Thank you, Madam Chair. I was just looking. My recollection is actually that those efforts have been made recently. Now, I am not sure what the status of it is. This is the challenge of COVID-19, not being able to have my little whispers in my ear, but certainly in my past life I know there was access to a lot of that information online. I am not sure if there is something specific that the Member wants to ask about what is not online.
Thank you, Minister. Member.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I believe there was a system worked out where people could email and then some of the records were available online and some weren't. A lot of land titles, if you want, are still done in paper, so I am looking for a commitment from the Minister that we can bring our land titles office digitally online. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry. I think a lot of the services that are provided can be performed online, but there certainly still are requirements about the document passing back and forth, that are still requiring the papers to be filed. We have worked out a system where you can drop something off in a drop box, but that certainly is far from being an online system. Again, that is sort of outside the scope of what I can speak to in terms of our budget right now. It's not in the budget, for what that is worth, but as far as having a conversation, again, that might be one of the post-COVID-19 conversations that we are now going to have to have. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I guess I will look forward to that conversation. I think if you can give the office marching orders to bring their systems online, they will tell you how long that will take. If it takes a few years, I can live with that, but clearly it's something we should get started. Similarly, this is one of those weird sections of Justice where we have our personal property registration, a very underutilized system. We have regulations of securities trading, as expertise, we struggle to keep/have in the Northwest Territories. Can the Minister update me if there is any thought to combining these, specifically the personal property registration, with Alberta or any efforts to kind of work with larger jurisdictions who hold the expertise? This is kind of a structural problem in that I think the GNWT has some responsibilities that we are perhaps not really capable of or it's not a priority. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Justice.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That certainly is a larger question around the structure and the function of the department. We are small fry in some of these respects and in some of the tasks that are being performed, in securities, for instance. That is not to say that we do not have some obligations, and some of those obligations are going to be legal obligations we have to maintain these registries and legal obligations that we have to perform the function of registering securities. I think there is always a desire for efficiencies in conversations being had. How far they are going, I am not sure. Perhaps what I might suggest, Madam Chair, let me start with the conversation with the Member for Yellowknife North. However, if there is a bigger interest in this area on the part of a committee, we can certainly have a conversation. I am certainly happy to go to committee and sort of brief them on what is maybe not as well-known an aspect of the work that the Department of Justice does. I will start one Member at a time, though. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I suspect I am probably the only Member interested in the regulation of securities trading, and I don't know -- oh, sorry. I am getting some looks. I would like to speak briefly to the rental office. I understand the rental office is a bit of an arm's-length organization, but I have raised previously with the Minister some of these concerns and their ability to kind of make orders and address things more systemically. We had a briefing from the human rights office, and they have kind of switched to this model, looking at more systemic issues, issuing kind of larger orders. A lot of the work came out of their act. Are there any plans to review the legislation that the rental officer operates under? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now, that legislation, I was just going back to double check where it might be landing in terms of on our legislative worksheets. Certainly, there were recent amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act just last year, so it likely isn't going to be high in terms of a further review. That said, certainly in terms of the commercial tenancies and the residential tenancies, both of those pieces of legislation have been called to task, if you will, for their lack of modernity during COVID-19. I am certainly now aware of that. I was aware of it before, but I am more aware of it now. I am not going to necessarily commit to ratcheting it up the legislation timeline other than to look at whether there are small tasks that we can maybe do. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am getting down to the weeds in these sections because I have some very specific issues with them. One of my issues, as I have raised with the Minister, is that the land titles office does not let you search by the name of a property owner. You have to find the lot address and the legal address and then find who owns it. I get that there are some personal privacy issues, but what other jurisdictions have done is they have allowed all corporate-owned land to be searchable by name because those same privacy concerns do not apply to corporate entities. I, for example, would love to know how many properties Northview actually owns in the Northwest Territories. That is not public information. I would love to know how many Kingsett owns in the Northwest Territories, how many of these large REITs just keep gaining more and more property. There is no public data. That is not publicly available information. I can't go to land titles and search it. Would the Minister be willing to make the land titles office have the ability to search corporate entities by name? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That, on its face, seems like an easily solved problem, so part of me wants to simply give the easy "yes," but at this point, again, I am not sure if there are other pieces of legislation, either domestic to the Northwest Territories, that we would have to comply with. I do not know the degree to which there would have to be associated amendments and associated regulation changes, et cetera. I just do not know the extent to which this is a problem or why it's the problem that it is. What I can certainly commit to doing is finding out why, why it is that we have this system that is different. I do not know the answer to that off hand, but I can at least start there. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Are there any other questions from any Members for services to the public? Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I know it has been raised in this House by members of the public that sometimes the turnaround in the rental office doesn't always meet people's expectations. Has there been any assessment of the workload of that office and the resources that they have available? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do know that those numbers, the lag time between the filing of an application and the hearing date has been continuously dropping, and indeed, I believe as of February 2020, it was roughly at five to seven weeks, which is an improvement over the last few years, certainly. Some of the initiatives that were undertaken in order to get there were around the fact that they do not need to conduct in-person hearings, and that certainly made it a lot faster. There has also been an attempt to increase the staffing, although I don't know that we are quite yet at two rental officers, fully staffed, at this point. Though, I can certainly confirm whether or not we have achieved that goal. Again, there is always going to be a need to improve those wait times. Five to seven weeks is still a fairly significant time, whether you are a landlord or a tenant. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes. I am looking at page 286, and I see that, 2018-2019, there was actually $292,000 spent in the office, and the budget for 2020-2021 is only $238,000, so there might have been some extra money spent in the one year. Can I get an explanation of what might, on the surface, look like a downward trend in resourcing? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I know there is some variance as a result of the UNW collective bargaining, but if I might, I'm going to ask the director of Finance if there is any further information that we can provide to the Member, please.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm not sure I'm the director of Finance.
