Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as some of my colleagues have stated, the current state of arrears in the Northwest Territories is just over $13 million held by about 914 people. The housing corporation has -- already has a collection policy and the principles of that collection policy stipulate that Housing NWT will

• Adhere to a standardized and consistent approach to collections;
• That arrears should be collected in a timely and efficient manner;
• That tenants and clients should not accumulate large rental or mortgage arrears that are difficult to collect, and,
• That arrears should be forgiven where collection is not possible.

Mr. Speaker, I think it's valid to talk about and share some of the stories that were shared with us as committee members when we travelled to communities and had the opportunity and privilege to sit with elders across this territory and hear their stories. Some elders lived in homes for their entire lives and all of a sudden one day received a bill for arrears. They had no idea where they came from.

Some elders came to us and told us of their stories at the age of -- in their 80s and in their 90s, and they're paying over half of their pension towards their arrears. That leaves many elders with less than $300 to pay for all of their monthly expenses. $300 today in Yellowknife, not even in our small communities, you leave with maybe three bags, four bags of groceries. And that's not the only expenses that somebody would have to live and survive in the Northwest Territories.

So garnishing pensions in an unreasonable manner off of our elders is not taking care of our elders and empowering them to survive and thrive in their home communities let alone even here in Yellowknife.

Mr. Speaker, some of the elders who are carrying arrears are women who have experienced family violence in their homes and are carrying the damages that were inflicted to that infrastructure through family violence and are walking around with this huge weight on their shoulders from those damages and those arrears, unable to access additional housing programs to secure stable housing. There are other elders who spoke to us and they are carrying arrears from income that was earned by other members of their family. And so by preventing homelessness and allowing people to live in their homes, like their children or their nieces and nephews and their cousins, they were incurring arrears. And this policy was changed over the life of this Assembly, but those arrears were not addressed and mitigated by the housing corporation.

In addition to that, Mr. Speaker, these arrears, as you've heard my colleague say, they cause extreme hardship for the people that are holding them and prevent them from being able to move on and address other concerns in their lives. Some of those concerns are really privileges. So rather than holding on to arrears or -- or sorry, rather than the weight of arrears and being able to turn around and help their family maybe take care of children, because that's a role that a lot of our elders fill in the territory, is that care provision for the younger generation and that care provision ends up turning around and enabling a lot of healing in our territory. So that's a very important one.

Mr. Speaker, it is incredibly prudent that -- or it's incredibly important that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation have prudent management when it comes to managing arrears, managing rents, and managing the policies that they actually put in place. So they need to not only understand why people have rent but also be able to mitigate why people have arrears and address that properly. And if the housing corporation is going to have policies to address this, then they actually need to follow them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.