Robert C. McLeod

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...

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce the release of the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs United Nations International Year of Youth Report.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming the year commencing on August 12, 2010, as the International Year of Youth.

MACA acknowledged, commemorated and supported the Year of Youth through a number of initiatives and programs that directly supported the objectives of the United Nations’ proclamation and our Assembly’s goal of building sustainable, vibrant and safe communities.

The report showcases the department’s...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There’s an application process that should be coming out pretty soon. They can put in an application for specific projects in their community. In 2011-12 we had about eight different initiatives out there from Bailey Hot Soup Lunch Program to Food Bank to Shelter Enhancement Project, Soup Kitchen. So there are some opportunities there. Again, there is an application process and it’s going to be coming out very shortly here. Thank you.

Madam Speaker, the Housing Appeal Committee was designed to hear appeals from public housing tenants after they have gone through their local board and the district office. There are a number of issues that they would be able to discuss. Also home ownership clients would hear some of the appeals as far as eligibility and decline.

As far as going back to grievances in the past, that was not the mandate of the committee. However, if it gets to be a real concern, it is something that we would probably have to explore. As of right now, it is not in their mandate. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to present the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs’ main estimates for the fiscal year 2012-13.

The department’s main estimates propose an operations expenditure budget of $95.5 million, an increase of $2.1 million or 2 percent from the 2011-12 Main Estimates. The increase consists primarily of $2.5 million in forced growth funding and $647,000 initiatives funding, offset by funding that is sunsetting this fiscal year.

MACA has a broad mandate, focusing on community governments but also providing a range of programs aimed at sport and recreation...

Those are discussions we’ve had at the senior level. We want to start off with maybe a pilot project as far as the arrears go and see how that works and then continue to develop the next part of it. I think, in some cases, there are places where they do take people that are living in public housing and they take a portion of what they earn, maybe 50 percent, put that towards the arrears and then they’re paid a small fee. There may have been cases like that in the past, but in the overall picture as far as the overall NWT Housing Corporation and all our communities, it’s something we need to...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s mostly due to some HELP units that we had built in Nahendeh that we have had trouble allocating and we’re just not including those in this year’s numbers because the money was spent last year. We just haven’t been able to fill some of these units. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have to look at all options as far as the NWT Housing Corporation goes. I would be very careful, and we have to do our homework obviously, I’d be very careful as far as putting woodstoves into every public housing unit. If there are other options we could look at like a biomass central heating system for some of our multiplexes, then we need to start going in that direction first.

We’d have to do some research to see what other jurisdictions are doing. We’re a whole different kettle of fish up here and our situation is not quite the same as what they are in other...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In Norman Wells we are switching over to diesel because they’re obviously getting shut off. We’re not doing anything in Inuvik just yet. There is obviously going to be quite a cost to the NWT Housing Corp if we had to switch all our assets in Inuvik back to diesel. We’re waiting to see how things work out. They’ve been working awfully hard up there to try to find a solution. If that happens, then we won’t have to switch back, which will be a good thing.

As far as biomass and in my response to Mr. Bromley’s questions earlier in the day, I was talking about how we’re looking...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think if you look at the active positions by region, you’ll notice that the Housing Corporation, probably within all departments, has most of our people spread out over the regions. Then if you count our LHO employees, we’ve got about 130 in all the communities across the Northwest Territories.

We have tried to provide more support to our district offices so our people can get out into the communities more. One of the things we’re working on, one of the initiatives we are working on right now, is working with our LHOs to try and get them more involved in all aspects...