Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be short. I want to thank the Premier for his commitment. Again, my tendency is to go towards a definite time. I look forward to the Premier coming to us and then asking for the advice of Members, but when would that be?

Here would be a great opportunity to use that phrase “in the fullness of time.” But, realistically, the fact is that the work has been started at least initially from Executive touching base with departments. Now, with this package, we’ll be able to put a little bit more to it and ask the departments responsible to start putting some energy into this. I will get back to Members after speaking with my Cabinet colleagues as to some time frames. I’ll be pushing them to have a quicker response than the normal and, hopefully, we can get some response back within a month or two with Members to discuss those next steps.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Housing. Does the report recommending the return to the Public Housing Rental Subsidy to the Housing Corporation identify development of the arrears as a problem?

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The report, which I’m tabling this afternoon, makes no specific reference to the arrears that may have been accumulated during the period when the responsibility for assessments was with ECE.

Does the Minister acknowledge that some of the problems with the arrears were created by the system and not necessarily the tenants themselves?

I do acknowledge that there is a serious arrears problem, to the tune of about $10 million. A lot of these arrears may have been accumulated before the transfer, so we can’t say that this was a direct response of the transfer. The local housing authorities, when the transfer first went over, realized there were issues with the assessment. This was all new being rolled out. They were very good at recognizing that if you weren’t assessed properly, they would adjust it and

your arrears would automatically go down. So they’ve taken steps to deal with that when the transfer first happened. I admit there is a serious problem with arrears.

I don’t think it was Housing’s problem; I think it was ECE’s problem. The gap between market rent and the subsidized rent is too much for some clients. When the Public Housing Rental Subsidy is returned to the Housing Corporation, will the Minister ensure that the rents are not too high so clients could be able to manage?

I have discussed previously that we will be looking at the rent scale and some of the issues that are raised by the tenants out there. I can commit to the Member that the process is in place and we’re looking at ways to work with clients to make sure that they are paying the rent that’s due and that the local housing authorities are receiving rents so that they can continue to operate. Because with the declining CMHC funding, the collection of rental arrears becomes even more important now and that gives a lot of the LHOs more funding and ability to deliver the programs and maintenance to the units.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some families in the communities that I represent, since 2007 they’re telling me they had no arrears prior to that 2007 changeover from the Housing Corporation to ECE. We’ve got people that have been evicted already. You have 20 people in some houses in the communities. That’s not right. Will the Minister consider bringing forward a bill to forgive the arrears that have developed because of this gap that was created in the system since 2007? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we fully understand that there was an accumulation of arrears during this time. As far as bringing a bill forward, I do know that some LHOs sometimes will write off arrears, but that then goes to the Housing Corporation to collect the arrears. As far as forgiving the bill, we have to be very careful here that if we do this, we set a precedent, and even arrears that were accumulated before the transfer are going to obviously be expected to be forgiven. If there’s a way that we can work with tenants to try and work on their arrears and, like you said, the LHOs really recognize the fact that some of this happened because of the assessment and the timeliness of it and they made adjustments. So we have to be very careful as to how far we want to go with this. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ve got some questions today for the Premier and it gets back to my Member’s statement where, again, I’m asking about the high cost of living in the Northwest Territories and issues that have been brought forward to me from constituents. I’d like to start off with asking the Premier, has the lead Minister responsible for the Strategic Initiative Committee on Reducing the Cost of Living or the Premier himself had any discussions with the federal government as it relates to taxation of northern residents? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the area of the cost of living, as the Minister responsible for this area, strategic initiative, has highlighted, there are a number of workloads or processes we’ve put in place to deal with some of the cost of living issues that we recognize as a government. Transportation is a big one. Electricity generation and the sale of that is another large one. So we’re looking at a number of initiatives.

