Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The rental officer's 2016-2017 annual report made two recommendations for legislative amendments and looked forward to the appointment of a deputy rental officer. What steps is the Department of Justice taking to respond to these recommendations? These are, of course, for the Minister of Justice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Justice.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department, of course, did review the recommendation, and the act has been amended several times in the last few years. There were significant amendments made in 2015. In the last 10 years, there have been amendments in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2017, so there have been significant amendments, often in response to suggested amendments from the office. Some of the amendments that we have made this year is to permit the filing of rental officer orders in the Supreme Court registry and the authority to rental officers to correct minor errors in their orders. So improvements have been made, and certainly we are interested in continuing to make improvements.
I will ask the Minister later about the deputy rental officer position. The annual report also spoke to the growing complexity of files before the rental officer and cites this as one of the reasons the wait times are increasing. In Alberta in 2014, the residential tenancy dispute resolution service was introduced as an alternative to the court systems and a way to reduce complexity. For example, the service limits hearings to 30 minutes, and the government took steps on implementation by hiring necessary staff and making a wide range of information documents, handouts, and tip sheets available online. So, can the Minister identify what drives the increasing complexity he mentioned and what is being done to help the rental officer tackle this challenge?
As was mentioned in the question and the response to earlier inquiries, we have noted that the complexity of applications has increased over the last few years. I understand that much of that is driven by the increased amount of paperwork that is filed with the applications, dealing such issues as rental arrears, arrears repairs, and other matters, so the applications have become lengthier and therefore more complex. This has of course put pressure on the office administrators' workload, and, in response to this concern about the workload, the position has been reviewed and formalized procedures to provide guidance on certain issues have been put in place.
With respect to the earlier question regarding the deputy rental officer, we did issue an RFP for the addition of a deputy rental officer, but, unfortunately, these processes did not result in the recruitment, so what we have done is hired someone with a great deal of experience on contract as a part-time deputy rental officer in the beginning of February, so we are hoping that will alleviate some of the problems.
The Minister mentioned extra paperwork being submitted with these applications, so I am wondering if perhaps that is the work of one of the departments that is submitting these applications. Paperwork seems like a specialty of the government. It's my understanding that roughly 140 applications to the rental officer in 2016-2017 were made by landlords outside the public housing system. It sounds to me like government agencies are squeezing individual landlords out of the process that is put in place to protect them. On top of that, individual landlords may have to compete for time with the large residential landlords. Can the Minister identify how many of these 140 applicants were individual landlords compared to the large residential landlords such as Northern Property?
Of the 139 non-subsidized public housing applications that were filed in 2016-2017, 51 of them involved individual landlords as applicants or as respondents to a tenant application. I would assume the rest were corporate.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I noted earlier that there has been a decrease in the number of applications, and I think this might be attributable to the fact that it is taking so long that some landlords are just giving up on the whole process. How has the department considered addressing the imbalance in services delivered by the rental office? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Certain emergency matters can be fast-tracked, but apart from that, it is first come, first served. Corporate applicants or respondents are not given priority over anybody else, and tenant applications are not given priority over landlord applications. We do realize that there is a problem, which was identified in the report that has been referenced. Hopefully, the improvements that we are putting forward, in particular the hiring of a part-time officer to assist, will reduce the wait time, because we do realize this is a very serious matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