Sorry. Ms. Bolstad.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There has been no reduction in resources to the rental office. The variance there really is just some higher contract spending that occurred in the 2018-2019 fiscal years, and we had a similar trend in 2019-2020, as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bolstad. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I guess some of this goes back to in previous business plans when we were doing them in that way. We actually had some performance indicators, some way of judging how resourcing levels affected the level of service. We don't have that for this particular service and entity. At some point, we're going to have to look at how the engaging, monitoring, and access to services and turnaround service standards, times, whatever, is measured in resourcing is appropriately allocated. I will take the Minister's word at it for now. The wait times have come down. They probably still need to come down further. That's all I've got. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We certainly can provide the metrics in terms of the reduction in wait times. There have been reductions. I'm looking back to 2017-2018, and it's been by 22 percent the one year and then to 29 percent after that. The wait times there are only one metric. That is influenced by the fact that there are now two part-time rental officers hearing that. That changes the wait times, but it doesn't necessarily change some of the other metrics of the service, wait times to a decision. There are other ways of measuring the effectiveness of this public service, and I want to be cognizant that it is also a judicial service, and sometimes measuring a metric can be a bit challenging on a judicial service. I do take the point that, when representing this here and relying on public resources, we want to make sure we are showing as many metrics as we can about the service people are receiving. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Marsi cho, Madam Chair. Just looking at a line item on page 286. I looked throughout the book. A lot of the other departments have computer and hardware and software, and then they seem to have budgets throughout. There is always some money there to maintain equipment and whatnot for computers. On this one here, from actuals a couple of years back, there was $94,000 allocated, and all of a sudden, it stopped. Is there a reason for that, Madam Chair?
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to send that one over to the director of Finance, too, please.
Thank you, Minister. Ms. Bolstad.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The Department of Justice's computer and equipment is primarily purchased from TSC, but our systems were transferred to the ISSS. Although we have this one-time expenditure, it's just some equipment related expenses in 2018-2019. We don't have any ongoing requirement for computer and equipment funding. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Bolstad. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for that response. Just so I don't get ahead of myself, am I allowed to speak to the page ahead? Can I do this? No. I just want to make sure. Other than that, that's the only number that I saw that was out, so I have nothing further.
Thank you, Member. Are there any further questions to the services to the public up to page 287? Seeing none, turn to page 286. Justice, services to the public, operations expenditure summary, 2020-2021 Main Estimates, $4,497,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will now turn to the information items beginning on 288. We have Justice, Victims Assistance Fund; and on 289, Justice, proceeds of crime fund; 290 and 291, we have Justice, work performed on behalf of others, information items. Do we have any comments or questions on these items? Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. On the Victims Assistance Fund, the accumulated surplus is growing. It's growing by $100,000 since 2018-2019. I am just wondering if I can get a bit of an explanation there. I would have thought that we could find ways to better assist victims of crime by getting the money out. Can I get an explanation of the increase in surplus there? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can reassure the Member I think in this case that, while I don't necessarily know all the reasons why the past iteration of the committee might have been hesitant or in terms of what they're funding, there are two things that are happening that I think are positive. The biggest one is that the committee members have now met in person. They met in person; November 25, 2019, was the first time they met in person in, I'm told, quite a long time. I had the opportunity to meet with them. They sat down. They were really brainstorming around where they want the committee to go. As I understand it, that was an opportunity that has not existed for some time and should, hopefully, therefore, support that committee to be working better and more proactively as a group. That's a big part of it.
Another part is simply ensuring that the organizations that would be applying to this, that they would know again, similarly, that they have the ability and the opportunity to apply. I am conscious that it tends to be the status of women, Native Women's Association, who are more than deserving, but there are likely other organizations out there. The fact of bringing some attention to the opportunity will also hopefully help with getting that money out the door. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks for that explanation. Is there like a cap or set by policy, by regulation, by legislation, on how much can actually stay in the fund? Are there any guidelines on disbursement percentages or something? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
