(Microphone not turned on)...It was just as well I did not turn the mike on.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, people who live in communities, both the staff and people who are privately employed, need houses. That has been a general problem we have identified with previous government approaches. We tend to isolate the way we treat government employees from the way we treat other people who are in need of housing in the communities in the Northwest Territories. We treat the people who live in social housing somewhat different from the way we treat government employees.

It is true government staff housing will be made available to be sold to people at the community level. It is true some of them may not be sold back to the government and will no longer be available to government. Certainly the house will be meeting a need somewhere else. Perhaps a former staff house may be meeting a need for a family who is just leaving the public service, who is retiring and was in dire need of a house to begin with. I think there is something justifiable in a situation such as that.

Of course, there is a concern that if out of a number of available staff houses, two should be sold to the tenants only to find that the tenants leave the employ of government and no longer wish to sell their units back to government. We have taken that into account. We think it alleviates the pressures on social housing and it begins to move people towards the creation of a private housing market. Yes, we have thought of it. It is not a negative concern. We think it is a development which will be in line with the overall strategy. We have to try to meet the overall housing needs of the community, not just government staff housing. Yet, at the same time, government will be prepared to make sure staff have an adequate number of units available to them, but not by assuming it will only be the government which is able to cough up the capital money and the money necessary to make sure that sufficient units are available to them for rent.