Debates of October 20, 2006 (day 12)

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I spoke on the transfer of rental assessments and that from Housing to ECE. I'd like to ask the Minister of ECE, there's been a lot of concerns brought to my attention, and I'm sure other Members on this side of the House as he heard yesterday, so I'd like to ask the Minister, one of the reasons that they gave was they wanted one-stop shopping; you have to have the shops set up, the shopkeepers have to be trained properly, so I'd like to ask the Minister if they have a review of whether this program is working or not. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Dent.

Return To Question 146-15(5): Transfer Of Public Housing Rental Assessments

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in the House yesterday, we have a very senior committee set up to take a look at this and it includes Mr. Polakoff who's the president of the Housing Corporation, and the deputy minister of ECE. They meet on a regular basis. We have brought together regional people from both the housing authorities, the Housing Corporation and ECE. When we find areas where there are problems, for instance on a recent tour through Mr. Pokiak's riding some problems came to light in Ulukhaktok. We sent a team in from both agencies to deal with the issues and try and resolve them. So, yes, we recognize that with any transition there's going to be some problems, and we are working to resolve those. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Supplementary To Question 146-15(5): Transfer Of Public Housing Rental Assessments

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Transitions, there are problems, but sometimes the transitions weren't needed in the first place so we wouldn't be bringing up this concern. You have a committee working group of senior officials. We're talking tenants; what's good for the tenants, what's good for the local housing authorities, not getting their money on time. So I'd like to ask the Minister -- and I don't know if this is a question for the Minister of ECE -- if he's hearing back from all the LHOs and tenants to see if this program is working. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 146-15(5): Transfer Of Public Housing Rental Assessments

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do work very closely with LHOs. ECE and the regional people with the LHOs are working closely together. We've agreed that we're going to set up focus groups, so it will involve tenants throughout the Northwest Territories, in order to make sure that we're hearing from tenants, what the problems are and how we can address them. So, yes, Mr. Speaker, we're doing that.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Supplementary To Question 146-15(5): Transfer Of Public Housing Rental Assessments

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have our own focus groups and I call them constituents.

---Laughter

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They do call us and they do tell us that this program is absolutely not working. It's affecting the LHOs; it's affecting their flow of funding. Some of them may go into deficit because of this. So I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit his department into revisiting this whole transfer and if it's not working, let's go back to the way it was. It was working for the tenants. I don't know how well it was working for headquarters, but I do know it was working for the tenants and I've heard from tenants and they've said they do not like this program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Dent.

Further Return To Question 146-15(5): Transfer Of Public Housing Rental Assessments

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I've said before, we're constantly prepared to review our programs. This was not put together because anybody said it wasn't working before. The reason for it was that this government has $125 million in direct subsidies to the residents of the Northwest Territories being delivered by a number of different departments. As part of the process to try and realign how our subsidy programs are offered to the public, we agreed, early on, that we would try and bring the programs together, and this is the first step and the first time that we've tried to do this. What we're trying to do is make sure that we have a comprehensive, cohesive approach to this, and that's why the income security review is underway. We're trying to make sure that each of the programs we have deliver the services to the public in a way that doesn't penalize them, but is designed to help people become more independent. We have programs now that don't work together; we're trying to make them work together. Yes, there may be some hiccups, but we're working to improve them. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.