Mr. Chairman, I think this is a unique way of doing it. We had to respond to a need in a community. In my view, it is a sign of a responsive government. How are we going to deal with shortages of housing in small communities in the future? Well, we have taken a couple of steps in terms of lot development and the revolving fund we have talked about. Other ways would be to change the mandate of the Housing Corporation to enable them more flexibility in the kind of housing and the purpose for which we build housing. This was a way of responding to a situation in Paulatuk where there was not any other reasonable alternative to ensure that they had a fully staffed school. Thank you.

Thank you. I have the same concerns as my colleague Mr. Bell. Two of the communities that I represent out of the four are targeted as communities that are in a severe need of housing. We have been working very hard with the Housing Minister to access dollars to put towards it. We know the money is very tight. I would like to ask the Minister, can he tell me under what program were these dollars accessed? How were they accessed? Under what program? What housing program was the budget pulled out of?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I will refer the question to Minister Allen, since it is asking about a Housing Corporation program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps if I can substantiate the rationale for the renovations of the staff housing in Paulatuk. Under the Housing Corporation Act, we have the ability to assist where there is an emergent need. That was the premise of why we cooperated with that request at the time. In general, just to keep on the appropriation, we had to be responsive to the emergent need. In the review of our act, we simply felt that we had an obligation to do that.

A longer, more broader perspective is, in question period I have stated over and over again, our policies are constantly in a state of flux so that we can try to address all of the communities and how they feel we need to address their housing crisis. Again, I go back on record saying that we have met with various constituencies and we have been able to facilitate additional requests. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am a little confused here. The Minister of Housing is stating that he has a legal obligation to provide staff housing to the Department of Education. We have the Minister of Finance telling us that there was no mandate to do this. I am not sure who is correct in this instance. I would like to ask, would the question be better posed if we asked if there was a breach of the Financial Administration Act here?

Mr. Chairman, no. Clearly there is no breach of the Financial Administration Act here and I do not think there is any inconsistency with what Mr. Allen said and what I am saying. All Mr. Allen has added is that he has the ability in emergencies to be able to assist in this sort of way. I think it is consistent. There is absolutely no breach of the FAA here.

Mr. Chairman, I do not see where this would fall, even though the Minister responsible for Housing states that there is a legal obligation, I do not see what budget line that we would take this money from. If there is no mandate, then maybe we should be considering removing it altogether. My question is, if we are going to start providing teachers' housing, why does the Department of Education not pay for it?

Mr. Chairman, we are not providing teacher housing. What we did in Paulatuk, a small community with limited housing, that had no housing to be able to accommodate all the people in the community plus the staff that are hired to provide services, there was a shortage of housing in the community so we had to find a way of resolving the emergency and the crisis. A way was found through the Housing Corporation. It is as simple as that. There is no breach of anything. It is just an ability of the Housing Corporation to do it. For the government not to reimburse the Housing Corporation would mean that somewhere in the Housing Corporation system somebody is going to get less public housing because all that would happen is that we would not give the money to the Housing Corporation. The effect of not approving this is simply taking housing away from somebody else where there is a need for it. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am not sure what the Minister is saying. I want to know one thing though. If this is on the market and there is rent being paid, are we charging full market rent for the accommodations?

Mr. Chairman, yes, we are charging market rent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I never really could understand why this government transferred all staff housing over to the communities only to find out that now we are in a shortage in many different communities. I would like to ask if this building was ever renovated prior to this. Is there any chance that this building could have been a staff house renovated to a government building and now renovated back?

Mr. Chairman, no, this building had not been renovated before. Thank you.