Robert C. McLeod

I would be pleased to meet with committee. I mean, we have six months, obviously, to respond to the recommendations. We’re trying to get the pieces in place right now. But once we’ve completed all that work and I’ve had an opportunity to discuss with my counterpart from Justice, I think it might be prudent for both of us, actually, to come before committee and give them some time and explain to them how we plan on dealing with any situations. I don’t think we’ll have any more situations like this in the future. If we put the proper pieces in place, then that should rectify the problem that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re fully aware of the situation and we take the recommendations from the UN very, very seriously. We would like to try and set up a meeting with Ms. Kell to try and work out some details. We have six months to respond to the recommendations, but as of right now, we are trying to meet with this lady and work out the details. Thank you.

I did have an opportunity to meet with the NWT Seniors’ Society. Obviously, with an issue of importance like this, there was mixed views on it. Some thought it was a good thing. Some said we should just stay at zero. There were a few that said, well, why don’t you just meet us halfway and phase it in? Listening to that and listening to concerns of the Members, we took that into consideration and we decided to go with September 1st and implement it over the next two years.

Mr. Speaker, the new public housing rent scale is scheduled to be implemented on July 1, 2012. We recognize the changes we are making are significant and there will be an adjustment period for all tenants.

As you know, there have been concerns expressed about the impact of the changes on seniors who reside without others in the house and often live on fixed income. These seniors have been paying zero rent under the old rent scale, but were to pay between $70 and $80 minimum rent using the new rent scale.

In recognition of the concerns that have been expressed, I am instructing the NWT Housing...

If there are folks from the NWT Seniors’ Society who are listening to this broadcast, I would like the opportunity to come and meet with you.

Thank you. We’re going to use that two months to give them an opportunity to prepare for a change in their rent come September 1st. We’re also going to use it as an opportunity, as I responded before, to work with a lot of seniors that are in public housing and give them an indication of what their rent will be and what they can expect to pay in the future.

I kept referring to this particular case in my answer before because this is the one that brought about this situation. In the overall picture, working with the Housing Corporation and the Auditor General’s report, obviously, that was from a few years ago, we’ve taken great steps in the meantime since then to improve how we work with our LHOs. One of the things we have done is we’re implementing a territorial-wide housing information system. I think that’s going to give us the ability to monitor the workings of the LHOs a lot closer. They’re doing a fine job out there, but we need to be a...

Well, I can speak from the Housing perspective and say that we’ve got some checks and balances in place to ensure that a situation like this doesn’t happen again. One of the checks and balances is to not allow for a person to be removed from the lease without their notification, and I think that’s what happened in this particular case. I will commit to working with my counterparts and the Minister of Justice to see how we can better inform his department on some of the steps going forward, and the communities too. They have an opportunity to work with their tenant relations officer.

I think the...

Well, we listened to what Members had to say. We listened to what some of the concerns were for the seniors out there. We thought this would be an adjustment period, because to go from zero to $70, $75 or $80 dollars, as was the original intent, we thought this would be an easier adjustment to graduate up to the higher rent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Leading up to the new rent scale, all the tenants, including seniors, will have an opportunity to meet with their local LHO and they will be given an indication at the time of what their rent can be expected to be. With the rent scale change, it will be July 1st. With the seniors, now with the new implementation of September 1st, there will be an opportunity for them to work with the local LHOs and give them an indication of what their rent is going to be.