Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In an effort to try to keep as many of the Regular MLAs saying that I am their favourite Minister, what I will do is I will add these changes to the list of acts and regulations that we will be bringing to the five communities to review it on their priority list so that the communities actually can delegate which are the priorities, which ones we should be dealing with first. Then I can bring that back to the MLAs.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke of the understaffing at the rental office and the negative effects that it has on landlords, who are essentially small-business owners. I am sure the Minister of Justice, in his former life as a smalltown lawyer, has fielded questions from landlords on how they can evict a delinquent tenant or how they can collect on arrears, so I am sure he is very familiar with this issue. I would like to ask the Minister: what steps will the Department of Justice take to reduce the wait times and restore landlords' confidence in the rental office? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Mr. Speaker, the average time between the filing of an application and the actual hearing in the Northwest Territories is two to three months, and that is consistent or about the same as you would find in other jurisdictions. We have been trying to make the system more efficient by, for example, using threeway teleconferencing and scheduling facetoface hearings outside Yellowknife. I know, in 201516, 61 per cent of the applications were heard within 60 days and, the prior year to that, only 55 per cent were herd within 60 days. If the load continues to increase, certainly, I think an option we could consider is the appointment of a second rental officer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister mentioned that it is consistent with other jurisdictions. It seems like it is convenient to be uniquely Northern and have a unique situation in the North when it benefits us, but it is okay to be consistent with other jurisdictions when it benefits the government, as well.
There have been significant efforts across departments to collect arrears tied to public housing, and these hearings have been partially responsible for the long wait times to the rental office. It is private landlords who really bolster the availability of rental housing in the communities and really add to the economy, and they have just as much right to be paid by tenants as the Housing Corporation, so is the department going to take any steps to support private landlords in collecting arrears instead of focusing their efforts on the government itself?
All applicants are treated equally, whether landlord or tenant, and there is no special preference given to the government in its applications before the rental officer.
I suppose when the biggest client is the government, it seems like that is a little unfair when it is a government office and the biggest client is the government. It is not the public, really, being served.
I think that, if the department formally assessed the business case for increasing the complement at the rental office to at least two permanent, fulltime rental officers, it would see that this is a net benefit for the territory. Those thousands of dollars of revenue that landlords miss out on when tenants can't be evicted in a timely manner and the lowering of rates when there are more rental units available, I think it would pay dividends to have another rental officer there. Will the department formally assess the business case for adding another rental officer to the rental office?
Masi. I am not sure what other kinds of questions there will be. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That might be the first commitment from the Minister this Assembly. Thank you. Thank you to the Minister.
I am sure the Minister is aware of this. There are problems collecting costs for damages. A tenant might leave, causing more damages than the damage deposit covers, and it is very difficult for the small landlords to collect on these. Is the department doing anything to help out small landlords collect on these damages? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, the issue raised by the Member opposite is a problem generated with civil judgments that collection is always difficult, whether it is a judgment for arrears or on a contract. I don't think the problems are any greater in this situation as they are in any other civil cases, so I don't think we are contemplating change of legislation.
The whole point of the Residential Tenancies Act was to establish a balance between landlord and tenant. I do appreciate that that balance, when it comes to residences as opposed to commercial tenancies, is somewhat weighted in favour of the tenant, but the legislation is consistent with other jurisdictions.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today I spoke about the need to take action on very high rents in the City of Yellowknife. The Minister yesterday committed to developing a new rent supplement program by the end of six months. Can the Minister provide a bit more detail about the development of that program and what the scope of it is going to entail? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would love to be able to stand here and say that we have all of the answers figured out. The honest truth is that we don't. However, I do know that the data shows that one in six households in Yellowknife are in core need due to affordability. That tells me that we have a serious problem with people being able to afford the rental accommodations in the Yellowknife area and, therefore, a rent subsidy program makes sense. It actually makes more sense than building more public housing when you do it on a costanalysis basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you to the Minister. I appreciate that she is well aware of this problem. It seems like this new program will not build houses. How is it going to save money or subsidize the cost of living for renters? It does not sound like we have much of a program, just an idea of one, but we do have that sixmonth commitment, so I am trying to tease out a few pieces of this so we can understand where we are going to be in six months.
It probably won't be a big leap to actually develop this program. It would be a program on its own. Public housing is still a need, and we will still be looking at that. However, we do currently provide a transitional rent supplement program that is ineffective because it ends after two years and, in my opinion, people don't often have the skills that they need or the income to be able to be left without that support. So instead of having a transitional rent support program, it's merely transferring it over and actually having more of a long term. Like I said, it is more cost effective to provide subsidies to people to deal with affordability than try to build new buildings. The longer-term plan would be to have buildings, but the shorter-term intervention is to provide subsidies.
Does the Minister have an idea about the range of these subsidies? Is it going to be targeted at lower-income earners or is it going to be a broader range that will capture the middle class as well, people with good-paying jobs but who are still facing a very high cost of living burden? So what's the range, the income range?
Due to the high needs of residents within the whole Northwest Territories and our current wait list to access public housing support, we will not be, probably, at this point extending our income threshold. So it would be for people who are at moderate to low income. I don't know the exact rate for Yellowknife, but I believe it's under $100,000 a year.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
Mr. Speaker, it would be nice if the Minister did have that information because I know from personal experience that the current rent supplement program doesn't capture middle class earners and it does not do a lot to support that bracket, and that's a very important bracket. When we want to attract new labour, when we want to encourage young people to stay in the North, we've got to do more than just offer SFA, student financial assistance, and municipal loans; we need to offer real opportunities in the North, and that starts with a place to live.
