Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in follow up to my Member's statement, I have a few questions for the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister: what is the exact dollar amount, and what is the impact of these changes on the average tenant's power bill? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the Member's opening comments, in his Member's statement, he is right that, over the past three years, public housing tenant power rates have been gradually increasing to adjust in line with what other households in the NWT communities are paying under the GNWT's Territorial Power Support Program. The impact from the last base rate adjustment would be approximately $36 per month for the average household, and then it was about $87 per month, considering all base rate adjustments over the last three years.
Mr. Speaker, we do face a challenge here in the Northwest Territories with the NWT Housing Corporation and the increased costs to run our programs, but utilities are a big cost of that. We are trying to find ways that we could address that, and I really appreciate the Member's comments, that these are all good goals moving forward, in his Member's statement.
I think we are on the right track. We want to work with communities' leaders so that they can be more self-reliant, be more energy conservative with how we do programs in the communities, but also ensure that we are able to sustain a lot of our housing programs and not just continuing to pay our tenants' power rates. We also have other programs that we do need to sustain throughout the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
The Housing Corporation also intends to conserve corporation funds through this initiative. Has the corporation calculated to what extent costs have simply been passed to income security programs in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment?
We always try to work closely with our partners, especially within the department. We keep them apprised of how many housing tenants we have and let them know of the programs that we are doing, especially with the tenants. When these programs came into place, we directly contacted the tenants to let them know what was going on. Our local housing organizations also give that information on what we are doing moving forward, but we do keep a good communication with all of our departments right across the government with our programs and how it can possibly impact their programs that they run as well.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister answered my next question, but I have one more here. In addition to adjusting power subsidies, what other actions is the Corporation taking to encourage energy conservation and reduce energy consumption in public housing?
Since we've put some of this particular program in since 2015/2016 I think it's really a positive note to say that power consumption has declined by about 8 percent in the communities. That means our tenants are becoming more aware of their usage as well as, like I said earlier, trying to be more conservative on their energy and also a little bit more self-reliant, but also understand that we've got other programs that we've got to sustain within the NWT Housing Corporation.
I do have a list of some of the programs that we have done in this area: we invest in energy efficient building practices, and that's well-known with the work that we've done with IRC as well as other Indigenous governments over the last couple years; alternative energy products, such as solar panels in some of the communities; solar hot water; district heating; LED lighting; home ownership programs that do promote energy efficiencies. As we look at constructing new homes, we always look at making them as energy efficient as possible. So we've taken a turn and we're going to continue to do that with future bills and also promote that with our partners as they're looking at building infrastructure in their communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Nahendeh.
