Caroline Cochrane

As I stated earlier, we have a huge number of people in need within the Northwest Territories as a whole. We have over 600 families with children that do fall within our current income assessment. At this point, I am not willing to expand the income thresholds as they currently are. If we ever get to the place where we can address all of the low-income people within the Northwest Territories, then I would look at expanding that, but at this current point we cannot.

It probably won't be a big leap to actually develop this program. It would be a program on its own. Public housing is still a need, and we will still be looking at that. However, we do currently provide a transitional rent supplement program that is ineffective because it ends after two years and, in my opinion, people don't often have the skills that they need or the income to be able to be left without that support. So instead of having a transitional rent support program, it's merely transferring it over and actually having more of a long term. Like I said, it is more cost effective to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In an effort to try to keep as many of the Regular MLAs saying that I am their favourite Minister, what I will do is I will add these changes to the list of acts and regulations that we will be bringing to the five communities to review it on their priority list so that the communities actually can delegate which are the priorities, which ones we should be dealing with first. Then I can bring that back to the MLAs.

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. Actually, the cooperative housing unit that the Member does speak to, I used to live in that just a couple of years ago, so I am very familiar with that unit that he addresses, and it is a nice unit. We, the NWT Housing Corporation, actually provides partial funding for those, as well. We provide funding to most of the cooperatives. In all honestly, I had never thought about that, but I am hoping that it will come up within the housing survey. Now that it has been brought to my attention, I will consider that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am really glad that the Member asked that question because I thought it was, but the actual answer is between 4 and 19.5 per cent and it is maxed out at 19.5 per cent. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for asking the clarifying question.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The transitional rent supplement program, like I said, was not one of my favourites. The uptake on that program was only a utilization of 30 per cent, so we have done a reduction, the $30,000 reduction, of year one of year three. Again, that money will be reprofiled. The transitional rent program will no longer exist. It will become, within six months, a rent supplement program. Thank you, Mr. Chair.