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Roles

In the Legislative Assembly

Elsewhere

Historical Information Robert Villeneuve is no longer a member of the Legislative Assembly.

Last in the Legislative Assembly September 2007, as MLA for Tu Nedhe

Won his last election, in 2003, with 24% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Question 39-15(6): Public Housing Rent Scale May 8th, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess my point is more directed toward people who can actually pay some sort of rent. The Income Support Program tops up to $32 or whatever your rent is to what the market rent was set at and that's just basically money going from Education into Housing, you know. It's just from one government department to the other. There is really no money going into another person's hands except from one department to the other, so I don't really understand how the income support is going to be affected directly or indirectly. My question is how can we accommodate people that are out there with a good job but are being hammered on their rent for a dilapidated unit and they just don't deem it as fair but they're willing to pay anyway, Mr. Speaker? You know, they don't want to just...

Question 39-15(6): Public Housing Rent Scale May 8th, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know, the rent scale ranges from $32 a month to about $2,000 a month, Mr. Speaker, on the rent scale that this government holds. I don't think you can get any rent from people asking to lower my $32 a month rent. You know, actually, some people are willing, probably, to pay more rent if they could probably get a fair assessment of their rent based on perhaps their net income, not gross income. If somebody's netting $1,500 and taking home $900 but their rent is still coming in at $1,800 a month, Mr. Speaker, that's...In Detah or in Colville Lake, you know, $1,800 a month is based on Yellowknife rent and vacancy rates here in Yellowknife, not in the communities, Mr. Speaker. So we have to get that straight. Also, the Housing Corporation thinks it's fair; the Housing Corporation doesn't collect the rent, Mr. Speaker, it's the LHOs, the people that live in the community have to go out and collect that rent. So the Housing Corporation really has nothing to do with the collection of rent and, therefore, it's not their issue of how much the rent is going to be. So I want to ask the Minister, is the department going to revisit the rent scale because it's old; it's 15 years old, Mr. Speaker. We've got to do something different, make a change that people...

Question 39-15(6): Public Housing Rent Scale May 8th, 2007

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Just to follow up on my Member's statement about the rent scale policy that this government never seems to want to revisit. Mr. Speaker, just seven months ago I was asking the then-Minister of Housing, the Honourable Dave Krutko, about this same issue and just looking at the Hansard I see words like "review," "revisit," in conjunction with the transfer to ECE having something ready in the next number of weeks to review. You know, all this on the review of the rent scale policy, Mr. Speaker, and it's seven months now in the works. As a committee member, I have seen nothing that this government has even looked at revisiting this rent scale issue, which, you know, the Deputy Premier said it was brought up in his constituency meeting. You know, from Inuvik to Fort Smith, people are concerned and I think this government really has to take it to task that we have to revisit this old policy. Is that going to happen some time soon, Mr. Speaker?

Public Housing Rent Scale May 8th, 2007

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, let me just start off by welcoming all the Members here back into the 15th Legislative Assembly. Mr. Speaker, last year and the year before and I'm sure many years prior, myself and many other Members of this House, from this side of the House and that side of the House, have raised the issue of our rent scale used in our public housing here in the NWT many times, Mr. Speaker. There are many concerns about the disincentive it creates to seek meaningful employment by the clients in our public housing, the animosity it raises between the clients, the LHO staff and our NWT Housing Corporation staff about what is deemed fair for rent for units that just may be lacking in proper maintenance or just plain run down, and the lack of respect for this government's housing stock by many public housing clients due to the fact that they just feel they are just not being treated fairly in their communities when it comes to public housing allocations and rental agreements and rent scales.

Mr. Speaker, from the many inquiries and concerns I received on this issue, this is never going to go away unless this government has to really seriously revisit this issue and ensure the people in our public housing units are being assessed rent that is deemed fair in the terms of their social and financial circumstances in their communities, and on the condition of the unit and on a scale which allows clients to move out of our public housing, which is the public housing mandate here in the NWT.

