Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I support the principles of what my colleagues are raising here today. They are bringing forward the frustrations and, if I may define, the swell of frustrations out there in our communities regarding some of the principles of why the social housing transfer moved from Housing over to ECE.

Mr. Speaker, I think, actually, it was a good thing. I think the principles of it were sound, but the problem with the issue really rose when they only did half the transfer. Mr. Speaker, they sent over the auditing process of the application form but they didn’t fulfill their mandate by transferring the administration of where that payment goes. That’s where the problem exists, Mr. Speaker, because now there are two stops when there really should be one. Before it was simple. Yes, I agree that people could go to Housing if you didn’t need income support, but I really believe in my heart that a Service Canada model style of business would help everyone. In these times of need, this issue seems to surface, as it wasn’t fully implemented. I think that’s where the fault lies.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues will talk about the market rent problems that have emerged out of this and I would agree with them, but I think the real failing of this process was it was never fully fulfilled, which is finish the job by transferring all the administrative positions over the income support and process one application at one time. Mr. Speaker, that is the solution to this problem. It’s becoming more evident as we discuss this and go forward. Creating two service shops creates twice the burden, Mr. Speaker. I think the government is on the right track. I think the government needs to make the right decision, though, and finish the social housing transfer all in one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. [English translation not provided.]

Today I wish also to speak about the transfer of public housing assessments from the local housing

organizations to the income support officers in the communities or the transfer of this function from the NWT Housing Corporation to Education, Culture and Employment. I’m not making this statement because I think that Education, Culture and Employment has done a bad job of this, it’s because I think that the government didn’t think about the dignity of the people that they were dealing with.

In effect, this government put 2,300 public housing clients on income support, or better known in the community as welfare. That’s how it was seen. People who had never been on welfare before were living in public housing. Considering they had pride in their homes, they were able to get a unit themselves to house their families. The government decided, hey, we’ll put them all on welfare. And that’s exactly what happened.

It was never that all income support clients were in public housing or that all public housing clients were on income support. It is the issue of dignity. This indignity was levelled to the people in public housing. It created major confusion for all public housing clients, especially the seniors. The working poor were paying their subsidized rent. They were going to the LHO each month and went there for decades. Suddenly some of these people had to apply for income support or welfare in order to obtain their subsidy. Many people did not go to the income support office and all of a sudden they were in serious arrears and facing eviction. Some people were evicted. Some had nowhere to live. All of a sudden they had bad credit. Not because they were different tenants or that they were bad tenants, it was because the government changed the policy. People that did not go to the income support office were automatically charged maximum rent.

I seek unanimous consent to finish my Member’s statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

People who did not go were automatically charged maximum rent, as I just said. In Tu Nedhe that’s $1,300 to $1,500 for a two-bedroom unit. People who were working at the mines came back from the mines and they were going to go pay their rent of $800 or $900 and realized they had to apply for income support to get the subsidy for the difference. They didn’t go and the rest is history.

The change in the policy has not been good for public housing clients. People who had no arrears, no problems with the Housing Association for years are now facing evictions, arrears, bad debt, whatnot.

Anyway, I will have questions for the Minister of ECE at the appropriate time.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The whole Income Support Program and the $30 million that was transferred from the Housing Corporation for the social housing funds was there with the intention of those funds to be used for the O and M of some 2,200 public housing units in the Northwest Territories and to cover those costs associated with social housing. Since that time we have built an additional 520 new units under the Northern Housing Trust, through which we spent $100 million, and now we have another $50 million that we have to spend in this fiscal year and next year.

The $30 million was to assist in covering the cost of O and M for those public housing units throughout the Northwest Territories. Now with the additional 500-and-something units and the $50 million, where is the money going to come from to cover off the O and M for those public housing units?

The whole intent of the Social Housing Trust was to improve the housing stock in the Northwest Territories. Yet we do have a political challenge. Where is the money going to come from to cover the costs for O and M? Those same dollars are being spent through Education, Culture and Employment by hiring more people when those dollars were supposed to be used for O and M for social housing.

Another thing is that now income support clients can go to ECE who may have been evicted from housing or are looking at approaching the private housing market to get into housing in that arrangement in which the money is covered off by ECE using the $30 million which was supposed to be earmarked for social housing in the Northwest Territories. Again, these dollars are being used to rent public housing stock in the Northwest Territories.

