The Member is correct that we did introduce a Revised Mortgage Balance Program near the end of 2012. We gave homeowners with mortgages with the NWT Housing Corporation a chance to get a fresh start with predictable, fair monthly rent. Total arrears in the mortgage portfolio have been reduced from $16.5 million to $9.1 million over the last couple of years. A majority of the clients have actually opted into the new program and collection rates have been in the 70 to 80 percent range for these clients. We have about 115 clients that have not entered the new program for one reason or another and collections among these clients are very low. A lot of these clients we’re now talking to legal counsel, sue collections through the courts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With 2,700 rental units being managed by local housing authorities across the NWT, again, managing our rental collection, and if done properly, will help the bottom line.

So I do applaud the good work that the Minister and Housing Corporation has done in cleaning up this backlog of a low collection rate, which back in 2008 was about 71 percent and as we heard today, I got the number 97 percent today. So that’s a good job. That said, we still have some LHOs today that have collection rates under 70 percent.

What is the Minister doing to improve these rental collections in those specific communities? Thank you.

There are about three elements to the collection approach for our rental units. First of all, we need to improve the collection of current rent and we did note that 97 percent was a good sign that progress is being made, and I think we see that in all areas of the Northwest Territories.

Secondly, we need to ensure that those who have accumulated arrears enter into some form of repayment plan, and we do obtain rental officer orders for these tenants. We’re currently seeing the number of tenants with large arrears declining as people are starting to dig themselves out of the hole, and we still need to engage with collection of former residents. Because you moved out of one of our units, that doesn’t change the amount that you owe to the NWT Housing Corporation.

As the Member noted, we had a couple of LHOs that had collection rates under 70 percent last year. We’re working with the LHOs to ensure that they’re obtaining rental officer orders for tenants not paying their rent. At the same time we want to work with tenants to enter into a repayment plan because our goal is to house people, not to evict them and this goes a long way. Again, I give a shout out to those that are honouring the commitments that they’ve made because we have seen a bit of an improvement. I just said that in a lot of these communities they do run a high risk of eviction if they don’t keep up with their rental payments and their arrears. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m going to follow up to my Member’s statement. In our main estimates it shows that there has been an increase to the forced growth for two not-for-profit organizations and I’d like to commend the Premier for taking that initiative to get our organizations who do excellent work on behalf of government and getting their wages and benefits up to par with what we pay our government employees.

So my first question is to the Premier. When we’re going through an exercise like this, who initiates that process? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In this case it was the NGOs in question. Thank you.

So, moving forward just in terms of awareness and an education component, hopefully some of our non-profit organizations that we do fund are listening and can take that same process, but sometimes those organizations don’t want to come knocking at the door. Would the Premier make a recommendation to his Cabinet Ministers to go and talk to their non-profit organizations and see if they do in fact need an increase in their funding for salaries and wages and benefits to keep up to par. Thank you.

The Government of the Northwest Territories has what we call a third-party accountability framework and that is to deal with third parties who provide services and programs to the Government of the Northwest Territories. In the interest of accountability and transparency, we have a framework in which we determine the level of accountability for third party agencies, which include political risk, financial risk and results risk and on the basis of that rating we put them into three categories, which determines the funding process that we use. Thank you.

Can I ask the Premier, when was the framework developed and what year did it come into effect and, in fact, if that framework will be reviewed? Thank you.

Thank you. The framework was developed in 2004 and in 2011 it was updated with a Program Manager’s Guide for Funding NGOs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just making a recommendation to the Premier. Would the Premier, in the framework, make it mandatory that forced growth with all our non-profit organizations be reviewed or even the framework be reviewed every four years or every time there’s a GNWT negotiating the collective bargaining agreement for our GNWT employees and do the same for our not-for-profit sector? The ones that we fund.

Thank you. The third party accountability framework results in three categories of third party funding. The first category is for major service delivery bodies and that provides for multi-year funding through the business planning process.

The second category is for other service delivery and commercial crown corporations that don’t have large infrastructure, and in those cases there’s a mandatory budget consultation with the funding departments.

The third category is for the much smaller, quasi-judicial, smaller NGOs and those are annual funding requests or application-based. Through that process they would approach their department for funding.

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

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That would be Hay River, Yellowknife, Providence, Wekweeti, Enterprise, Trout Lake. Thank you.

Would the Minister of the NWT Power Corporation explain why the NWT Power Corp isn’t the agent for distribution of power in those particular communities or from his ability to explain how we got where we are today to have individual franchise agreements for those particular communities and not in the others that remain out of the 33? Thank you.

Thank you. The way our system is structured, communities make the choice of who they would like to make an agreement with to provide their electrical services. There’s a process through the franchise process to do that and communities have done that over the years. Thank you.

We’re all well aware that the Cabinet has the authority, as does the Executive Council to exempt the NWT Power Corp from delivering a dividend payment to the government. By the way, when I say dividend I mean profit. Is the Minister able to speak to how long this happens to be the case and when was the last time the government directed the NWT Power Corp to deliver a dividend? As this government waived the dividend, what is the intent of why they’ve waived it?

The Power Corporation does have a rate of return, but as it’s been demonstrated over the last number of years, there’s been cost pressures on the Power Corporation that far exceed to manage without the government’s ability to come and cushion the blow on the ratepayers. The $37 or $38

million we put in to cushion the impact of what would have been a rate cliff because the prices of fuel hadn’t been raised over the last number of years. The most recent one would have been the low water surcharge that we’ve covered off as a contribution to the Power Corporation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.