Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Housing Corporation recognizes the importance of having as many local people doing the contracts as possible. That’s why we ventured into some negotiated contracts with local contractors to help them build up the capacity so they can compete in an open market. We see that in the case of some of the ones that we’ve negotiated contracts with in the past. They are competing in the open market.
The Member says that there was $800,000 in negotiated contracts. Some of the numbers I have put that number a little higher. I mean, the one particular contractor, almost $1 million since 2004-05 in negotiated contracts. They also won some publicly tendered contracts which were quite high. In another community where there was about $1.6 million in negotiated contracts from 2007-08, and they’ve also won publicly tendered contracts. So that indicates to us that helping to build the capacity to compete in an open market is obviously working. Thank you.
The information that the Minister provided definitely doesn’t illustrate the picture he’s trying to portray here. There’s been five years of negotiated contracts with the Housing Corporation expending over $12 million in capital investment. Only $800,000 was expended in five years in my riding. Out of that, $9.67 million went to companies outside of my riding. That’s the point I’m trying to get at. We have negotiated contracts, policies and procedures, we have sole-sourced, we have a whole bunch of opportunities we have to use. So I’d like to ask the Minister why is your department not using those tools and implementing those policies that we have as government to build capacity in communities.
Thank you. We are using those tools. We try to support local business as much as we can. There are some folks that enter into joint ventures with contracting companies to bid on the work that’s required in their community or possibly negotiate the work that’s required in their communities. So I know what the numbers are; I know the numbers that the Member is quoting, and from the numbers I’ve seen and the assistance that we’ve provided to the local contractors, we were able to help them build up the capacity so when public tender comes out they are able to bid and be successful. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, this Minister and his department totally disregards the policies and procedures of this government when it comes to negotiating contracts, sole-sourced contracts, contracting guidelines we have in place for government projects, government capital to be expended in communities. There are support letters given by the MLA, there are support letters given by the bands, the municipal governments, but yet this government totally refuses to acknowledge that. Those are efforts by community governments to show that they need these opportunities to build capacity in their communities. So why is this government and this Minister not living up to the wishes of those community leaders by those support letters to have negotiated contracts in their communities and continue to refuse them?
This government and this Minister do not disregard policy. You can’t, obviously, go against policy.
We understand we’ve gotten letters of support. We’ve entered into two more negotiated contracts with contractors in the Member’s communities, two in one community, even though both have requested a negotiated contract, and according to the policy, if two or more request a negotiated contract, we could have used that as an opportunity to go public, but we recognize that we need to help the local economy. So we entered into a negotiated contract with two companies in the same community and we did put three of the duplexes out to a public tender so everybody has an opportunity. They have an opportunity to bid and they proved to me and to the corporation, at least one of them, that they can be successful in an open market.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, it took political will and lobbying to the Premier to get this Minister to move on this effort so that he could back down from his reluctance to negotiate contracts. It took public influence to get this Cabinet and government to agree to two projects in my riding.
There were letters from Fort McPherson and Tsiigehtchic. None were approved to Cabinet. The only reason that went to Cabinet is because the Premier was speaking to the public individuals in the communities by the community leadership so that we can see some benefit from these projects in our communities and not see the wealth go to the other regional centres. I’d like to ask the Minister, since you’ve become Minister how many negotiated contracts have you taken to Cabinet in the Northwest Territories for housing.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement I talked about the possibility of the homeless people in the Sahtu communities and other communities who face the issue of the eviction notices and termination of public housing units. This is all due to a number of attempts to collect arrears payments to the units. I want to ask the Minister, in his review of the Shelter Policy for the NWT Housing Corporation, if there is going to be a policy where tenants like these that are very high in arrears can have some other options such as working off their arrears or looking at some garnishment for payment to make towards the arrears or volunteering their services in a monetary amount to work off. If there is anything that would keep them from being evicted and keep them in the house and learning also at the same time what it takes to maintain a public housing unit.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, first of all, the obvious one is pay your rent and you won’t be evicted. We’ve come to cases where folks have received termination notices and they need to work with the LHO. The LHO tries to work with them. The whole eviction process is almost a year-long process and it comes to a point where eviction is the last option. We’ve had a few cases of those. It’s not something that we like to do. We want to be able to work with the tenants.
I can point out to the Member again, and I have said in this House, we’ve seen a great improvement in the public engaging with their LHOs and trying to enter into repayment plans. Not only entering into them but also honouring the commitment they made, which I think is the most important first step.
