Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my honourable friend from Mackenzie Delta was asking the Housing Minister some questions in regard to clarification on calculation of rent. So can the Minister please explain how rent is calculated if the income tax is not submitted? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So like I said earlier, we are trying to get all of the tenants to file their income tax. We have made some allowances for seniors, in all honesty, who aren’t really receptive to change, and so within a few situations we have allowed them to come in and give a monthly breakdown of rent. I should note that within our applications, and it's not new, it's been forever, we can still ask for the income tax for verification of rent. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I thank the Minister for her answer; however, I'm still trying to understand. If they cannot do their income tax, they don't do it, how is rent calculated so they have to pay for it? I have lots of -- I shouldn't say a lot, I have a number of constituents who have asked this question and I cannot honestly give an answer. So I'm asking the Minister: will she please explain how it is calculated and it's implemented?
So we do try to base our rents off income. We are moving with the income tax and some people have been allowed to file their monthly income statements. However, if neither of those are provided to the Housing Corporation, in all fairness to people we still have to define a rent, and so we do charge the top market rents on our rent scale to people who do not either give any form of income provided to us.
I thank the Minister for her answer. I totally support the idea of making sure people file their income tax. So I guess my next question is: now that we understand that it's at the top rent if they don't file their income tax, will the Minister make a commitment if people do file their income taxes that they'll be retroactive to look at their cost for the rent?
It is not the priority of the NWT Housing Corporation to punish people. People who do come forward and bring in their income assessment, we have gone back and renegotiated their rent charges based on their income that they supply us.
Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I really thank the Minister for her answer. I have never, ever said that the Housing Corporation has been punishing the clients there. We are just trying to get them educated to get their income taxes in so that they can verify their income.
Mr. Speaker, in regard to the survey that the Minister has talked about, has the department been calculating or tabulating the results that have come in? She's talked about over 1,000 people who have submitted their results. Has the Minister been able to get the department to start tabulating these results from the survey? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am actually quite glad that I get a chance to talk on that. I think the department knows how anxious I am to get the survey results in. It was really painful, actually, to extend it for another month to get people. Not that I don't want to get the feedback, that's why I agreed to extend it, but because I recognized that we have a lot of work to do. Yes, we are very fortunate that we, actually, most of the people, the replies have been done on the Survey Monkey, the electronic tool. We only had a few that came in in written form. We have been busy right now. We have been implementing those written formats into our Survey Monkey tool, and we have begun the process of categorizing. If people are talking about, for example, home ownership, we are putting them into a batch. We are beginning to split things up so that we can find common themes.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
