Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just recently the department was considering a program whereby we would assist all communities, including tax-based communities, with the development of land lots for residential purposes.

We were doing this in consultation with the Housing Corporation and in cooperation with them as well on what possible programs we could come up with to address this particular issue.

In particular, it was identified that Yellowknife and Inuvik, as far as tax-based communities, were very heavily impacted right now and there was a shortage of lots for residential purposes. However, the program that we put forward to Cabinet and FMB, the decision of Cabinet and FMB was that this program to develop lots, a certain number of lots rather than a whole pile of them, in non-tax-based communities is what we got approval for.

At this point in time we have not followed it up with some kind of proposal to address the issues in the cities, in the larger centres like Inuvik. It was mainly because the thought was there are enough developers in these communities already. It is just a matter of finding funding to assist people to purchase these lots. What was brought forward as one of the major problems was that a lot of these lots were market-driven prices rather than the real price of what it cost to develop them. In some cases, as much as 50 percent more of a markup on the price of the lot.

The government felt that it was a matter of the market taking care of itself. Thank you.