Thank you, Madam Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of the Housing Corporation. The NWT Bureau of Stats estimates that there are 187 seniors aged 60 and over in the Sahtu region. This group makes up 8.9 percent of the region’s estimated population of 2,105. By comparison, seniors aged 60 and up represent 9.9 percent of the population of the Northwest Territories.
According to the Housing Corporation, there are 74 public housing units occupied by seniors in the Sahtu. Of these, 50 units are occupied by seniors only. I want to ask the Minister, have these 50 units that are occupied by seniors only, or the 75 public housing units occupied by seniors, does the Minister have a record of visiting these seniors to let them know that by July 1st that they’re going to be charged rent for living in those units.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. We’re now in the process of communicating all of this to public housing tenants. I know across the Territories they are starting to let the tenants know what their rent could potentially be. As far as visiting these exact 70 or 50, I’m not sure if they’ve made it there yet, but the plan is to try and notify all public housing tenants across the Northwest Territories what their potential rent change could be. Thank you.
I’ve seen some notices up in the communities where they have a big poster saying that they’re going to implement the new rent scale. I want to ask the Minister, prior to making changes or looking at the changes or implementing some of the changes of the people in the Sahtu, the seniors who are living in these public housing units, prior to this, maybe six, seven, eight, nine months ago, has the Housing Corporation talked to these seniors who are in these units, saying that in the future we’re thinking about or we’re going to charge you rent? Does the Minister have a record of this in the five communities I represent of this rent that’s going to be implemented for the seniors?
We have no records of having talked to people eight or nine months ago. Obviously, I can tell you right now what the answer is going to be. If somebody came up to you and said you’re going to go from zero to paying rent, the answer is going to be no. If you go to those 675 people whose rent is going to drop by $100 or more, if you say are you in favour of your rent dropping by $100 or more, obviously the answer is going to be yes. So the fact that we did not go and talk to these 70 particular individuals, we all know what the answer is going to be. Thank you.
That’s my point. When I go back to the Sahtu, that’s what the elders are saying. They’re saying no one told us. No one said anything and that is certainly showing a lack of respect for the elders and for the seniors. We have asked the Minister to look at incentive programs for young people to go back to work. That was great, but we didn’t ask for him to look and charge the seniors rent. So that’s what the elders are saying. They talk to us and that’s what the territorial Seniors’ Society is saying, give us full consultation on this, slow down, let’s look at this together, but it’s something that’s unilaterally being written by this department, this government, to say from thereon thou shall pay the rent on July 1st. The elders are saying that was not the case and they want to have consultation. Let’s give them respect. Will the Minister look at how can we do this, rather than saying the train has left? This is what we want you to be paying now to get on the train here. If you don’t, too bad, you’re left out in the cold.
Thank you. It’s an unfair comment to say that this corporation has no respect for our seniors, when you look at all the programs we’ve offered over the years to work with our seniors, help with our seniors. It’s an unfair comment to say the Minister has no respect for seniors because he did not go and consult with all the seniors across the Northwest Territories.
I’ve said before the answer is going to be no if you ask them. We rolled this out publicly a few months ago. So they’ve had opportunities to know that this was coming and it’s a question of fairness and trying to treat all tenants, residents across the NWT fair and I think we’ve done a good job of that.
For an example, if you look at some of the changes we’re making, you look at a single mother of two that’s making $3,600 a month, under the old system she’d be paying $985 or 27 percent of her income. Under the new system she’s going to be paying $325 or about 7 percent of her income. That’s a savings of $660. So those kind of changes have been made, and in our efforts to treat everyone fairly and equally we did come up with charging seniors rent with a $1,000 exemption to their income which would put them in the lower bracket. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I heard from the seniors that this might be a good thing for them. I’m representing seniors who have come and talked to me and said we needed to be consulted. The cost of living in the Sahtu is high. Everything is high and our dollars don’t stretch as far as down south. We need to be consulted. That is basic respect for our elders and our seniors, they might have an idea that it might have to work out, but they feel that they haven’t been consulted and properly talked to about this issue. That’s the issue. Other ones, that’s good, but I’m speaking specifically for the seniors about this issue. This is what I wanted to ask the Minister. Will he consider and look at – I probably know the answer already – that the seniors need to look at this issue and see if they would do some more work on it before implementing this by July 1st?
Thank you. I think extensive work has been done on this particular initiative. We do recognize the cost of living across the Northwest Territories. That’s why we’ve broken it down into three different zones. So depending on the zone you live in, it reflects in your rent. We do recognize that seniors are more challenged in some cases than regular public housing clients. So we came up with the $1,000 emption as far as their income goes, because had we not done that, then they would be paying basically the same as other public housing tenants with the same income. So we have taken a lot of other factors into consideration and we feel that we’ve done extensive work on this.
Again, if we were to go out and ask somebody if you want to pay more rent, the answer is going to be no. So we feel that we’ve done our homework. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
