Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, right now we stand at about 20. The number was at 36. We are at 20 right now. There could possibly be more. We are encouraged by the fact that there were many people that were non-payers, as far as rent goes, before this moratorium came into place. A lot of them are actually stepping up to the plate and entering into repayment plans or working with their LHOs. There has been some positive news come out of this. Those that have always paid their rent are continuing to pay their rent. There has been some positive come out of this, but again we are hoping we are not facing mass...

In communicating with tenants of the public housing portfolio, they were asked to come into the LHO and work out a repayment plan. I am not sure if we are following up with that, but right now the opportunity is there for them to work with our LHOs, enter into repayment plans and honour them, and come April 1st there is a possibility that they would be able to stay in their units. Thank you.

I can assure the Member that the Minister is listening, and the Minister is listening also to other voices from across the NWT. I’ve heard nothing, really, on Volunteer NWT. They’re pleased with some of the volunteer support that they’re given; however, Volunteer NWT provided a service that was required by some organizations. We’d not be willing to commit money at this point; however, as I mentioned to the Member, we are going through a business planning process where it would be an opportunity for the Member or Members to raise any monies that they would like to see put towards Volunteer NWT...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The final report on the Volunteer Support Initiative is expected in the fall of 2012. So we’re hoping to get that out by the fall and it will be an update to the past work that’s been done. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we would do the best we can to try and work with all of these tenants, those with language barriers. We are more than willing to work with them so they understand the whole process. The same thing goes with mobility issues. If there are mobility issues, we are more than willing to work with them.

Again, we have a lot of tenants that don’t face these challenges. The onus is on them to come into the LHOs and try and work out repayment. Part of the duties of our LHOs is they try to communicate with the tenants as much as possible. This is one of those cases where the tenants would be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was recently a meeting held in Yellowknife with all the LHO managers across the Northwest Territories. One of the items discussed was the moratorium. At the time, it was noted that of the 20 people that were facing eviction, none of them have actually come forward and entered into a repayment plan. It is not going as well as we would have liked. We have two months left. We are hoping there is not a rush at the end and hoping that people start dealing with it right now. That way, we are not faced with mass evictions come April 1st. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We don’t condone any kind of illegal activities in our public housing units. Especially the LHOs usually have a zero tolerance policy. If someone is convicted of illegal activity in their unit, then their residency will be terminated. Thank you.

Thank you. I don’t think we need to work with the RCMP or anybody to know who these people in the communities are. Every community knows who in the community are carrying out illegal activities. Unfortunately, some of them are tenants of public housing, but you can’t evict them even though the Residential Tenancy Act allows you to possibly evict them on assumption. The LHOs normally wait until they are convicted. But every community knows who these folks are and until we can get them convicted, unfortunately there’s not much we can do, as much as we would like to have them no longer tenants...

Thank you. This would apply to all criminal activity that takes place in the unit or that they’re charged for and convicted. So it would apply to all. There’s no different sized penalty for different convictions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously, we feel badly for the events that took place in Whitehorse and we never want to see that in any units anyplace in the Northwest Territories. I have been giving the department direction to see about the policy to see what our standards are and see they can be enforced. I’m just in the process of gathering the information right now and until I have the information gathered, I’ll take the Member’s question as notice.