have had a number of meetings over the last while with the communities. It looked like it was resolved. I believe we have brought that to the federal government’s attention. We still have to formalize that but it doesn’t seem that that will be accepted, so we have to go back to looking at getting a formal federal lease on these lands. The

land might be something very challenging. We don’t know what the communities’ response is going to be to that, but we need to qualify the information is up to date.