I have some information, thanks to the Minister, that he passed on to me. That’s what I want to look at in terms of one of my communities, where if a number of people do not do anything, they will be asked to leave their public housing units; a total of 10 adults, not counting the children. I want to ask the Minister in this regard, we will have a homeless problem in Deline. Can the Minister in any way, through his leadership and direction, look at putting a little more emphasis and resources to working with these people? There are 10 adults that need to see where they’re going to be housed. Right now they’re going to be in the warehouses or tents. I know it’s an effort between two parties. What else can we do to keep them in their units? Is there anything possible for them?
As I said earlier, we give them every opportunity to try and rectify the situations that some of them find themselves in. I can point out to the Member that in the community that he mentioned, the overall collection went from a very low number to over 100 percent now; the collection rate. I understand that we’ve had some of these issues in the past and I think the folks there are getting the message, which is encouraging to the Housing Corporation and encouraging to the LHO, because they’re able to use that money now to do some much needed repairs in the communities.
We’ve had other places where they’ve tried to come up with some innovative solutions on how people can work off. We’re always willing to listen, but it has to be something that benefits both the tenants and the LHOs. We’re always willing to listen to any kind of new initiative. We’ve seen a few of them in the past that have worked. One in one of the Beaufort-Delta communities has worked quite well. There’s a lot of work to it. As I said, we’re always looking to or are willing to listen to any kind of initiatives out there.
It’s encouraging to hear the Minister say that he’s willing to listen and work on some of the innovative solutions. I want to ask the Minister in regard to the eviction list in one of my communities. Is this something that the Minister can possibly look at implementing with Housing as policy? Right now it’s at discretion. If we had a policy that would give more direction to the LHOs to say now we can look at another avenue to have people work on their issues and what it means to be a homeowner or to live in a public housing unit, it will help them in terms of being more independent.
At the end of the day, it is our goal to see our tenants become more independent and honour the commitments that they’ve made. There’s also, and I’ve stated in the House in the past, an appeals process that we’re hoping to roll out here fairly soon. I won’t as a rule try and dictate to the LHOs what they do. They make their own policies. They’re the ones that actually came to us with some of the ideas they’ve had which they figure work quite well in their communities.
There’s an appeals process that we’re hoping to roll out here. Tenants will have the opportunity, if they feel that the board didn’t follow policy and procedure, then the appeal process is another avenue. We’re obviously trying to work with the tenants to give them another avenue to appeal decisions that they feel are unfair.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly hope that the LHO board clearly hears what the Minister has said. The board is the boss, and their comment that we have to take instructions from the district office is wiped out.
I want to ask the Minister, when he looks within solutions, can the Minister look at the concept of a community rental, community tenant/community liaison person for the housing that could help the tenants and the Housing Corporation so they can work together daily, monthly, weekly, biweekly, so they can help them with the arrears? Certainly that’s what we want to do and we need to work with them. I would ask the Minister if he would consider that possibility.
Most LHOs have tenant relations officers that work with the tenants and bring them up to date on their rental arrears and how they can best address them. They’re called tenant relations officers and they work closely with the tenants.
As far as the district office, I mean, the district offices usually work very closely with LHOs and they give them some guidance and direction. They’re just another sounding board for the LHOs.
We want to ensure that from headquarters right down to the LHOs all policies and procedures are followed very closely, because it won’t work very good if we start doing one-offs and going against policies and procedures as being laid out in the Assemblies before us.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In a similar vein as my colleague Mr. Yakeleya, I have concerns about the Housing Corporation on how they do view this particular problem and deal with arrears, whether they’re rentals or, certainly, mortgage arrears.
In my Member’s statement today I talked about 76 percent is the collection rate at housing LHOs across the board, that is, to be honest and fair of course, and they need 90 percent in order to break even. Of course, housing arrears under the context of mortgages are at 40 percent. If you add those two stacks of arrears up, that’s about $26 million in arrears.
The Minister just talked about all these avenues to address these types of problems. What is the Minister of the Housing Corporation presenting as an avenue to pay for these types of arrears, and to ensure that people are complying with their arrears and catching up and getting rid of them? What is this Minister actually doing to close a particular file?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We did recognize, as this whole Assembly did, that this was quite an issue. We’ve come up with a plan to assist our tenants, whether it be public housing or mortgage homeowners, we’ve come up with a plan to help them deal with their arrears. There’s a repayment plan that they can enter into with their local housing authority where they pay so much a month on top of the rent that they’ve been assessed.
Our collection rate as of March 31, 2011, was at 79 percent, which is an improvement. A lot of the local LHOs, I think we have a high of 161 percent. That indicates to me that we have folks that are starting to come in and put more money on their rent and arrears. We have five or six of our LHOs that the collection rate is actually over 100 percent. We’re seeing a lot of improvement. It’s still a work in progress. It’s always encouraging to see tenants starting to step up to the plate and accepting the responsibility that they signed on for.
