Thank you, I can certainly understand but, of course, without dealing with it in a more effective and creative way, you are losing your motivation to be effective and efficient and achieve some of those long-term energy or cost reductions. So, maybe just as a comment, I am hoping that some more thinking goes into that so that people don’t get penalized for being efficient and lose the benefits we are hoping to accumulate. I will leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Next on the list is Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chairman, the district offices that deliver these programs to our communities through the local housing authorities, they have the staff members, maintenance people. Is it something within the mandate and the plans for this government to look at ways that they could improve the efficiencies of these maintenance workers in the communities? That is probably one of my biggest complaints, is that the public housing units or the private housing units -- I know that is under a different program -- should be looked at because of the conditions they are in. The amount of workers, given the budgets that the LHOs have, the amount of hours they have per day, especially when it gets to minus 45 or minus 50 below, when the phones really start ringing and because of the location of the houses or the situation, is that something that this Minister is looking at in terms of how we improve the maintenance in our communities, especially with the elderly people? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, it is certainly a challenge. The number of people on the ground doing the front-line work in terms of keeping the facilities running and responding to emergencies is always very difficult and quite expensive to run. The people we do have we always encourage to upgrade, whether it’s through internal programs or external programs. We’ve really encouraged our staff to broaden their horizons in terms of dealing with new issues and issues that are starting to become common, such as mould issues. We’re also encouraging our staff to be able to deal with the energy efficiency, as our president has indicated. We are certainly wanting our staff to be able to do more and looking at ways that we can put more people on the ground, but at this point it’s quite challenging. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I know it’s a real challenge in our small communities. We were trying to figure out how we can best utilize the maintenance people that are on the ground right now and also, at the same time, educate the tenants in those public or private units. It works both ways. Some things the tenants are doing that are not quite correct, but they are used to picking up the phone if something goes wrong. Usually it goes to the local housing authority and they dispatch a worker and that means pulling them off the job to go there. Sometimes it’s quite hectic for them. I guess what I’m looking at is sort of like an implementation of a plan in the community with all the regional maintenance workers that can get together and say, okay, we have this issue in this community, is it in other communities and how can we fix it.
One thing we looked at in Tulita was with the elders. There are about 47 elders who are 60 years and over. I don’t know have the numbers in front of me of private homes or public homes, but there should be a dedicated person that they could use just to look after seniors only in the communities, because the maintenance workers are so busy with other public housing units. For us to give some comfort and security to the seniors, they can only call one person or that company to call to look at their furnace, frozen pipes or whatever. I think we should give that kind of safety and security for the elders.
I’m looking at these kinds of ways on how we can help with the local housing authority, otherwise we will continue to send letters, e-mails, phone the Minister in terms of how we work on these issues here. I’m looking at bringing some solutions back to the Sahtu. Maybe there are other regions that feel the same way to look at how we start making use of the dollars that we have for our maintenance workers training. Are there ways that we could farm out some of the work that would free up more time for our maintenance workers to look after needs in the community?
Mr. Chairman, I think we do most of what the Member is indicating. We do have some ability for the maintenance staff to get together at the regional level to share ideas, to talk about best practices. We also really are mounting, I’m hoping, a high profile campaign to educate the general public as to what we have in terms of programs. We do have programs under the CARE heading on preventative maintenance that people can tap into and they can hire private companies or private individuals or the band can help them deliver these programs for them. We’ve also embarked on getting apprentices on board. We have, I believe, 12 positions, and two of them are in the Sahtu, the Member’s riding. We’ve really tried to step it up in terms of maintenance and awareness. Thank you.
I wanted to see what the Minister has in terms of the seniors maintenance program. I know this program is out there and seniors can tap into it. There are already policies and regulations set in place. Would the Minister look at having this reviewed and see if there’s a possibility of having the corporation, band council, development corporation or a person in the community that they feel comfortable with will dedicate 100 percent of his time, the corporation’s time, to look after the seniors who are in homes and be sort of like their only sole client. That way, we could give some comfort to the seniors that there’s an entity that’s only there for them to look after some of the units. Because seniors need the extra care, the extra reassurance of their homes in terms of feeling comfortable there. I’m not too sure how the corporation would feel about this. Maybe they think they’re already doing it, but when I go back to the Sahtu, there’s a different reality there. Thank you.
