Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The new rent scale was put into place and when it started off it was because of the federal government telling us that we don't charge proper rents in our communities and they would take back the dollars from us. I'm not talking a very small amount of money, it's millions of dollars.

We have a choice. We either treat all people equally throughout the Northwest Territories...And the Member must realize that in the majority of the communities, there was a change to the rent scale in 1983 and that was done overnight. So in those communities the change is there and there's still a need for housing in those communities, as well. The federal government made it very clear to us, if we were not going to charge equivalent to what southern Canada is charging, they would take back money from us. And that would create a lot more hardship on our people than the rent scale, because we will lose dollars that we don't have and we won't be able to build new stock.

The new rent scale is going to encourage higher-income people to get into home ownership. We have long waiting lists, I know that. We have overcrowding, I know that, in all our communities. But if we continue to sit back and do nothing, that will never change. We have to encourage people to get into home ownership, and then free up houses for low-income people who desperately need them. That's what we're attempting to do. So it's the lesser of two evils, I believe. Thank you.