Mr. Chairman, I want to point out to the Minister that when we dealt with student financial assistance over the last year or so, there were a lot of concerns raised. The students demonstrated very well that the financial assistance they are receiving is just not enough. In this case, we have a Minister who is responsible for Education, responsible for training, and he is also responsible for the harmonization program, the strategy. If you ever walk into a community and take a look and get an inventory of the houses there, you will find that there is a severe shortage.
I pointed out yesterday in my Member's statement, 40 percent of the houses in Fort Providence are in core need. If you are a resident of that community, or any other community that is considered to be a small community in the North, you are lucky if you get a house. Once you get a house in public housing, you do not move.
In this case, what we are trying to do here is start charging students a higher fee. I would like to ask the Minister if he could tell me how increasing the rates for students in post-secondary or in training programs is going to encourage the people in the communities to go and take the courses, if they know they are going to have to pay rent while they are gone, if they know they are going to end up losing their house. How does this really fit into the larger scheme of things? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.