Caroline Cochrane

The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs regularly works with ITI on consumer-related tourism issues. However, most of them are related to public safety, such as fire protection, etc. Again, we haven't had a lot of complaints. We tend to work when we have complaints in the area. Any time there is an issue, we work cross-departmentally to define those. We also work federally as well, because the federal government also has a role in consumer complaints. When the issues are federal, we will work with them as well to address the issues.

It is well known within the Legislative Assembly that I am in the process of reviewing every single policy and program with the Housing Corporation. There are many that I think inhibit people from obtaining, maintaining, retaining their homes. I will be restructuring all policies with that goal in mind to house people.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, the policy is not to simply house as many people as possible. The reality is that we need to house people adequately and appropriately and consider their safety. I am not going to cram people into buildings without considering all of the safety needs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Due to the high needs of residents within the whole Northwest Territories and our current wait list to access public housing support, we will not be, probably, at this point extending our income threshold. So it would be for people who are at moderate to low income. I don't know the exact rate for Yellowknife, but I believe it's under $100,000 a year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would love to be able to stand here and say that we have all of the answers figured out. The honest truth is that we don't. However, I do know that the data shows that one in six households in Yellowknife are in core need due to affordability. That tells me that we have a serious problem with people being able to afford the rental accommodations in the Yellowknife area and, therefore, a rent subsidy program makes sense. It actually makes more sense than building more public housing when you do it on a costanalysis basis. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The last review to the Consumer Protection Act was last updated in 2011. However, it was only looked at in relation to the costofcredit disclosure, so that was the last time that the act was actually reviewed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actions that we are currently taking to address the needs of consumers within the Northwest Territories, basically I want to state that we don't get a lot of complaints. First of all, we have only gotten 18 complaints in the last three years. Changes to the act are usually made based on the number of complaints that we receive. We are wondering if that is maybe a communication problem.

In this fiscal year, we have developed a plain-language guide on the current consumer affairs programming and what we do. Within that guide we have where we explain the government's role...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I cannot say exactly if the department has a copy of the report that the honourable Member has spoken of. I would be more than eager to obtain a copy, if he would like to provide it to us. We are looking at the implications of changing the act to accommodate this, so any information that he would be able to provide we would be more than happy to receive. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Some of the initiatives we are doing is preventative maintenance, where we will go in and actually check their furnaces, et cetera, so that we are on top of the game instead of behind the game. The other thing that we are doing is all new buildings and all retrofits are now using higher standard of insulation, triplepane windows, LED lights, and boiler systems, to name a few of the energy efficiency things that we are implementing. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have done some preliminary figures on what it would cost to actually take a residence out of core need. At this point, though, we still have to put it through Cabinet, so we will be putting that through. We're just finalizing up the figures and then we'll be putting it forward to Cabinet before we provide it to the Regular MLAs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.