Robert Villeneuve

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a quick question with regard to the total amount of debts that the government wants forgiven in this act. After these debts are forgiven, does the government continue to pursue payment of these debts? I think we just write them off here in the House for government accounting procedures. I know other government organizations that do forgive debts, like LHOs, for instance, after they are forgiven and taken off the books, they still continue to pursue payment of some of these debts. Is that what the government does today? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s good to know that they are reviewing other jurisdictions, because I myself have done some reviews of other jurisdictions and they seem to have kind of tossed this whole rent policy out the door and went on something like their taxable income for people, which would alleviate their level of anxiety of how much their rent is going to be from one month to the next. At least they don’t have to file their monthly rental claims every month and people are more in tune to seek meaningful employment for a given year given the fact that they know what they’re rent is going...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I’m just going to ask some of the same questions that I was asking the Minister of Education yesterday, but my questions are going to be directed to the Minister of Housing. The rent scale policy that we have in place, the old rent scale policy, I just want to ask the Minister, can he put something on the record to indicate that the Housing Corporation is going to possibly review the rent scale policy that touches a lot of people here in the NWT; a policy which creates a disincentive to seek employment for public housing clients, creates dissention towards the LHOs, the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess the government lost the court settlement. I just wanted more clarification of why we are writing off $100,000 for a company that seems to me is still in operation here in the NWT. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister just tell me, is it just due to the lack of resources that we don’t continue to pursue...Some of these debts are pretty big. Is it just because of human resources reasons that we don’t do that? Is it the workload? What are the reasons that we don’t continue to collect? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I also have to express my dismay at what happened yesterday here in the House. I know everything here spoke in this room is public and any gestures that are made in this House are made to the public also and not just to Members sitting here today. Just on that point, Mr. Speaker, if something like that takes place in this House, which is obviously not allowable, what kind of message is that going to send to the public when people that actually have concerns with government operations, government programs and the delivery of services, when they write a Minister a...

My question, okay, to the Minister of the Housing Corporation…

---Laughter

That's fine. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Okay. With this review of this Income Support Program over the last year, is there any commitment from ECE that the rent scale is going to be brought up again? It's been brought up by Members on that side, Members on this side. Is it going to be reviewed again to more accurately reflect what people are willing to pay?

…just have a disincentive with that policy in place. So why do we even have it there if people aren't going to want to go out and become self-reliant?

Mr. Speaker, you know, the rent scale policy that we have today was developed 10-plus years ago, with good intentions, I'm sure, but obviously today it doesn't work. It doesn't work for communities; it doesn't work for individuals; and it doesn't work in our employment economy here today. I guess just what my colleague Mrs. Groenewegen from Hay River South was talking about, the frustration of having people to have to verify their income on a monthly basis to the LHOs which, in turn, work with ECE to provide the subsidy or what rent they're going to charge them on. But should people not...