I’ll answer that question again, Mr. Chairman. I indicated earlier that we did this year set aside $2,000 per community to assist some of the communities to deal with the issues challenging the seniors in terms of preventative maintenance, furnaces, water tanks, things of that nature. We have also opened up our programs so that it’s more accommodating for seniors. We no longer provide a cap on the amount that they can apply for; they can apply for the whole $90,000 that’s available for repairs. Mr. Chairman, we always place the seniors and the disabled at the top of the priority list when applications come in. Thank you.
Well, maybe, Mr. Chair, I’m not saying it the way that I want to say it and I know the Minister has talked about the $2,000 per community. Is that correct?
Mr. Chairman, I should correct my statement. It’s $2,000 per senior for preventative maintenance. Sorry.
Thank you. Then with the amount of time that I have here, Mr. Chairman, would the Minister look at this amount of dollars per senior and direct his regional office to look at proposals from communities to say we want this contract for the seniors? Thank you.
Yes, Mr. Chairman. Our staff are already aware of this so they’ll be accommodating to that concept.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. We’re on page 5-55, information item, programs and district operations, operations expenditure summary.
Agreed.
Moving along to 5-56, also an information item, programs and district operations, grants and contributions.
Agreed.
Moving along to 5-59, also an information item, local housing organizations, operations expenditure summary. Mr. Yakeleya.
A couple questions on the local housing organizations in terms of the collections. Again, it’s been brought up by several Members that when the LHOs were in the old system, they were pretty successful at collecting rents and when they moved into the new system under the Education, Culture and Employment, the collection percentage went down quite considerably. I’m not too sure what the trend is now in terms of the collections. I say this because with the percentage of collections that go down from the local housing authority, that has an impact on their funding in terms of a surplus or a deficit and it hurts the community. I guess I’m trying to figure out something that is hurting our local housing authority in terms of the programs they are supposed to be providing for the communities. That’s a real issue for me and that’s an issue for my local housing authority in the Sahtu and they brought it up as an issue they wanted me to raise with the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, once again, the collection rate has gone back to where it was historically. We did have one bad year where it dropped down to 76 percent, but we’re back up to close to what we were collecting in 2004-05, which is close to the 90 percent mark. We’re actually at 87 percent.
It’s good news. I don’t know what they’ve done but it seems to have been brought up. I guess historically the LHOs in my region -- and I could be wrong on this one here -- collected up to 90 percent of the collections and this still has an impact. In regard to the funding, I’ll have to wait and see, I guess, for another couple of years to see where it will go but...I’ll wait a couple more months to see the numbers but this is what I’ve been asked to say on behalf of the people in my community on this issue. They are quite concerned. The Minister has said that it’s going back up again so...I’d like to ask the Minister, overall in the Northwest Territories, are all the numbers coming up, on average? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, most of the Members’ communities exceed 90 percent, some are close to 100 percent. We have one community that is having some challenges and we will be working with them.
I certainly wasn’t aware of these numbers here as the Minister has indicated. These numbers that I’m going by were given to me by Housing here, so I hope that these new numbers can be shared with us.
Mr. Chairman, we’d be pleased to share the numbers that we have in terms of collection and receivables from his riding if the Member would like. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Next on my list is Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A very quick question for the Minister; on the $39.544 million, is that the amount of money that’s going from the Housing Corporation to ECE?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, we’ll have Mr. Anderson explain the details of the $39 million.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Mr. Anderson.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The $39 million is the full allocation to our local housing organizations. That’s made up of about $5.4 million in rent collected from the tenants. We have some money that we received from the GNWT to support apprentices. The rest of it is the ECE funds. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Mr. Bromley.
So the Education, Culture and Employment is the difference between the amount of rent that’s assessed to the client that’s collected, like the $5 million or whatever it is, and the maximum rent. The difference comes from ECE if the client’s go down there and file their income. Is that correct? Thank you.
The contribution, as it stands right now, from the Department of Education is about $32.5 million of the cost of running that portfolio. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Anderson. We’re on page 5-59, information item, local housing organizations, operations expenditure summary.
Agreed.