Those dollars were earmarked for social housing in northern Canada. Not for the private sector. Not for rent sups for private individuals. To provide the cost to operate the social housing stock in the Northwest Territories. These dollars are not being spent where they were supposed to. With the arrangement of the dollar there, I would like to ask the government to seriously consider reinstating the dollars with respect to the $30 million back to the Housing

Corporation for the reason it was supposed to be spent, which was for social housing.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. Item 6, acknowledgements. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I wish to acknowledge Mrs. Christine Balsillie of Fort Resolution, who passed away on February 28th at

the age of 77. Christine was born in Old Fort Rae on December 21st , 1931, and was well known and

highly respected for her sewing skills. Christine is survived by her sons, Don and Clayton Balsillie, and daughters Joanne Teed, Tracey Balsillie and Dianne Boucher. She was predeceased by her husband, Harold, and daughters Helen and Vivian.

Christine is a Lafferty originally from Behchoko and has many relatives in the Behchoko area. She will be sadly missed by her children, grandchildren, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, and many family and friends in Yellowknife, Fort Resolution, and Behchoko.

Funeral services for Christine will be held tomorrow at 11:00 in Fort Resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today in my Member’s statement I spoke of the transfer of public housing assessments from NWT Housing Corporation or the local housing organizations to the income support office.

The more I think about this and the more that the departments think this could actually work, I don’t think it’s a solvable issue. I think that this issue, the only way to solve the issue is to put the thing back into the Housing Corporation or the local housing organizations.

I would like to ask the Minister of ECE if he would be prepared to meet with the Minister of the NWT Housing Corporation to reverse this wrongdoing.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Member’s comments and direction to our Cabinet here. We have done a lot of work in this area over the last four years. We’ve consulted with various groups and agencies in the communities and we have met with the standing committee as well, giving them an update of where we are. There is a lot of work ahead of us still. It’s a huge undertaking. It won’t be fixed overnight. I guess you can say any huge project undertaking such as that will take some years to make it work and make it efficient and effective.

At the same time I have been working closely with the Minister of the Housing Corporation and we have met on a frequent basis. We have met with our staff as well, our senior staff, our staff that are dealing with the communities. We are moving forward on working together and identifying the

challenges that still are out there. We do continue to work in this area on how we can improve in these areas.

I think the issue, as I see it, is that this can’t be fixed as is. That’s the problem. It could be effective, it could be efficient, it could be economical, people could have no arrears, but it can’t be fixed. The problem is that the people on income support have been, I mean, in public housing that’s been transferred to welfare. That’s what the issue is; nothing else.

I didn’t hear a question there. Mr. Beaulieu, maybe I misunderstood. I didn’t hear a question there.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess my question is, how would the Minister hope to resolve that specific issue of how the people in public housing feel about this?

Certainly there may be a perception in the community. As I stated, it has been in the works for four years now. One of the areas we focused on at the beginning of the transfer was a one-stop shop. We have achieved this by offering the office, the one-stop shop, giving the subsidies to clients, income assistance, public housing rental subsidies, senior home subsidy, child care user subsidy. So it’s more than just one subsidy.

We did a survey. Clients are saying in the customer satisfaction survey that they are accessing more benefits today than before.

There is a technical issue that I’d like to ask the Minister. Has the Minister resolved the issue of the income tax impacts upon people that are being taxed on their subsidy?

Certainly that’s one of the areas we’ve been tackling as one of the challenges. But it’s nothing new. It’s always been there. Certainly we continue to work with that. There’s always room for improvement. This is one area we need to deal with and, simply, we cannot do it alone. We need to work with the LHOs. That’s why I did commit in the House that I’ll continue to work with the Minister of the Housing Corporation to resolve these issues. That’s just one area. There are other areas we need to deal with, but we are making progress and we are willing to sit down with the standing committee to give them an update on what’s happening. Both the Minister of the Housing Corporation and I.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the people of Tu Nedhe it has become two-stop

shopping, because they used to just go to the housing authority and get their subsidized rent amount and they actually paid their rent. Now they have to go to the income support office first and apply for their subsidy. When they get their subsidy, then they take their subsidy minus the maximum rent and then they pay their rent. So it hasn’t really worked for the people in Tu Nedhe, in any event. I’m just wondering what the Minister means by one-stop shopping versus what was there before compared to what’s there today.

The one-stop shop is having all the subsidies in one area. Before there were all these different areas that the individuals could go to. We’re still working on that as well. That area, of course, we’ll continue to work with. And also ECE expanded service to a number of remote communities, such as Fort Resolution and Lutselk’e, as well. So we identified those small communities that may face challenges of whether it be a one-stop shop. We do have some certain leases that we’ve agreed to several years back. We continue to respect that. So they may not be a one-stop shop in certain communities, but that’s our strive to have a one-stop shop, all the subsidies in one area in all communities. That’s our goal. We’ll continue to strive for that.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.