Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to welcome the Minister and the NWT Housing Corporation staff here today. First and foremost, I want to say that I think, for the most part, Members were quite pleased with the direction NWTHC is taking. The review we did a number of months ago, we did not unveil a lot of earth-shattering issues, but there were certain things that I think we needed to look at and I wanted to basically echo some of those areas. Some of them were raised in today’s opening comments by the Minister and others were not, so I will be dipping back and forth here just so you can capture some of the areas where I’d like to maybe get the Minister to give us a brief update.

First, and in no particular order, the Public Housing Purchase Program was introduced in 2013-2014 for rental clients with very good track records. I don’t think it’s captured in the opening comments. It would be nice to get a bit of an update as to where we are with that program.

One of the areas of concern that Members here have had for a number of years was the operating deficits that a number of the LHOs had from year to year. We know there was some great work done on rebalancing these deficits, but again because we haven’t dealt with this department for a number of months, if we could just have an update as to what the situation is currently.

Again, we know that the rent collection rates have improved dramatically and I think that’s shown in the rates from year to year, but maybe if we can get some latest figures. Today we received some information about mortgage collection rates, but it would also be nice to get some rent collect rates updates as well.

Within the opening comments we also heard about the Transitional Rent Supplement Program, about 100 households that have received support. We know this is a very worthwhile program that could probably be, or should be, 100 percent used every year. We’re wondering what is the department doing, what is the Housing Corp doing to make sure that the message is loud and clear out there that there are monies available to residents. I think

we’re able to do 150, I believe, if you can clarify that number. Really, we’re only getting two-thirds update on a very worthwhile program.

Again, we did talk a little bit or we heard a little bit about the mortgage arrears and that they were going to seek, potentially, legal action. Can I maybe get some clarification if we have taken any legal action to date during the life of the 17th Assembly,

and if not, if there are grave arrears pending, why haven’t we taken this legal action? It sounds like within the body of today’s opening comments that these would be the next steps. I believe these next steps have been there for some time, so I think getting an update as to where we are potentially in a legal action might shed some light on those people who haven’t been living up to their obligation.

We know there was a substantial increase in a replacement of the electric hot water heaters in a number of our housing units in the last fiscal year, and we know that we did not capture 100 percent of this conversion of electric hot water heaters in all thermal communities. I just want to get an update here as to where we are with that priority. Will we see that completely finished within the fiscal 2014-2015 cycle here?

Utility costs for all residents of the Northwest Territories are obviously a concern. We know the Housing Corporation is not immune to increased costs for utilities and we know that there’s a slight bump in the budget here for that. Maybe if the Housing Corporation can elaborate. What are they doing to track these utility costs? Is there any way we’re able to modernize and maybe get some real time reporting that might be able to be shared with committee and the people of the Northwest Territories?

There are a lot of asks in these opening comments and I’m sorry for doing that, but I believe it captures, in essence, some of the areas committee was looking at. Because we didn’t look at this for a number of months, a state of the union update as to how it is today would be very beneficial. Thank you.