Moving along to 5-60, information item. Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Chairman, I’m just following the power numbers as well as the heating numbers and the water and sanitation numbers, and what I’m noticing is that water and sanitation seems to be higher than power. I mean, in the bigger picture it looks like the fuel cost is almost identical to water costs. I know it’s less than a million, but when you try to compare apples to apples here in this scenario -- no bananas or oranges this time around -- the costs seem quite significant. Do you do any auditing to find out why water costs and why power costs are so high, and certainly fuel? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, the reason for that is the communities charge the NWT Housing Corporation a different rate than they do all of the other residents. We pay full, either full government rate or full commercial rate, which is considerably higher than the individuals or the private individuals that live in the community.
Mr. Chairman, I’ve heard that before, so it’s kind of nice to hear officially that it’s true. Is that considered right or reasonable from the government’s point of view, that we’re paying a full commercial rate or the highest rate possible on things like power or water? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, the Member is asking my opinion whether I think it’s right. All I can say is that public housing units are charged the government water rate, which is three times the actual residential rate.
Is that based on some type of policy and, if it is, when did that get instituted? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, just trying to figure out how long this has been going on, I think it’s always been the case that the Housing Corporation units, public housing units are charged more than the residential rates. It certainly cuts into our budget and our ability to operate our units, but that’s been the practice and that’s what the communities are doing. Thank you.
If I’m approximately correct in that, three times the amount is how much more we’re paying than the normal rate. So if our water bill is almost $6 million, then a normal bill in this regard should -- the combined water bills, that is, when I refer to a normal water bill -- only be around $2 million. If we’re just using it as to subsidize the communities, why aren’t we just funnelling this money through MACA through some sort as opposed to doing it through the back door? It seems like a flawed policy that we’re inflating one side of the equation just to hide income under another process. Why isn’t it revisited on that basis? It should be under MACA as a direct grant. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, it is a concern and it is on our agenda to sit down with the NWT Association of Communities and also to talk to MACA about looking at some solutions. Mr. Chairman, we know why the communities are doing it; they use the money to offset their costs, but I think the real reason is they know we get a subsidy or have been getting a subsidy from the federal government that they are also tapping into in a roundabout way.
Mr. Chairman, what type of auditing is being done on consumption? I have to tell you, I’ve been to different houses through public housing units and if you’re only paying $10, $20...Well, I don’t even know how much some people are paying. I know it’s very low, in some cases, just a few hundred dollars to be there. Sometimes there’s a disincentive to worry about consuming electricity in a reasonable manner, and perhaps on the same ticket would be the usage of fuel and water, when you don’t actually have to pay the real costs. What type of work is done through the local housing authorities to encourage people to use power, heat and water in a reasonable manner or in a...I’m searching for a word here. I guess I’m trying to say in a responsible way, to ensure that the people are being as responsible as possible as opposed to heating houses with the windows open, which I’ve seen in a number of cases, or leaving the lights on when people leave. What is the department doing to help educate the users of our system, so they act in a responsible way, help curb costs? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, a number of questions there. We do monitor the consumption on all areas including fuel, water and power usage. We do provide for programs that encourage people to become more educated around energy use. We do try to set the standard, for example, in the area of water usage and look at the other standards that are out there from the national organizations such as Health Canada where they recognize 65 litres of water per person per day. We are well below that. The amount allocated, the average set by MACA is 90 litres per person per day and we are certainly below that. So we do try to keep on top of consumption in all the different areas.
Mr. Chairman, the incentive, especially in the area of water, most of our houses are on tank systems so if you use too much water, you are going to have to go without for a couple of days, so most people really watch close in the communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a relief that at least people are taking an eye to this concern and maybe it’s not so bad in some areas. I am certainly glad to hear that. What does the department do when it comes to power consumption? I mean, in the context of power bills, do they take a look at those and monitor those and say you have four people in your house, how come…Do they compare that to an average household usage somewhere in the range of 700 to 1,200 kilowatts a month? Do they do that type of analysis? The reason I am asking this is if they are funding public housing and people aren’t paying a user-pay system, they are paying the actual, they end up forgetting about how important it is to use things like utilities responsibly. They have no responsibility for them at all. So I am trying to find out what is Housing doing in the area of utility bills such as power. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, all our clients are required to pay a portion of their power bill, so most clients are very diligent about how much power they use.
