Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I listened with great interest to the Housing Minister yesterday when he announced the proposed plans for the NWT Housing Corporation. During the 16th Assembly, I was among one of the Members that pushed Mr. McLeod for an overhaul for the rent scales for the young people who want to work and get a fair chance to make it on their own. I did this because the so-called economic rent being charged was too high. Basically, if someone got a job, they would have to pay so much rent. They wouldn’t have much money left for anything.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make it very clear, I did not ask the Minister to raise the rent for any seniors who live in public housing. These elders already have a hard time getting by. Many of them live in poverty or on the edge of poverty. It is not okay to raise the rent for our elders so we can lower the top rent scales in public housing. It shocks me that, after all he has heard in this House, it seems that this is what the Minister plans to do. The Minister has already told us that his moratorium on eviction from public housing has not resulted in very many tenants making arrangements to pay back what they owe. Maybe in the future in the Sahtu, we are going to need a Betty House. I wonder why this is so, Mr. Speaker. It could be that those tenants don’t have their money to pay back. Could it be that they have so little income that they have no hope of paying the Housing Corporation back? How many of these elders will be affected with this proposed plan? It is supposed to be implemented on July 1st. I don’t have those answers, Mr. Speaker, but I sure hope we can talk to the Minister about that. Maybe there is still time to exempt elders from any rental increase. That is what should be done.
A few days ago I spoke about penalized elders. We have someone living with them in their houses. We have not yet fixed that problem. And now the Housing Corporation plans to raise the rent for some of our seniors. Are we going from bad to worse, Mr. Speaker? I think so.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
