Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was listening to MLA Beaulieu’s questions to the Minister of Housing, and the Minister of Housing had said that the Housing Corporation is $23 million in arrears. It is my understanding that the NWT Housing Corporation doesn’t push their arrears to a collections agency. If they do, it seems to be selective. One more step that I am also aware that they don’t do consistently, if at all, is it puts these arrears on people’s credit rating. That is known as a significant problem out there. Would the Minister of Housing tell me exactly how they pursue legally, in a lawful manner, obviously, the collection of these arrears? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We try to work with the tenants as closely as possible and not get to the point to where we have to go to a collection agency. That is one of the options that we are looking at, but it would be our desire to just work with the tenants, work out a repayment plan with them. There is some garnisheeing that goes on, but as far as reporting to a collection agency, that is one of the options we have been looking at. It is one that we are quite hesitant to pursue, because I would personally, as the corporation would, like to work with the tenants and have them come to us.
I can assure the Member and public that if this continues to be a problem and with the declining funding, we may have to look at all options. If that is one of them, then we will look at that. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to stress I hope the Minister doesn’t take this personally, but that is quite a travesty to hear that we are not motivating our tenants by those types of things. I can tell you for a fact, that recently someone had an overpayment and the GNWT, well, the FMB sends the leg breakers. They start phoning them regularly over a simple error. They threatened credit bureau. They threatened everything but the kitchen sink to be thrown at them. But housing arrears accumulate to $23 million. Someone should be given a head shake over there to say, how long are we going to persist?
Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is, if we don’t take our arrears seriously, somebody who decides not to pay can go get a truck if they want because their credit isn’t stained. They can go buy a skidoo. They can do whatever they want, knowing that nothing is hanging over their head.
Mr. Speaker, what is the lead foot problem on this issue to stop the government from saying, well, we will just talk to them? We need to motivate them. What is stopping the Housing Corporation today for initiating a new policy that says anybody who owes arrears, we will pursue it through the credit bureau and send it to a collections agency? We have the outright responsibility to do this. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to think the motivation for these folks is to be able to stay in their own homes. It is something that we are working on. I have told the Member that this is an option we are seriously looking at.
Part of the problem, as we all know in this Assembly and the Assemblies before, the collection of arrears becomes very politically sensitive. Everybody says you should collect the arrears and then when you try to put the process in place to collect on arrears, all the Members start getting phone calls. So it’s one that we are pursuing. I can assure the Member that it’s not one that we’re just letting go by. We are pursuing this and we have looked at options. The Member said it correctly, we’ve had people complaining about a tenant with a $50,000 truck sitting outside their house and they’re in arrears and this person has got an old, beat up GM, but they’re paying their rent faithfully every month. So it’s situations like those we want to have a look at. If reporting it to the credit bureau will motivate a few individuals to start clearing up their arrears is something that as a corporation we are seriously looking at. Thank you.
The Minister highlights a perfect example that I’m well aware of the fact that good tenants sometimes have to drive less nice vehicles, where tenants who aren’t paying -- and the fact is we have people who aren’t paying -- can afford, because their credit rating is good, so they can run out and afford to buy a fancy truck.
Mr. Speaker, when I hear the word “if” and when I hear “looking at the option,” that tells me we’re going to do nothing. Mr. Speaker, we can get a ministerial directive today in this House by saying we’re going to do this, we’re not going to sit on our hands and sit on our butts through this whole process, we should be collecting every single receivable we have because it’s impacting.
So will the Minister, in this House today, make that commitment to the people here that they will follow up immediately and enact this to everyone? Thank you.
Some of these tenants do have a nice, brand new Lexus outside their house, but I assured the Member that we are doing what we can to try and work with those that are in arrears. If reporting to the credit bureau is one of those, then that is what we are planning on doing. I mean, we have an Arrears Management Strategy that we’re working on right now and we realize that arrears are accumulating. Part of it I’ve accepted responsibility as Minister of the Housing Corporation is because we didn’t pursue them as aggressively enough as we should have to get to the point where we’re in the situation we are today and we’re having to play catch-up. So I can assure the Member and all Members of this Assembly that we are doing all that we can to start working on the collection of arrears, because it is going to have an effect on the funding from CMHC. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The time for question period has expired; however, I’ll allow the Member a final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To be frank, the Minister shouldn’t be worried about a little whining on this side of the House. The fact is the Minister should be more worried about the fact that they have $23 million outstanding and, he’s got it right, the declining funds should be motivation enough. The fact is if you start implementing a credit bureau process, you start implementing a collection process, what better motivation will it be to go and pay your past due arrears? Mr. Speaker, that’s the issue. Would the Minister immediately enact a policy and stop talking about we’ll think about, we’ll look at it, maybe? Because that doesn’t show leadership. Would the Minister do this? Thank you.
We do have a process in place. It may not be the one that the Member likes, but there is a process in place, it’s a work in progress.
I’ve been quite encouraged by the number of people that are coming forward to work out repayment plans, because they understand that they need to deal with their arrears, it affects their ability to access Housing Corporation programs and we are looking at reporting to a collection agency and people are getting evicted and terminated for not dealing with their arrears. So we do have a process in place, it’s been in place for a while. It’s one that does have some challenges and needs to be improved on and that’s what we’re doing now, because we realize we need to start collecting on a lot of these arrears. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
