Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am aware of this issue. In fact, it has been raised in this House previously, and, in response to a question by the MLA from Yellowknife Centre, we sent some information out, and perhaps I could relay some of the information contained in the letter to the House.
Between April 1, 2017, and January 31, 2018, there were 353 applications filed with the rental office. As of February 21, 2018, 182 of those had been heard, and of those, 57 per cent were heard within three months of the application filing date, 30 per cent were heard within four months of the application filing date, and of the 12 per cent that were heard beyond the four months after the application filing date, some of those within the 30 per cent category represent files that were adjourned or postponed either because of service of document problems or one of the parties requested an adjournment.
We are well aware of the problem. Members will recall that there was an issue where there was a reduction of one rental officer, resulting from the retirement of a long-standing rental officer in 2016. There was some difficulty in replacing this person. In fact, what we did was we have entered into a contract to add a part-time rental officer to the office. We are hoping that wait times will be reduced. We will continue to monitor the situation.