Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There have been no increases in rent as of today. The proposed new rent scale will come to this House for approval. It has been through extensive consultation at the community level, regional level and MLAs. This government has agreed, so far, to phase that in over three years. The committee is recommending four years. The reason for the rental scale increases...There will be decreases as well for those lower-income people. All rent is based on your ability to pay. In home ownership communities, it is based on 25 per cent of your gross income. In non-home ownership communities there is a false cap. It will be affordable to people. It is based on their ability to pay; a percentage of their wages.

The Member is quite correct when he says that it is based on cutbacks to the federal government as well as housing shortages. If we do not take this artificial cap off, the federal government will levy a penalty against our government's funding, so we would lose money. Also, there is a shortage of 3,600 units in the Northwest Territories. We are 3,600 units short. As long as we continue to allow high-income people to live in public housing, we are saying to those poor people in our communities, the 3,600 people who are waiting for housing, that they can't get into housing because we are going to subsidize high-income people.

I don't think we can afford to do that any longer. We have to encourage those high-income people to vacate public units and move into home ownership and allow social housing units to be available for low-income people who they were designed to serve in the beginning. We are trying to do that in the smoothest possible manner. Thank you.