Mr. Speaker, later on today I will be again asking the Minister of Housing questions about this government's action plans, if any, to address this ongoing, anti-independent, socially dysfunctional system of public housing management, Mr. Speaker. I hope the Minister can present some good action plan that this government intends to take in the next year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Question 29-15(6): Interim Refundable Rate Rider March 13th, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for making that commitment, I guess, just for the public interest. I would maybe want to ask the Minister for a commitment that either the Public Utilities Board or the NWT Power Corp or his department, whoever, because we're already into one month here that this has been approved; it's been approved effective February 1, 2007, and I don't think people even really know what it is that has been approved. Just for the public's interest and how it's going to affect their power bills, I would like to see something maybe in Monday's paper, perhaps, you know, a full-pager on how, explaining what these rate riders are, what this interim refundable rate rider is and how it's going to affect everybody's power rates. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Question 29-15(6): Interim Refundable Rate Rider March 13th, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The information I have, okay, we have the approval of the fuel rider and the rider T for the consumers that are on hydro, and now we have an approval of this interim refundable rate rider. Is the Public Utilities Board, or is the Minister responsible for the Public Utilities Board, going to be putting out any kind of a public notice that will explain to myself, my constituents and the people of the NWT, what the effects are of this fuel rider? The rider T is pretty cut and dried, but explain what is this interim refundable rate rider going to be and what the changes are going to be to people's power bills. Thank you.

Question 29-15(6): Interim Refundable Rate Rider March 13th, 2007

On January 10, 2007, before this interim refundable rate rider was effective, the Power Corporation's fuel rider and the rider T was approved by the Public Utilities Board. So we have the fuel rider and the rider T approved by the Public Utilities Board. Now we have an interim refundable rate rider. I don't understand what the differences are and what effects it will have for people on hydro on diesel. Could the Minister explain that to me? Thank you.

Question 29-15(6): Interim Refundable Rate Rider March 13th, 2007

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on January 26, 2007, the Public Utilities Board approved the Northwest Territories Power Corporation interim refundable rate rider effective February 1, 2007. I want to ask the Minister responsible for the Public Utilities Board, what is the interim refundable rate rider and how is it going to affect people that are on hydro as opposed to people on diesel? Can he explain that just for the public's interest? Thank you.

Housing Corporation Rental Arrears March 13th, 2007

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I am going to use my Member's statement to talk about this government's policies on the rental arrears kind of spiralling out of control here for the past five to 10 years at the Housing Corporation. I do support all of the initiatives that do assist people to address their outstanding accounts with the Housing Corporation or the local housing organizations, but this government definitely has to make some fundamental changes to the rent scale policies and their eviction processes if they wish to recover any significant amount of the $8 million-plus that is owed to the LHOs and to the Housing Corporation, especially if these people that are living in public housing, if we want to stop them from continuing to slide deeper and deeper into debt, which seems to be the way we are going now.

The first thing that this government has to do is to develop a small communities rent scale policy that is not based on the market rent for Yellowknife and is not adjusted because of the vacancy rates in Yellowknife either, and clearly does not reflect the fair share of real earned income that people are willing to pay for some of the conditions that they have to live under like overcrowding and the large inventory of dilapidated housing that we have in our smaller communities.

Mr. Speaker, every client of the Housing Corporation with outstanding arrears has to be addressed on an individual basis and the methods of repayment customized to each individual circumstance. Mr. Speaker, the people who are stepping up to the plate to pay down their outstanding accounts have to be given the gratitude and consideration that they deserve for doing what they are doing, because it is often very difficult for these people to pay down such large debts, especially when they have large families to support and they are on small incomes or they might be on income support.

I have constituents who have made significant sacrifices to pay down their debt, Mr. Speaker. But then, again, they are not given due consideration for better housing or even housing programs because of their so-called bad credit that they had with the Housing Corporation or the LHO. But these are the people who should be accommodated and properly housed, because they have obviously shown us that they can assume the responsibility of keeping current with the rent and may be the better clients with the lesser risks to taking on homeownership, which, I believe, is what this government is working towards and we should continue to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Question 12-15(6): Universal Partnership Agreements With Local Housing Authorities March 12th, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to ask, I know the LHOs are trying to work diligently with ECE. ECE, the feedback I'm getting is that they're really busy. They have so many subsidy programs that they don't even know where the LHOs sit from one day to the next when it comes to rent subsidies that they have to dish out income support and all that stuff. So I'm just wondering, just so we can get everybody on a level playing field, can we revisit these UPAs and get them updated that reflect everybody's responsibility in this whole public housing issue here that we have in the NWT that just never seems to go away and I don't think it's going to go away any time soon. But let's get up to snuff on it and get up to, you know...