Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation recently rose to announce Plan 2000. This is a plan to provide housing to 2,000 more families by the year 2000. On the surface, this seems like a laudable effort. I was intrigued by the announcement that went on to talk about the program details, in particular, on the enhanced down payment assistance program. What I saw did not make me happy. It also did not make me happy to hear the Minister say in a radio interview that households with incomes between $50,000 and $90,000 would be eligible for assistance.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about empowering people but we develop programs which encourage dependence on government. We are making people dumb. We are teaching them they cannot manage on their own. We have to help them. What kind of a message does this program send to the many middle income families who have bought their homes the old-fashioned way by earning the down payment themselves? As a government, we talk about developing a private sector economy, then we create a program which totally disrupts the natural development of the economy.

birth rate. This government knows the birth rate is out of control, yet it does not do anything about it other than build more housing.

Mr. Speaker, the funds proposed to be expended on this new program should be put into programs that will modify and teach responsible attitudes in the NWT and encourage parents to know that the government cannot continue to support the high birth rate until we have an effective wage economy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.