CEDAW/C/51/D/19/2008 authorities in respect of the circumstances surrounding the filing of the joint application for housing listing the author and Mr. Senych (her partner) as co-applicants for housing under the Northern Territorial Rental Purchase Program. The State party observes that the author has provided two letters indicating that in October of 1992, her partner made a request to have her name removed from the Assignment of Lease for the Rae-Edzo property. The author has also provided a copy of an Assignment of Lease indicating that the Rae-Edzo property was assigned to her partner, solely in his name, in June of 1993. However, the State party submits that these documents are not evidence indicating that the removal of the author’s name from the Assignment of Lease was motivated by or was in any way a byproduct of a failure on the part of the State party’s authorities to refrain from engaging in any act or practice of discrimination against women or to ensure that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation and the Rae-Edzo Housing Authority refrained from engaging in any such acts or practices of discrimination. Further, because the author did not pursue her litigation claims against her partner, his Estate or the Housing Authority, there is no domestic decision-making body’s judgment attempting to determine why her name was removed. The State party maintains that the author’s partner may have perpetrated a fraud against her by abusing his position within the Housing Authority, although this has not been established in any way. This abuse of authority for personal reasons cannot be attributed to the State party or any of its Government entities as an act of discrimination against the author or women generally, and is not evidence of an act or pattern of discrimination. Accordingly, the State party submits that the author’s allegations in respect of article 2, paragraph (d), of the Convention are without merit or have not been sufficiently substantiated. 8.7 The State party submits that after Mr. Senych (the author’s partner), solely on his own behalf, applied to the Rae-Edzo Housing Authority to purchase a dwelling unit under the Northern Territorial Rental Purchase Program and was denied, ―the Board of Directors of the Rae-Edzo Housing Authority instructed one of their Tenant Relations officers to contact the author and explain to her that her partner’s application for housing would be considered if her name was added to the application since she was a resident of the community of Rae-Edzo.‖ The State party maintains that the Board of Directors advised the Tenant Relations officer to provide this information to the author because ―it was apparently common knowledge in the community of Rae-Edzo that Mr. Senych lived in a common-law relationship with the author, and because it was also common knowledge that the author was from the community of Rae-Edzo, and thus, was eligible to apply for housing from the Rae-Edzo Housing Authority.‖ The State party observes that the author has not advanced any evidence to the effect that she was specifically told that she could only apply for housing under the Northern Territorial Rental Purchase Program if she submitted an application which listed Mr. Senych as a co-applicant or that she could not apply for housing on her own behalf or that she could not seek sole ownership of a housing unit from the Rae-Edzo Housing Authority. The State party further observes that the eligibility criteria under the Northern Territorial Rental Purchase Program in place at the material time did not contain any restrictions along the lines of gender, marital status or cultural heritage, and that the eligibility criteria cannot be seen as unfairly targeting women living in rural areas. 8.8 The State party maintains that both the author’s income and the income of her partner were taken into account in determining their eligibility under the Northern Territorial Rental Purchase Program and that it is significant that the author has not demonstrated that she would have actually been in a position to acquire the Rae-Edzo property on a rent-to-own basis had she made an application solely on the basis of her own earnings. 8.9 As to the author’s allegation that the State party contravened article 2, paragraph (e), of the Convention, the State party maintains that in order for the author to demonstrate a 10

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