Mr. Speaker, as I said in my Member’s statement in terms of this government concluding its time in this Assembly here, is this a big enough decision? If we are going to make some changes into how we do the review of the rental of public housing, is it a big enough decision to leave

it for the next government or can we make this decision within this government to go forward in terms of the next Assembly?

Mr. Speaker, the review will be done with all the recommendations and would be a decision made by consulting with committee. We would have a decision made whether it is implemented during this government or the beginning of the next government. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Also, Mr. Speaker, the Minister did say that, when he heard the arguments of the high rental costs for the people who are in these public housing units, he doesn’t want to hear them anymore. Would the Minister then commit as part of the review to go into the communities to hear this issue here and have a big part of the consultation process, when he is putting together his team and people to come into the communities that want to know about how this government is going, to look at this issue in terms of going forward to reduce the cost of living for people in our communities?

Mr. Speaker, when the review is started, I have committed to the Member that there will be public consultation. Obviously, we hear a lot of concerns out there with what they perceive to be the high rents that are charged. So we have to take that into consideration when we are doing the review of the rent scale and then we have to follow the recommendations or look at the recommendations and determine whether it is something that we want to implement sooner rather than later. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My Member’s statement today was regarding the high cost of power for an elderly couple in the community of Tuktoyaktuk with the cost of $1,800.23. Has the NTPC ever investigated whether home meter usage displacement would be desirable in isolated northern communities? This device would relay real time costing to a homeowner at any given time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Energy, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m responding as the chair of the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee to the Member’s questions. We are undertaking a number of reviews to look at finding ways to reduce the high cost of

electricity in the Northwest Territories. We have received a report from the review panel that looked into electricity rates. There is a review of the Northwest Territories Power Corporation and we are working with the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning to examine and develop the government response.

What is the original rationale for the administration fee attached to 48-hour disconnect notices and is that rationale applicable today?

If I could get the detailed information from the Member with regard to the actual bill we can endeavour to respond to the couple and to provide full answers to the questions once we have the bill in our hands.

On the basis of this couple having to pay this high of a power bill and having people in the communities that work for the Power Corporation on contract, maybe we should really look at seeing if these people are qualified on meter reading. Not only that, I think the Inuvik supervisors of the NTPC should really investigate this problem and actually return somebody’s calls instead of having it be brought up in the House.

Customer service is a very important priority for our government, so in all cases we’re working very hard to fulfill the needs of the clients. I will take the information and we’ll make sure that somebody responds very quickly to the clients.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, these elders in the communities are probably not the only ones that are going through this in the communities of Tuk and the communities that I represent. I think we should go through the whole Inuvik region to see if we can send a third party in there out of Yellowknife to go and look at the customer service, get the customer service satisfaction thing out into the communities to see if the people are actually being serviced with regard to the high power rates and all these big bonuses that we have to pay every year.

I appreciate those comments. We are reviewing the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. Once we get the report and I’ve had a chance to examine the recommendations, I’m sure that we will be looking at some of the issues the Member brought up.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bob McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the failure rate of small businesses is quite high not only in the Northwest Territories but all across Canada, especially in the first year of operation. So we have a process called Aftercare, where we look at the way we provide services and wherever we’re involved in a business and it goes under, then we want to know what some of the reasons were for the business going under and to try to find out exactly why. So if we do have a similar business in the future, we would have a very good idea of some of the pitfalls that they could come up against.

In this case it was an actual aboriginal business that had failed. I’m pleased to hear that there’s an Aftercare Program. What begins the mechanism to do a post-mortem or to look at other businesses and how we can fine tune our programs or how we could be more responsive to the needs of that business?

Generally we would only look at those businesses that we are involved with either though BDIC or through the officers that we have working in the different regions or community transfer economic development officers. Essentially that’s how it would come about.

I wasn’t quite sure if the Minister said that BDIC had their own separate program to look at a business and how they could have been better helpful to that business. If anything, I was asking about our ITI department. How do we kick in the mechanism? Is it up to the business owner to ask ITI or is that something that we do as a normal course of our business? There’s a failed business out there. Bills are going to be piling up. At what point does ITI step in and use this separate mechanism to examine if this business could have kept going or what could be done better in the future?

We do have a seamless operation when it comes to the issuing of loans and contributions. The difference, it all depends on the business itself. If we do have an interest in there, then we can go in there and do a post-mortem. If it’s somebody in the private sector, then we would probably have to respond to their request in order to be able to gain access to information which is generally private information.