Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Minister, in follow-up to my Member's statement I have a few questions for the Minister of Housing. I'd like to ask the Minister, what is the current Housing Corporation's policy for NWT residents who inherit a family member's outstanding loan under the CARE program? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently the policy for family members who inherit a debt from a deceased parent and get ownership of the house is that, if they decide to sell the unit, they either have to pay back the loan that was taken by the parent or else. If they wish to stay in the unit, they can take on the forgivable loan and they would just take it on. It is a forgivable loan, so if you stay in the unit over five years it starts to come off without financial contributions. So that is the current policy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I understand that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation is currently examining its policies on this matter. When can residents expect to see these changes implemented?
As stated many times, we are currently doing the engagement survey that will be coming out -- it should be in the MLAs' hands for the last review of the format and the questions. It will be going out to every user of Housing's services and every employee and local housing organization for their feedback.
We are giving two months for the feedback to be brought in, so starting in January we will be doing a thorough review of every single policy and every single program that we offer.
I would also like to ask the Minister: how will an amended policy affect current clients and family members of the clients?
The policy that we are speaking about right now is actually not an easy policy; it's very difficult. The reason that we did put on a time line of the forgivable loans starting to come off after five years and up to a ten-year period is because we found that, when we were doing the loans to people — some people, not all, in fairness — some of the people that we were providing the loans to were actually turning around and selling the units soon after they'd gotten the loans.
So they had fixed up their house, gotten up to $100,000 on taxpayers' money, and then turned around and sold the unit. So that wasn't fair, and that still is not a fair way. So we do have to be really careful with that policy, that we make sure that we are not penalizing people who do inherit houses and yet we don't put it back to the place where people actually can sell the units and there is no payback to the Housing Corporation.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