Specifically in the area of taxation, any initiative that a Minister leads on the strategic initiatives, they would go back to the department responsible and have them then do the legwork, so to speak, on bringing the initiative to fruition. So the area of taxation would fall under the Minister of Finance. In that area, we haven’t had discussions around changes in our tax processes as of yet. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, it’s been two and a half years since this government was elected and I find it hard to believe that they haven’t had any discussion with the federal government on the area of taxation, specifically on the application of the GST north of 60, on a possible tax credit for interest paid on mortgages and for removal of GST on essential goods and services. I’d like to ask the Premier why is it that these discussions haven’t taken place, when people continue to suffer in all of our communities with the high cost of living? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in the area of our Strategic Initiatives committees, we’ve been focusing on areas where we know we can get results sooner, and that is where the programs we’re directly involved with, the way we’ve designed them, the way we implement them and those issues. We’ve also worked with the federal government on a stimulus package to help offset some of those costs so we can get some of those projects in place that would help stabilize or lower the cost of living in our communities. We’ve also put in place the $60 million in alternative energies, again, to put in place, to stabilize our electricity rates around the Northwest Territories. So there are

a number of factors we’re involved with in the area of cost of living, to try to mitigate that specific area.

The Minister of Finance himself had an economic roundtable around taxation initiatives, again, on revenue sources in the Northwest Territories and met with businesses and individuals around that issue, and he presented his work in that area. So there have been quite a number of pieces of work that have been done. But specifically on requesting relief from the federal government on some of the larger tax issues, those would not simply be an issue that we can put and effect change on by making a direct request. Those are areas where, for example, it would be of general application where we would make an approach to our colleagues, other Premiers or other Finance Ministers across the country and try to implement on that basis. Thank you.

I guess for folks out there paying the bills, it’s hard for them to relate to a lot of what the Premier has said. I mean, for most people, they just relate to what they have to pay every month. In fact, Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier today, people are paying more for everything. I think the onus is on the government to come forward with a comprehensive, meaningful consultation with the public on what exactly you are doing to help address the high cost of living.

You can talk about all of the electricity rate reviews you want and everything else that you’re doing, but there are some things that this government is doing, Mr. Speaker, that are detrimental to the cost of living here in the Northwest Territories, and I think the government has to come clean on exactly what they’re doing and lay it out for us. We haven’t heard anything from the Cost of Living Strategic Initiative Committee, and I think it’s high time that they put something on paper and showed us exactly where the results are. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, as for direct information, we, at the request of Members, set up a process so Members could be involved in those initiative committees, and that started to happen, but they’ve since changed their approach and said no to that. As I stated, the Strategic Initiatives committees start some of the work of what we will look at and what changes we can make, and then it becomes the Ministers responsible for the department. So, for example, in transportation, where that affects the cost of living in our communities across the Northwest Territories, on the size of planes that can come into communities delivering goods and services, highway reconstruction that leads to a safer, more accessible system, the Mackenzie Valley Highway, for example, we know and there’s proof in that kind of work that over the long term will see a stabilized or reduced cost across the Northwest Territories.

As for day-to-day business that we’ve done, for example, a result of the work the Minister of Finance did there was no tax increases as part of this budget process. So let’s recognize that we’re trying to do what we can and all the initiatives that we work on flow through back to the main estimates set before the House now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With all due respect to the Premier and the work of Cabinet, I’d be embarrassed to be associated with a Strategic Initiatives committee that’s done absolutely nothing, Mr. Speaker, in two and a half years. I’d like to ask the Premier if he would even consider, given the high cost of living here and the fact that people are upset, they’re leaving the Territory, I’d like to ask the Premier if he would consider a special committee with Cabinet Ministers and Regular Members to look at the high cost of living. I’m talking about things that are deliverable in the next year and a half, not things that are 10 or 15 years from now, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that sounds like what we pretty well had in place under strategic initiatives and having Members be a part of that process. That avenue is still open to Members, if they want to get engaged at that level. It’s still open to them now. If you want real action, not another discussion, not another consultation process, that action can come to this House. In fact, a response directly to the energy rate review regulations piece of work. If we’re going to make fundamental change to the Northwest Territories, for the whole Northwest Territories big picture, make a difference as early as next year, if this Assembly wants to take action. Thank you.