Robert C. McLeod

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, that Bill 19, Cost of Credit Disclosure Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill establishes rules for the disclosure of cost of credit information by credit grantors to consumers. It also repeals Parts I and II of the Consumer Protection Act and makes other consequential amendments to that act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We’d be glad to have discussions with DOT and take advantage of the expertise that they have. Along with MACA, we’ll work with the communities and see how they can best apply it to their roads.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I don’t have that data but I’ll try and gather it and have a look at it.

Mr. Speaker, a motion to delete all arrears across the Northwest Territories is not going to benefit the tenants. Then we just may be putting them in a position where they just accumulate arrears again, and most of all, and most importantly, it would not be fair to those folks across the Northwest Territories that paid their rent faithfully since 1972 and are still living in the same house. It’s not fair to them. That’s what we want, is to try to treat everybody fairly and equitably.

One of the goals of the 16th Legislative Assembly is safe, sustainable, vibrant, and I’d like to add independent...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is a problem we are facing across the Northwest Territories. We are taking steps to deal with the rent collection. I have to point out, though, that our five best performing LHOs, as far as average arrears per unit, three of them are in the small communities. Our best average is in one of the smaller communities, so that showed me that these are communities that are honouring the commitments that they’ve made and these are the communities that we don’t hear concerns from, from the MLAs. This is one of the reasons I believe we are in the situation we are in today...

Each community has five-year capital plans and I’ve had the opportunity to see some of the plans. They’ve identified some of their priorities in the community and I want to commend them for doing a very good job. We have a very strong NWT Association of Communities membership. The president sometimes attends the Federation of Communities and Municipalities, FCM, and they have opportunity there again to raise any concerns that they might have with funding from the federal government to the Northwest Territories. It is an ongoing work but we continue to support the communities with a lot of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I’ve stated on a number of occasions in the past, responsibility for community infrastructure now lies with the community. We have been fortunate that we have been able to access the Building Canada Plan money, the infrastructure stimulus money, as well as all the infrastructure money that we give to the communities. They have received a significant amount of money. If there are any projects that are meaning to be done in the community, it would be a community responsibility to identify the projects and work with the funding that they do have.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories Housing Corporation continues to work with the local housing organizations (LHOs) in their rent collection efforts under the Public Housing Program. This work is intended to increase collection of rent and rental arrears. These funds are reinvested in community housing.

Mr. Speaker, the success of the Public Housing Program depends on a partnership between the Housing Corporation, LHOs and tenants. If each does their part, it contributes to the sustainability of the program and reduces the cost of living to Northwest Territories residents and it...

We’ll play a secondary role and the Community of Lutselk’e will play the lead role as they have the funding to allocate to applying dust suppressant to their road. We’ll be more than happy to work with the community and identify the best ways possible to make sure they get their roads done.

With the community’s invitation, we’d be glad to go in there and provide them with some technical advice and assist them in seeing how they can best budget their money for applying dust suppressant.