So again, will the Minister commit to developing a program that supports renters and specifically that supports middle-class renters, expands that income bracket so we can support more people who are struggling to make ends meet in the City of Yellowknife? Thank you.
As I stated earlier, we have a huge number of people in need within the Northwest Territories as a whole. We have over 600 families with children that do fall within our current income assessment. At this point, I am not willing to expand the income thresholds as they currently are. If we ever get to the place where we can address all of the low-income people within the Northwest Territories, then I would look at expanding that, but at this current point we cannot.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have questions for the Minister of Lands on the leases and taxes and rent or whatever the term is for land tenure. I'd like to ask the Minister if he would look at lowering the cost of land lease or rentals at least in the communities I represent. I don't know what the situations are in others. So I'd like to ask that question first. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Lands.
Mr. Speaker, the department is attempting to rationalize the leasing procedures so that the amounts of lease payments on both Commissioner's lands and territorial lands will be the same. I don't think we could make specific exceptions for any communities.
I just didn't want to speak for other communities, but that's generally what I'm looking for. So if they're making them the same, I'm assuming that the Minister is now talking about going with a more reasonable amount? On the leases, previously we were getting leases in small communities for about $600 a year, and for the value and if you compared to other communities that's very much in line, but now we have new leases on old houses that could be as high as $4,000, which is kind of comparable to paying taxes on a house that's worth $750,000 to $1 million in the City of Yellowknife.
Yes, we are contemplating an increase of the current minimums. There hasn't been a change for many years. Again, the lease payments are based on the assessed value of the property.
The assessed value being applied to any piece of property when you're developing a tax, you use a mill rate; currently, the department is using 10 per cent as a mill rate. So effectively it's not really a mill rate; it's a rent, but they're essentially using 10 per cent of the value.
So you have a piece of property there that's appraised in accordance with the land policy at roughly $40,000, which is pretty standard across the small communities; the taxes or the rent or the lease on that property is $4,000. That's totally unreasonable. I don't want to talk about the increase to the minimums; that's another matter altogether. We're increasing either from $250 up or $600 up, but to go to $4,000 is very unreasonable. Will the Minister look at that?
The Member opposite has referenced the 10 per cent on which the land rentals or leases are based; that's a long-standing procedure, and I would submit that it is reasonable.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't hear if the Minister said it wasn't reasonable or it is reasonable, but if he said it is reasonable, of course I have to disagree. We have elders in the community and, fortunately, they get the seniors relief, tax relief, so in this particular situation or this type of situation it's 50 per cent. So an elder whose income is Old Age Security, which is approximately $1,000 a month, is asked to pay $2,000 after their tax relief is applied, $2,000, so that's two months' worth of income for that elder. So is the Minister telling me that it's reasonable for people everywhere to pay two months of their salary to land taxes for one year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I simply said that the tax rate was and is reasonable. It's based on a fair assessment of the property. The property is assessed and the leasing costs are then applied. As the Member opposite has noted, those who are seniors do get a discount.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Mackenzie Delta.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, follow-up to my Member's statement. I have a couple of questions for the Minister of Health and Social Services. I'd like to ask the Minister: what policies are in place to guide health authorities and communities through these kinds of abrupt transitions like moving a resident mental health worker? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciated the Member's statement today. I thought it was quite good and I think it hit a number of the points. I think one of the key points there is that, ultimately, our staff do have the ability to leave positions as they might to pursue other jobs.
As far as transition, the more time we have the more transition we can provide to ensure that services aren't impacted. The particular case the Member is referring to, I don't have the details so I don't know exactly what happened in the community with respect to that position.
How will the department act to improve regularity and consistency in mental health services provided to our small communities like those in the Mackenzie Delta?
I've had an opportunity to travel around the Northwest Territories and meet leaders from across the territories, and when I meet them I do talk to them about how we can work better together to recruit and retain local people in jobs. I'm a big fan of local people for local work.
Having said that, a number of the healthcare professions, we certainly have a challenge finding individuals with the appropriate skills, which means we have to explore things in new creative ways. With respect to providing mental health services, we are working with the community of Deline to develop a pilot where we can train and prepare local people to provide these types of counselling supports for the local people. I apologize. We have been delayed on that project. Deline has been quite busy since they moved forward with their self-government. We are still eager and still trying to find a way to move forward on that. That is the type of thing we think we can do better in communities across the Northwest Territories, to train local people to help with local issues.
The Minister answered a part of my next question, but I will ask it anyway. The department is working on the mental health action plan focused on children and youth. How will the department's planning account for the need for regular and consistent services in our small communities?
There is a significant amount of work being done on this, and there is a framework that is being developed that sort of outlines the parameters of what the youth mental health and addictions action plan will look like. I don't want to presuppose the outcomes, but the types of things the Member is talking about are the types of things we are attempting to incorporate within the plan, to bring services close to the people throughout the Northwest Territories and make sure that they have access. I can't say exactly what the model is going to look like at this point because we haven't finalized that work, but as we finish that work, I am prepared to come to committee to have further discussions on exactly these types of issues.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marci, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation if the policy of the Housing Corporation is to house as many people as possible with their social housing inventory? Thank you.
Masi. Minister responsible for Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
