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Fort Smith man who triggered NWT Housing Corporation complaint "vindicated"

Lorell Gauthier, the daughter of a Fort Smith man who claimed NWT Housing Corporation's method of collecting personal information infringed his rights, says her father feels "vindicated" following the release of a report from the territory's information and privacy commissioner Wednesday.

During a press conference, Gauthier, a NWT Seniors' Society board member, explained her father Stan Edkins' qualms with a GNWT policy requiring public housing residents, including seniors, to allow the Local Housing Authority to collect income information directly from Revenue Canada triggered a complaint to the commissioner.

NWTSS members, who shared the concerns and anxiety felt by Edkins, were told by the Corporation that unless they provided their consent, "rent would be assessed based on full market rent and failure to pay that rent would result in eviction," according to a release from the Society.

Brendan Burke/NNSL photo. (From left) NWT Seniors' Society board member Lorell Gauthier, president Mary Pat Short, past president Leon Petterson, and executive director Barb Hood announce the information and privacy commissioner's recommendations for NWT Housing Corporation in Yellowknife Wednesday.

As a result, NWTSS submitted a complaint on behalf of its membership and all seniors to commissioner Elaine Keenan Bengts in November 2016.

On Wednesday, Gauthier was joined by the Society's past president Leon Peterson, current president Mary Pat Short, and executive director Barb Hood to announce the recommendations put forth by the commissioner.

While Keenan Bengts wrote she understands "the need for the Housing Corporation to collect relevant income information for the purposes of administrating their housing program," she expressed concern with the methods of obtaining the information.

"I am concerned that the consent required for participation in this program is really no consent at all and therefore the client's right to privacy has been negatively affected," she wrote.

"Coerced consent...is not consent," she wrote.

Keenan Bengts' report included a series of recommendations including instructing the NWT Housing Corporation to "develop policies and procedures to address situations in which a client is unwilling to provide consent for the Housing Corporation to access their CRA records which will still allow them access to the housing programs available to all other residents."

Recommendations to "be clear" that consent for access to CRA records must be free and voluntary and not coerced, and that consent should be reviewed on a regular basis, were also outlined.

Adherence to the recommendations, according to NWT Housing Corporation policy and communications manager Charles Sanders, have already taken place. "As a result, last year, the NWTHC made changes to abide with the...recommendations, including making allowances for tenants who want to come in to provide their income information as opposed to the NWTHC directly receiving it from CRA," Sanders wrote in an email.