Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have had good fortune in the past in having a pretty large allocation of housing for the size of the population we have. It is because the federal government recognized our unique circumstances, as the Minister has pointed out. I would like to get some clarification on some of the statements made on the document we are discussing today.
It is pretty clear to me that the federal government would very much like to get out of housing. In fact, it was one of the federal institutions that they were quite happy to put on the block to go to the provinces so that they can deal with their own problems in their own way. But on the basis of the meeting that the Minister had with our federal counterparts, It is not clear to me exactly what is meant when you say that the three Ministers - MacKay, Siddon and Mazankowski - will pursue ways and means of allocating sufficient federal funding for northern housing. Reading it just as literally as I can, that means they are going to do it. It is just a question of finding a way of doing it. They are going to do it, but they have not figured out how yet. So in his statement, I wonder if the Minister is really saying he has solved the problem and has convinced them that we are unique and we have to have these levels; and that we are going to do it, but just give us time now until the 29th of June, and we will have it all fixed up.
However, I know that when our own Minister goes to meet with his provincial counterparts, it will not be a meeting with MacKay and other federal people to see whether they have delivered on the promise or not. It will be a meeting of provincial Ministers where they will discuss the federal plan which, according to this document anyway, really reduces the amount of federal commitment to social housing, and they are going to give the bad story to each of the provincial Ministers. This is the story; we just do not have the money, and this is what we are going to do. Then, if there is going to be a reaction obviously each of the provincial Ministers is going to argue for their own particular jurisdiction and to indicate how the federal government should be dealing with each of these jurisdictions.
So I suppose the concern I have is that this document gives us the indication that the Minister has been successful, in convincing people, and they are going to solve it; but, they just do not know how yet. They do not know what the ways or means will be, but it is going to be done. And when he meets the people at the meeting on June 29th then he does
not have to do any more fighting because the money is going to be there. It is just a question of defending whatever the federal government wants to do against the other provincial Ministers who may not see it exactly the same way that Mr. Elmer MacKay sees it. Do I have it right?