In fact, Mr. Speaker, my understanding was that this was actually a federal policy. Is that not correct? Thank you.

There is some subsidy that comes…There is $32 million that is provided through CMHC and it does come with some standards. Thank you.

Now that we’ve established that, I’d like to ask what this government is doing about that, which has been clearly profiled as a problem. Are we advocating the federal government, if need be, or are we going to change it if we have the power to respond to this problem of 50 percent of net income going to rent? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is not an area that has been brought forward through the Housing Corporation. That’s an area that ECE would have to look at. We have had some discussions, again, as part of our long list of issues that are in front of us. This is a concern. Right now the public housing revenues only generate a small percentage of what we do collect in terms of our needs to operate the whole public housing stock and we have not had any discussions, at least I have not in my time as the Minister had discussions regarding rent scales with any federal department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.

I can’t say there’s much to thank the Minister there for, but I would like to have an explanation from the Minister how people, tenants…What is the protection for tenants that cannot pay their rent? I understand there is normally a 90-day notice required for increase in rent. Yet somehow through some sort of voodoo administration the Housing Corporation does not need to conform to that rule; they’ve figured out a way to get around that and if a tenant is late for a monthly rent, one rent, they can bump it up to the full economic rent. I’d like to have an explanation of that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I take objection to the Member calling the LHOs or the Housing Corporation voodoo administration. That’s very disrespectful to our people in our organization. Mr. Speaker, the Member knows, and we have provided information to him, that there are a number of steps. It’s a very lengthy operation to evict anybody. It takes well over a year. There is a rental officer involved. There are about three or four checks and balances that need to be in place and a legal review that’s included. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Although I support the move, I also see part of the problem and I’m curious why the government has not spotted it yet. I mean, I listened very carefully to the Housing Minister’s response to Mrs. Groenewegen when he said, well, it’s ECE that provides the subsidy but it’s Housing that charges the full cost of the housing. See, that’s the problem. I don’t know why they can’t seem to bring the two together. The two together should be at income support.

Mr. Speaker, my questions are going to be for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment because we have a service model. Why aren’t we processing the payments of the subsidy in the same shop as we’re processing the paperwork to live in a housing unit? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly that is one of the areas that we continue to look at, how we can improve in certain programs, certain delivery areas. We are looking at our options. As we indicated to the House, we’re going to sit down and look at, I guess overall since 2005, what we’ve done, where it needs to be improved and the progress to date. Certainly that’s one of the areas that we can look at. Mahsi.

I think somewhere in there, in that language, the Minister agreed with my point. I’d like to know what have they done since this change has happened, because there seems to be a clear recognition that if there’s a hiccup in any way in the application process for the subsidy, it screws up the Housing application process which then kicks it into arrears and full market process and is nothing but a nightmare for the person living in housing. I’d like to actually know what has been worked on in the last couple of years to solve this problem. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we have had quite a few get-togethers with the LHOs’ client service officers and even at the housing authority. This is where we discuss the challenges that we may be faced with. We had numerous workshops on some areas that we may be challenged with. At the same time, how can we resolve certain issues? We did get generous input from various parties, from various communities, the 33 communities that we serve. We are moving forward on that. There is an annual gathering every year and we provide more information, more detailed information on the program itself and they

provide valuable input as well. We are making huge progress. We can see that. Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I respectfully say, I didn’t hear a single thing out of that answer other than we talk. Mr. Speaker, the issue is this: Subsidy is not connecting to the paperwork for the housing part. I would hope that that answer somewhere would say is we’re migrating the Housing people who provide the subsidy over to the income support side, because, Mr. Speaker, that is the problem and that’s why we have to have the 14 extra employees that were hired; because they didn’t want to move from Housing. So what did they do? They dug in and so you had to create new ones in order to facilitate this. What is the Minister doing at the Cabinet table to create a Cabinet directive to combine these two shops that are operating independently to make one model? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think I made myself clear that we are sitting down to deal with this matter. Certainly I think there is connectivity. We provide all kinds of subsidies along with the LHOs. We work closely with the LHOs. We’re not distant where one community can’t access a subsidy. It’s all there in the communities. We continue to provide that valuable service to the community. I think the Member may be misunderstanding what I’m saying, but we are continuing to work closely together and if he can’t accept that, then we need to continue working on that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The time for question period has expired. I’ll will allow the Member a short supplementary. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I continue to reiterate the fact that the problem is we’re not connecting the two shops. I know the Minister is clear that he’s clear, but the fact is it doesn’t solve the problem. The problem really comes down to what work he is doing at the Cabinet table to put these two groups of people that are operating independently, such as the income support folks and the folks over at Housing, to put them together so that we can have a seamless application process for someone to come in, fill out the forms, and then they can go home without any headaches.

I think I stated five or six times that we will be sitting down. We’ve developed a plan and we’re doing a review. I don’t know what else I can say on a moving-forward basis. We are making progress. We are making improvements to our program. I think we have proven to ourselves within our department, the two departments that we work with the communities and regions, for the last four years. We have made great strides. We can certainly prove that. We have

the products before us, the data that was collected. The 75 percent satisfaction guarantee from the survey we conducted clearly shows that we are moving forward.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Item 8, written questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to go back to item 7 on the Order Paper.

---Unanimous consent granted

Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask either the Premier or the Minister of the Housing Corporation regarding the Social Housing Agreement that was signed in 1997 between the federal government and our Territory. In the principles of signing that agreement in terms of the conditions, was one of the conditions regarding implementing a harmonization policy principle in the Northwest Territories along with the agreement that the federal government signed with us?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I’m not sure if I heard the question correctly. I have to apologize, but I need to hear the question again.