Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask the Minister Responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation some questions.
Over the course of time in my term as an MLA, I’ve been pursuing an appeal within the Housing Corporation. I don’t know how much work has been done to date. I’d like to ask the Minister: have they been looking at it, and if they have, how much work has been done with it?
Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, I am aware of this concern, and I have had discussions with the president. As we pull together the LHO chairs, the managers and district staff, as well as headquarters, and reorganize that there are a number of issues that are on our plate, to try to look at improvement, that concern is one of them.
Mr. Speaker, I’m sure that people are using our programs and services with NWT Housing Corporation. They really don’t have an avenue of appeal; in fact, they have to appeal right now to the person who ruled against them in the programs and services that they wanted. What existing avenues do they have currently?
Mr. Speaker, right now, as Minister, I communicate to this House and to the Member that I did a very steady stream of housing issues. They tend to go to MLAs; they tend to go to other elected officials. One of the areas that we think we can take a page from is income support. There’s a local appeal process as well as a Territorial one, so we don’t have to break new ground or reinvent the wheel here. It’s just a matter of making sure that we have all the checks and balances.
There’s something that’s been outstanding for quite some time. Is the Minister looking at instituting something this year? Mahsi.
We would anticipate something that we could come forward with and share with the committee. We know that once we conclude the May–June session, we’re going to be moving quickly into business plans. So this is one of the items on the to-do agenda, and I’d like to get to that in time for that secondary process.
