Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Many promises and commitments were made in the TLC some months ago about being responsive to Members. Most notably, many of the Members, and some of them sitting on the other side of the House, pleaded with their colleagues and told them how hard they’d work for them and they’d be responsive. I’ll acknowledge that sometimes forgetting things is the reality of doing a job and it does happen to all of us whether we want to admit it or not. Often it’s referred to as being human.

There is a certain exception to that. If you’re in Cabinet, you’re expected to rise above those problems and, of course, you have to work around them at the same time. Some of the biggest critics, or I should say often the harshest critics who are now sitting on the other side of the House, have been ignoring some e-mails and questions even by myself. Several Ministers, to put the point even sharper on there, I’ve e-mailed even the Premier, who has had no replies. I’ve e-mailed and even visited the Minister Robert C. McLeod, with no replies, and in one particular occasion I’ve waited three months for a response that I had to remind them the other day. I’ve got an e-mail outstanding 20 days ago that still has no reply.

When you make a commitment in the House to follow up on a particular issue such as the road salt used on Ingraham Trail, that’s been waiting 103 days for that response from the Minister of Transportation. These commitments are not just to us but to our constituents in trying to do the job. If a Minister says in this particular House they’ll follow up on those things, it’s very important. When a Premier or even a Minister decides to ignore your e-mail and chooses not to answer it, that affects our

job. How do we do our jobs as MLAs without those types of responses? It makes it very challenging.

We want to work as hard as possible and certainly in a collaborative way, but the challenge before us is to do these things. Later today I’ll be asking the Deputy Premier, who is the first lieutenant of this particular ship we know as the McLeod government, what leadership he will provide at the Cabinet table to ensure that Ministers are responding to Members and their concerns. It is an important duty if they’re in that office that they respond to us, because we’re working for constituents and how do we do that in the absence of the information.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Item 4, returns to oral questions. Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a former resident of Aklavik and Inuvik, a good friend of mine, Mr. Frank Edwards Jr., better known as Somoe. Welcome, Somoe.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize, as I have before in this House, a constituent of mine: Mr. Rocky Simpson with Concept Energy in Hay River. I’ll let my colleague recognize his constituent; I won’t take that from him.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I recognize one of my constituents, Janet-Marie Fizer. Rocky Simpson also owns a business in my riding; so welcome, Rocky.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I, too, would like to welcome Somoe in the House. Good to see you. And Janet-Marie, we worked together years ago at Norterra, so it’s always good to see friends. I’d like to welcome all visitors in the public gallery here today. Thank you for taking an interest in today’s proceedings.

Item 6, acknowledgements. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs following up on my Member’s statement and actually the Minister’s statement as well where he notes that the department has a role as a coach, advisor and supporter in terms of infrastructure. I think it’s much more than that. I think there’s also a responsibility for inspections on the safety and efficiency front.

I’ve noticed that all provinces and Yukon, our sister, have building acts to ensure these sorts of safeties are in place. In contrast, lack of comparable law here leaves us out of step with the times. Why would we not follow the established wisdom of every other Canadian jurisdiction to ensure quality construction through creation of a buildings act, or perhaps that’s already underway.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member raises a very good point and I think it’s one that we need to have some follow-up discussion on as a department, because as he’s said, across the country all the jurisdictions have their own Building Standards Act. We ask our communities that are putting up projects to build it with best practices in mind following, obviously, all the building codes, the National Building Code and that. As I said before, it’s to the community’s benefit if they build buildings that conform to all these regulations and they have good quality product. It’s been raised on a couple of occasions now and it has been suggested by the NWT Housing Corporation as to having building inspectors in all the regions. With that much concern coming on this particular issue, I think it’s one we need to follow up on.

Thank you very much to the Minister for that comment. I’m glad to hear we’re thinking that way. I just want to note that all jurisdictions, we have faith in our communities, as the Minister has repeatedly said and used as an excuse for not having a building standards act, but I do think all other jurisdictions do have communities. Would the Minister agree that it is consistent to play this role and have some standards in legislation and that’s still consistent with having faith in our communities, which I think we all do?

First of all, this is not an excuse that we’ve used. We don’t make excuses. The Member has said, as well as I have, that we have great faith in our communities’ ability

to build quality products and put them on the ground. However, it is felt that there is some need for this particular service and I’ve committed to the Member that I will follow up on this and see where we can take it from here and put all the proper research together and see if it’s something that we can carry on further here in the Northwest Territories.

I take that criticism. Excuse was probably not the best word. Perhaps “reason” was a better word for that.

I again appreciate the Minister’s positive response here. I would say that we’re very fortunate to have a resident community of world-class experts in building standards and so on. They’re very active in national organizations and government-level inputting to national standards and so on. Would the Minister agree to meet with those representatives of those associations and professionals as one of the steps towards developing this legislation?

Obviously, it would be to our benefit if we were to meet with all those that were able to provide some expertise and how we can best move forward on this. I would commit to the Member that as we look at developing this particular initiative, I will commit to meeting with the experts in this particular field.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are addressed to the Minister of Justice. I talked in my statement about rent controls or the lack of and the impact that rent increases are having on constituents, particularly in the market communities and particularly here in Yellowknife. Without a rent ceiling, many residents have been finding it extremely difficult to find the rent that’s needed every month. Our cost of living is always going up and rent is a huge part of that. I would like to know from the Minister, he’s a new Minister to this department, and I’d like to know from him when this issue of rent controls was last considered by the department. I don’t mean just talked about, but when was there a thorough review of this issue?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Justice, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know that a number of amendments have been made to the Residential Tenancies Act over the last couple of years, but I can’t say exactly when and if any action was actually taken with respect to rental controls or whether that was

actually considered by the government. I would say that rent controls, there are as many people that support them as oppose them and it is a double-edged sword. We would have to look at that very seriously if we were to look at it. At this point in time we don’t have any plans to review the Residential Tenancies Act.

Thanks to the Minister. I do agree with the fact that there are as many opinions for as there are against rent controls, but I have to disagree with the Minister that the government is taking the position that there’s no intent at this point to look at the Residential Tenancies Act.

I’d like to get a little information from the Minister on what tenants can do if there’s a huge increase or if there’s a major increase one year and then for the next three years running. Can the Minister tell me what process exists, what avenue exists for tenants to deal with what they consider as an unjustified rent increase under the current Residential Tenancies Act? Thank you.

If a tenant has a concern with something done by their landlord, they always have the ability to go to the rental tenancies officer.

That just leads me right into another failing of the Residential Tenancies Act, and that’s the powers of the rental officer. The rental officer, at this point, cannot make any decision that is binding.

I’d like to ask the Minister, if I have had a 15 percent rent increase for three years running and I appeal to the rental officer, what exists for me to make sure that my landlord is not going to give me another 15 percent increase in the following year?

I’m not familiar with every detail of the Residential Tenancies Act, but I’m happy to find that out for the Member and get back to her.