I think the Minister answered the question, I’d say, quite thoroughly. I want to give him credit for that particular answer. I think that’s only fair.
I would disagree with him on the context of blanketing tenant collection on rents at 161 percent, because I think what that does is present the House with a false number. What I mean by that is, I’m not saying that the Minister is misleading the House, what I’m saying is...
---Interjection
No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying it should be clearly stating that rent is coming in at whatever capacity, and separate it from the arrears. Because what it does is give you a blanket number, so we don’t know who’s paying the rent on time and we don’t know who’s paying the arrears on time. That’s ultimately the goal on this particular issue. I want to make sure, the 161 percent sounds good but we don’t really know what 161 percent means in the bigger context.
I want to give credit for the Minister’s previous answer, and what I’d like to ask him in this particular case, then, is: is the Minister willing to table the action plan that they developed in order to address this particular problem? As well, will he be able to table the results of these types of collections and individual payment schedules provided by each LHO to show us what’s actually being done?
I think, I believe, I have shared with committee our plan on dealing with the arrears situation.
As far as the 161 percent, we obviously know that all the tenants that were assessed paid their rent on time, and then the other 61 percent probably put the money onto their arrears. I mean, we have a pretty good idea in every LHO across the territory who’s paying what. I’m able to see that sometimes, so we know all the tenants that have entered into repayment plans and we know which ones have honoured their repayment plans. We know which ones paid rent the last time, six months ago. We have all that information and we continue to use that information to try to work closely with the tenants to make them realize they made a commitment to enter into a repayment plan and it would be to their benefit to honour it.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I slightly disagree, because we don’t actually know that 100 percent of people paid their rent. Now he’s said that 161 percent are paying, we’re getting 161 percent back. Whether that includes the rent and arrears, we don’t know that breakdown, and that’s the type of information that I think would be helpful for all Members specifically targeted to each LHO.
Mr. Speaker, the other issues I raised in my Member’s statement was distributing fairly the annual income for a particular tenant and their family to take out some of the spikes and certainly the drops in both their income and, of course, the way we assess their actual rent. So then a tenant assessment would be more stabilized and, therefore, maybe avoid some of these where they are not paying rent properly in one month and then all of a sudden they’re trying to catch up. Then we always hear the argument of they want to quit their job because they don’t want to pay a high rent that month. If we equalize it over 12 months, that would make a lot more sense. How does the Minister feel about that type of proposal? It would be a lot less work for the tenant as well as the LHO office assessing people. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would have to have discussions with the LHOs to truly see if it’s less work for them. They would prefer that their tenants come in on a month-to-month basis, because you have tenants that may be working for three months and then for the other two or three months they may not work, they may get a job for a month. That’s the reason they come and ask them for month-to-month assessments, so they can assess their rent based on their income for the past month. I think that’s a situation that has worked well.
As far as equalizing it over 12 months, do we collect at the end of 12 months? The beginning of 12 months? I’d like to hear the Member’s suggestion on that. We feel that the avenue that we’re using now is one that works quite well. I would have to have a discussion with the LHOs to see if the Member’s proposal has any merit and if it’s one that they feel would work for them, because at the end of the day, they’re our people on the ground delivering the program. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m sort of hearing a comment for consideration here from the Minister and I want to take advantage of that opportunity by saying would the Minister be willing to assess this particular proposal, because I think it would provide a lot less work to clients, provide a stable environment for them in the sense of payment schedules, as well as be less work for the LHOs to manage once a year to re-evaluate the whole line. No different than when you’re taxed. I mean, you’re not taxed one month by CRA, high one month and then not the next. I mean, it’s a formula base. Let’s take the context of a formula base that you treat income as a big bracket over a year when you do it. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be willing to assess this concept and do some analysis as to maybe the housing LHOs would like to do this from a different type of strategy point of view?
Mr. Speaker, this is a completely different environment we work in and we have to adapt to the environment we’re in and do whatever would work well for tenants. We’re doing the Shelter Policy review right now. The rent scale review is a part of that and I briefed committee the other day on when we expect to come forward with some preliminary information on the rent scale review as well the housing choices evaluation. But we’re always willing to listen. We’ve had Members in the committee meetings give us some good feedback on what they would like to see us improving and what they would like to see us doing, so we’re always open to suggestions from Members. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Public Works and Services and it gets back to my Member’s statement earlier where I spoke of the government spending an inordinate amount of capital dollars over the past three and a half years. It totals close to $450 million. I think it came at a good time for our economy, but people are left asking questions.
