Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document titled 2009 NWT Community Survey – Housing Component. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

A lot of the larger communities that do have paving have identified or used some of their Building Canada money and some other funding, infrastructure stimulus funding, some have used that and they have identified paving as one of their priorities and put their money towards that. Some of the smaller communities had different priorities when this money rolled out, but are starting to see now that they are starting to identify chipseal as one of their priorities, dust control as one of their priorities and they are taking steps to address that. However, we will continue to work with the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The chipseal program that was out a few years ago was part of the capital process when the transfer or the implementation of the New Deal, the money that went to the communities and then they determined their priorities and if dust control was one of the priorities, they identified and put the money towards it. We have seen lately in some of the plans that we are getting back from communities, a lot of them are starting to identify dust control as a priority and they are starting to put the funds towards it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I understand how important it is for those out there to realize they do have an independent appeal process and then that is the beauty of this. It would be an independent appeal process. I can follow up, but we are hoping to have this roll out right away. We are obviously through this particular application stage for Housing Choices Program and then we will be hearing some of the concerns that residents have had. We will have this in place. We are looking to have this in place by the next application cycle. Thank you.

We usually try to do an assessment of the programs fairly regularly and see what’s working and what can be improved. I can commit to the Member that I will have discussions with the officials and see when the next review of the program is, and I’ll advise Members of that and seek input.

Mr. Speaker, a formal appeals process doesn’t exist at the moment. They would be able to appeal to the program advisor or to the district director. In my office, we have had cases of people bringing their issues and their concerns forward. We have tried to address some of these. We usually follow up with questions to the district office. As far as an official appeal process, there is not one in place right now. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we fully understand that there was an accumulation of arrears during this time. As far as bringing a bill forward, I do know that some LHOs sometimes will write off arrears, but that then goes to the Housing Corporation to collect the arrears. As far as forgiving the bill, we have to be very careful here that if we do this, we set a precedent, and even arrears that were accumulated before the transfer are going to obviously be expected to be forgiven. If there’s a way that we can work with tenants to try and work on their arrears and, like you said, the LHOs really recognize the...

I do acknowledge that there is a serious arrears problem, to the tune of about $10 million. A lot of these arrears may have been accumulated before the transfer, so we can’t say that this was a direct response of the transfer. The local housing authorities, when the transfer first went over, realized there were issues with the assessment. This was all new being rolled out. They were very good at recognizing that if you weren’t assessed properly, they would adjust it and your arrears would automatically go down. So they’ve taken steps to deal with that when the transfer first happened. I admit...

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to provide Members with information on the housing needs data that has been collected through the 2009 NWT Community Survey.

According to this new data, core housing need in the Northwest Territories has risen from 16 percent in 2004 to 19 percent in 2009. Household need varied across our Territory from a high of 36 percent in the Nahendeh to a low of 14 percent in the North Slave. Approximately 27 percent of households in the Beaufort-Delta were in core need compared with 36 percent in the Sahtu and 17 percent in the South Slave.

The increase in core housing need is...

We’ll always continue to work with NWTAC, which represents all communities across the Territories, and LGANT, the local government administrators. We’ll continue with them. The way the process is laid out now -- and I’ve responded in some of my answers to some of the other Members’ questions that we try to spread everything around -- we want to give communities the opportunity to make these decisions themselves. If there is money available and it’s cost-shared, then they would be responsible for matching those dollars. If we start doing one-offs again, then we’ll get into a situation where...