Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The practice of using private sector landlords has been something the Housing Corporation has been utilizing for some time. We have over 200 units that are in our public housing portfolio through this method and I think we expend close to $3.5 million a year. Thank you.

Can the Minister tell me if these units, the ones where we’re paying the high premiums for rent and maintenance to provide to private landlords, are still needed. Do we still need to keep doing this given the investment that has been made to increase the number of public housing units over the years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this is a way to offset some of the capital costs. It’s also a way to stimulate the economy in different areas of the Northwest Territories. We’ve moved away from engaging into long-term, 10, 20-year leases with the private industry. We’ve now gone to shorter five-year leases. It’s still an area we’re interested in and probably still need to continue practicing. Thank you.

As I indicated in my Member’s statement, I actually support the use of some private landlords to cover some of our public housing, but I do question when we actually guarantee high levels of rent even when the units aren’t filled, and also why would we be providing these landlords with maintenance fees. In situations where we’re actually covering the maintenance and guaranteeing these high rents, can the Minister tell me if he plans to discontinue the use of these types of rental agreements by not renewing the leases when they come due every five years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We do intend to move away from that type of arrangement where we’re not getting fair value for our investment. We do need to continue, however, to work with a balanced approach towards leasing some of our units from private industry and also, at the same time, balancing it out against building our own. We want to tighten up the areas and be able to negotiate better and more effective arrangements. It’s an area that needs constant attention and we are trying to be very mindful as we enter and set up agreements. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Abernethy.

That’s very good news. I’m glad to hear that we’re going to be moving away from those kinds of agreements. Do we have any timeline as to when we might see some of that start to happen? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We, I think, have already started working in this area to be more efficient. By the mere fact that we’ve shortened up our agreements it gives us more flexibility; however, we are still in some areas, in some parts of the Northwest Territories in some communities really in a difficult situation where we have no other alternative or if there is a situation where there is a type of emergency that comes forward we are going to continue to use this method of providing accommodation, but we certainly will be setting up tougher guidelines than that. That will come into play fairly quick. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. I’d like to recognize -- I mentioned in my statement but I’d like

to say again -- the work that the NWT Housing Corporation and the Department and Education, Culture and Employment have done in regard to the transfer of public housing rental subsidy. They did eventually recognize that there was a problem with the harmonization and I think they have managed to effect some improvements, but certainly not enough, in my estimation. The transfer, as has been mentioned, created hundreds of new welfare recipients in just one fell swoop. I’d like to ask the Minister, what training do income support officers receive to enable them to handle the special needs of their housing clients? Thank you.

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

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Certainly we do provide in-house training as well. There is training being conducted with LHOs and how to deal with administration of the program itself and also our regional staff that deal with income security level. There is continuous training that happens in the regions. We do provide an annual gathering of the all the LHOs, client service officers, into -- whether it be Yellowknife or Inuvik -- a region and discuss challenges that they may be faced with and how we can improve in certain areas. That is the ongoing professional development that we’re doing with the training of our staff. Mahsi.

I guess I would like to suggest that one of the areas they might concentrate on is service to their clients.

In 2005 when this transfer occurred, there were some 14 positions that were created to handle housing under Education, Culture and Employment. I’d like to ask the Minister, what work are these 14 positions doing currently? Is it only public housing work or has their work expanded to now include income support duties? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the positions that we have within our system do more than just public housing rental subsidy. As I indicated, we do have various subsidy programs and even at the regional level, isolated communities, we have to expand the roles of our client service officers, not just in the public Rental Subsidy Program but seniors home subsidy program, child care subsidy, public housing and income assistance. It varies on the communities and it varies within the region itself. Mahsi.

These 14 positions were created under Education, Culture and Employment to specifically handle the new duties under housing. I’d like to ask the Minister, the duties that he was referencing, he said income support officers. Is he

talking about all income support officers or these specific 14 who were transferred over? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, there were no positions transferred to ECE. We had to create positions to deal with the program that was transferred to us. With that, we had to expand their roles to deal with all the subsidy programs as a one-window approach. Their role has been expanded and it’s just not on the public rental subsidy. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

I guess I would suggest that perhaps there is some inefficiency in ECE if they have to have 14 positions to do what Housing was doing previously.

My last question for the Minister is, it’s been indicated that this harmonization was done to create benefits or to realize benefits through the transfer of this program. I’d like to ask the Minister to explain to me what those benefits are. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I did highlight all the subsidies that we deliver. Just to highlight the positions that we have, it is spread out into the communities, small communities that never had those kinds of positions before when the Housing Corporation had that under their umbrella. We’ve continued to expand our services and try to deliver an effective program through communities and we’re doing what we can to do even more. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of the Housing Corporation. I want to start with the requirement for 30 percent of gross income -- that’s 50 percent of net income. My constituents are finding that too onerous and problematic and I’m wondering if the Minister is finding the same and what his view is on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. Michael McLeod.