Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Northwest Territories Status of Women is kind of at an arm's length of the Legislative Assembly. Although I, as the Minister of the Status of Women, appoint the board of directors and can take them out of their seats as board of directors, they have a little bit of flexibility in what they do. They are mandated within the Legislative Assembly to incorporate the act, to adhere to the act, to do the tasks that are defined within the act. Part of that act states that they will do gender-based analysis and support the Minister in reaching the Minister of the Status of...

Again, like I said, our job at Municipal and Community Affairs is to support designated, thank you for clarifying that, Aboriginal and municipal governments. If we get a complaint at any level, either regional or at headquarters, we try to get the regional departments to go into the community. They are the ones closest to the ground; they understand their communities and their regions. That regional officer will go in and actually work with them. We don't tell them what to do. It is really important to note that. We will provide them advice, as the honourable Member has said.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The role of the Municipal and Community Affairs is to support community governments and Aboriginal governments. We take that seriously. We will often help actually drafting some of the bylaws. We provide orientation to new governments on how to do bylaws, what the meanings are, how to interpret them, how to enact them.

When they break a bylaw, we try not to be punitive. Our first step is actually to support the community. If we get a complaint, we will actually reach out to the community government and try to speak to them about the bylaw that they may have jeopardized...

Mr. Speaker, today, on International Women's Day, I am very proud to rise and recognize Ms. Sharon Firth, who has joined us in the visitors' gallery. Ms. Firth, a four-time Olympian, a northern hero and role model, was recently recognized by Canada Post, along with her sister Shirley, as two of Canada's greatest women athletes.

Earlier today, Ms. Firth proudly presented me with a framed set of stamps. Each stamp features one of six Canadian women athletes in a moment of celebration, as well as a full-colour, freeze-frame action shot representing a defining moment in their sports careers.

Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we do monitor the applications to the rental officer. I do want to give credit to the Minister who was responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation before my time.

Previously, many years ago, people were in debt, like $60,000, $100,000. The debts were incredible, insurmountable, and people, they're going to be evicted at that point. The last Minister actually spent a lot of time actually getting people to try to pay their debts. It was very successful, with a 110 per cent collection rate, which means people were mostly paying up their current rents and dealing with...

The primary reason, yes, is the copayment. Like I have said many times, people that are making $20,000 can't afford to pay 10 per cent. With the changes where anyone under $60,000 doesn't need to have a copayment towards the CARE programs, we are hoping that there will be an increase in uptake within that. Again, this is one that we are watching carefully.

It needs to be noted that the Housing Corporation has gone through a lot of changes and more changes to come. Within that, there may have to be some reallocations of funding to make sure that the programs we are changing are adequately funded...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Like I said, the goal is not to make people live in poverty. That is not what my goal is. We have done, over the years, a lot of investment into alternative energy and things like solar in our units and putting LED light bulbs in all of our public housing units, and those are things that should bring down the costs.

In some communities, people are only paying $70 a month. I understand that that is all they can afford, but the reality is that, down south, people are paying 25 per cent of their income towards public housing. We are charging people between 4 per cent of their...

Absolutely. The Member is correct. People can bring their paper copy of their tax assessment into any local housing organization within the Northwest Territories. That will be used to verify their annual income.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The homelessness assistance program is currently fully utilized. We are, however, looking at changes to that program as well because currently it's a one-time access to it and it's a maximum of $1,500. The whole goal of that program actually is to address homelessness, and sometimes people get into trouble more than one time. Now we're looking at, instead of one time, we're looking at trying a maximum amount of $1,500. For example, previously if people needed a ticket to their community and they were coming from Yellowknife and wanted to go to Hay River, that's not $1,500...

Like I had said before, another reason is for energy efficiency. It's not okay to have your windows open and your lights going. We need to recognize that, in this day and age, we need to be more energy efficient and energy conscious. The money that we're actually saving by making people more responsible for their utilities will be utilized for the declining CMHC funding that we will be facing in 2038. Thank you, Mr. Chair.