Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to provide some context on this government’s decision to transfer the administration of the Public Housing Rental Subsidy back to the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation. This decision restores full responsibility for all aspects of the Public Housing Program to the Housing Corporation and its community partners, the local housing organizations.

The Public Housing Program plays a critical role in meeting the housing needs in our communities. With the ever increasing need for housing in the Northwest Territories comes an increasing reliance on our...

We do deal with those out there that do not have the proper land tenure for occupation on Commissioner’s land and we’ll take the steps necessary. If it means having them remove their buildings, then I think that’s been done before. We are taking steps now to deal with those without proper land tenure.

They were given an opportunity to legitimize their leases. We had a lot of people come forward and do that. The ones that didn’t, we are taking action now to deal with them. These are folks that don’t have the land tenure and were just putting their buildings anywhere out there. We are taking steps to deal with that. This is part of the new recreation policy framework that we’re working on that should take steps to address all these issues.

That would be part of the review of the policy is to review all of what’s calculated into the rent and see if there are ways that we can improve. However, we have to recognize that our LHOs have a job to do and we’re trying to do what we can; a good balance for the LHOs and the tenants. But it is an ongoing process and we are reviewing the rent scale and how rent is calculated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the challenge that is faced by tenants is one that’s also faced by the LHOs in the cost of delivering some of the programs and the maintenance and that to the communities. As we heard yesterday, some of our responses were we recognize the fact that our money is declining from CMHC, so we’re taking steps to try and address a lot of the challenges we face. So we’re aware of the ongoing challenges faced by the tenants and the LHOs, and we’re doing what we can to try and alleviate some of the challenges so our programs can be delivered a lot smoother and there won’t be such a burden...

I would like to recognize His Worship, the newly elected mayor of Inuvik, Mr. Denny Rogers. Welcome to the Assembly, Denny.

Our primary goal here is to have all the folks who are considering putting buildings out there to have land tenure and then that would not be an issue. Those that do not have land tenure we are taking steps to address that and deal with the situation.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was an opportunity for those who were out there squatting to legitimize their leases. That was the Interim Trespass Enforcement Strategy. But we’ve withdrawn that now and we are taking measures to deal with the squatters out on Commissioner’s land.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, reviewing of the policies is an ongoing process and it’s something that we’re always very aware of, some of the changes that need to be made and situations change. So we are always looking at ways that we can improve our policies to best suit the tenants and the local housing organizations. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we’ve already begun the process of reviewing the rent scale and how rents are calculated. We’re hoping to have that work… It’s always an ongoing process. We’re reviewing the policies and the rent scales to see how we can best serve the tenants of the NWT Housing Corp. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.