We’ve had, in the past, issues with carry-overs. We, in fact, changed our capital planning process to approve the capital plan in the fall of the year as opposed to the budget session in February/March. We’ve taken efforts to try to alleviate the carry-overs, and I’m left wondering why it is this year that the government, even though we are spending capital dollars, is carrying over $130 million, with $72 million of that capital plan contained in the Department of Transportation. I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works to explain this amount of carry-overs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a barrage of questions in that preamble there. I’ll try to answer the best I can.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; we’ve really taken the position that we needed to invest as a government with some funding that we were able to discuss and negotiate with the federal government to put into the economy of the NWT. We felt that the economy was in a slump across the country and we were not going to be exempt from it, and I think we’ve done very well. We were able to invest roughly $700 million in capital over the last two years in the area of infrastructure, and that includes several very large projects and it includes many, many projects that would be classified as small or medium, and the delivery has been going quite well.
We’ve been challenged historically with carry-overs. It’s an issue that we’ve been really focused on to deal with the level of carry-overs. I think by restructuring our capital approval process has helped us to alleviate that. We are also in a position where we now provide better oversight and don’t allow capital projects just to be parachuted as we move forward.
Things are going well on that front. We are seeing a downward spiral on our capital carry-overs and I expect that to improve. I have to say, though, that we were challenged; a challenge that we’re very happy to see is the large amount of capital projects that we have undertaken to do over the last few years. There have been some issues around getting approval from communities. There have been some issues around design that communities want that don’t necessarily fit the budget, and we’ve been in positions where a number of times bids or estimates have come in a lot higher than we anticipated. This is all attributed to the number for the capital and, of course, the large amount of projects is also a factor. Thank you.
The Minister’s right; on a percentage basis the carry-overs have come down from 33 percent, I think, to this year’s 26 percent, but it’s the dollar amount that’s alarming at $130 million and $72 million, like I said, contained in the Department of Transportation. I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services what effort is made in the capital planning process to ensure a balance between small, medium and large-scale capital projects. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we do have a huge deficit in terms of capital. It’s well over $2 billion if we were going to start to factor in all the needs across the Territories. We do have teams of staff that look at all the projects that come forward from the different departments and we do try to balance out our budget to try to allocate it on a basis where we can deal with the need that is most critical. We have worked out a formula where we have broken down the projects in terms of critical need, medium need, and the least need that would require attention. We try to invest our dollars along those lines.
We have tried to be fair when it comes to investment. For example, we invested, over the last couple of years, over $150 million in schools renovations and additions; $226 million into the area of airports, highways and roads; $82 million to various upgrades, including energy efficiency in our facilities; $57 million in hospitals, health centres; $56 million in the communities for community infrastructure; $57 million in the area of housing. There is a very good balance, and we have a team that monitors and provides oversight and we’ve also included filters within that process that has fresh eyes looking at the projects that are moving up the ladder until they’ve reached the point where the Minister of Finance and his team would make the final sign-off on it and bring it to the FMB for approval. Thank you.
I thank the Minister for that. I guess the next question I’d have is: last year the Northwest Territories Construction Association indicates that they never were consulted on the projects that were coming forward in the capital plan. So I’d like to ask the Minister what communication actually takes place between the government, Public Works and Services and an association like the Construction Association of the Northwest Territories in trying to determine what projects are coming up. Thank you.
Thank you. I would have to question that comment and review what information we provide to the Construction Association. We do have a very good relationship, as we do with the other organizations and Aboriginal governments. In many cases, once the budget is approved, we do provide that information to the relevant organizations and governments. Now this information is also public, once it’s approved. So in many cases there is ability to access the information off the Internet and it’s posted. So I would have to follow up to see if that is indeed the situation. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, the concern out there is there is not enough work for the small to medium-sized construction companies in the Northwest Territories today, and I think it would be incumbent upon the government to discuss this situation with the Northwest Territories Construction Association. I’d like to ask the Minister what value Public Works and Services puts on the opinion of the Northwest Territories Construction Association. Thank you.
Thank you. We do place great value on our ability to have discussions with the NWT Construction Association. We deal with other associations across the Territories, also. We also value the input from the MLAs.
Mr. Speaker, we’re always in a position to improve our capital process, improve our capital delivery, and our target is to deliver all projects on budget, on schedule. However, there are always factors that come into play that don’t allow us to have that happen, but we want to continue to refine that process and see if our percentages can continue to improve and we expect it will. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time for question period has expired. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 93(4) to have Committee Report 5-16(6), Report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations on the Review of the 2009-2010 Annual Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, moved into committee of the whole for consideration later today. Mahsi cho.
---Unanimous consent granted
