Thank you very much,
Mr. Chair. I’ve spoken consistently over the years about housing and how people get in arrears. A lot of them are because they’ve been disputing how their house was built, some of the guidelines around how their income is reported, and I’ve always been in favour of an appeal system. First, an appeal system to get rid of some of the longstanding arrears that are out there. I did work on a few files that were resolved, but at the same time people with arrears and with outstanding loans to the Housing Corporation can only appeal to the person that is requesting the money from them. I believe that we need an independent board like the one that exists in Education, Culture and Employment, an appeals committee to look at that.
Also, I think that our government has got to be more supportive of actually reviewing those arrears so that it doesn’t lead to a situation that people are evicted. Also, I’d really want to revisit this whole evicting people during the wintertime. I know that as an MLA that’s important and yet it still happens. There’s a myth out there that you cannot do it, but it actually happens to our people, large families, single parents, and I don’t believe that should exist and I would look for a policy to address winter evictions. Thank you.