No, Mr. Chairman. Their legislation is broad enough to encompass assisting with outside of the social housing area and they've already been doing that, particularly on the house purchase side, for the private sector. Thank you.

Mr. Bell.

Let me also ask about the stipulation that this be in non-market communities only because we have a concern about disrupting the private market. If it's non-market communities only, can the Minister give me an indication, say for instance, what we've decided Fort Simpson or Rae-Edzo might qualify as. Are those non-market communities?

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, the only communities that are considered to be market communities are what are referred to as level one communities. That includes Inuvik, Yellowknife, Fort Smith, Hay River. Those would be the four. All the others are non-market. Thank you.

Mr. Bell.

Fort Simpson and Rae-Edzo are non-market. We don't have any sense that there might be a concern that developers who are trying to build housing to sell in Fort Simpson and Rae-Edzo are going to have a problem with the Housing Corporation getting into this business?

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, the purpose of the needs assessment that FMBS directed the Housing Corporation to do was to look at questions like that. To look at the needs. To look at the supply and give us information on whether or not it would be needed for them to go into the housing in those situations.

Mr. Bell.

Well, hopefully developers are listening and will recognize that there's a new player in the business in town with deep pockets. I guess my biggest concern might be that this didn't come before committee for some discussion because if it did, certainly I would have pointed out the fact that we'd just been through an auditor general report with a pretty good look at the Housing Corporation and it pointed specifically to the fact that if you look at the ability of the Housing Corporation to collect rents in public housing units, they're not able to collect public housing rent. They really aren't. I don't want to say it's criminal the amount of money they're able to collect, but it's appalling.

If you look at the reliability and the track record of the local community when they get involved, whether it be LHOs or bands doing this, they're much more able to collect rents. I think somewhere in the 90 percent range of collection. I would have made the point at committee that maybe it makes more sense for us to look at involving the communities in meeting this need through LHOs, through bands, as opposed to having the Housing Corporation do it. I don't know if that's been considered, but I was never able to make that argument and that point in committee.

So here we are with the policy having been made already and decided on without that kind of input from committee. Right or wrong and if it's something that's easily discounted that the housing could have done that in the meeting, now we won't know. I won't have that opportunity. Thank you.

Mr. Handley, do you want to respond?

Mr. Chairman, first of all, let me say that there has never been difficulty on collecting the rent on these housing units that are owned by government and have been rented out. The Housing Corporation has been collecting the rent and it's not the same situation as with the social housing or low-income housing units and the difficulties that we have there. That's a different situation altogether.

In terms of not having an opportunity, I think the opportunity still exists. As I have said before, when the needs assessment is done we would bring this back to the committee and that's where it's meaningful. We'll have the needs assessment and know whether or not it's worth it or necessary for the Housing Corporation to go into the non-market communities. I, too, hope that the private sector, construction industry and so on are listening and that if they want to go build houses in Lutselk'e and Deline and Rae-Edzo that they would take up the challenge and move in there and build the houses and manage them without the Housing Corporation to go in. That has been our objective all along. If they want to show us that they can do it through the private sector, I think that's the ultimate goal we want anyway.

In the meantime, we have provided over the years incentives and encouragement for the private sector, for municipal governments, for local corporations to get in the business. They have not done it in any big way. They have not found that there's the return that they would like to see on their money. In order to be able to deliver progress and provide housing for staff we're prepared to do it in the interim until the private sector can do it and we'll do it through the Housing Corporation, not directly through the government. Thank you.

Mr. Bell.

I just want to be clear. I think the Minister said to provide housing for our staff. I just wanted to make sure that we're, in fact, talking about general public and not our staff. That we're not back into staff housing. Thank you.

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, of course we would provide housing to the public if there is someone in the public who wants to rent a house, but I have to say that of immediate concern to us is being able to find housing to accommodate people who are providing programs and services for us. Because we've heard over and over again the difficulties that people have, teachers have, nurses have and so on in getting housing in communities that's suitable. We have to look at this from both sides. Do the rest of the public need housing? Yes, I'm sure there are people there and, yes, we would through the Housing Corporation make housing available to them in a way that is not subsidized by government. Thank you.

Mr. Bell.

Okay, thank you. I'm almost out of time here, so I would just like to thank the Minister for that because the document that we have in front of us states that this is for the purpose of renting out units to the general public. The Minister has just clarified that and said we're really talking about, as first priority, as people providing services. So that wasn't the discussion we had, but I'm glad he's clarified it. Thank you.

Mr. Handley, do you want to respond to that?

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I guess I consider our staff to be part of the public, too. Thank you.

Mr. Bell.

Just the last point is, I think if our government was to go to private developers and offer leases for staff housing, long term guarantees, and say, build us some staff housing, we'll pay you to do it, I'm sure they'd be more than interested. I think the concern comes when it's on spec for just the general public. Then it is hard to get developers to go into smaller communities and take the risk. If there's no risk, I'm sure we can find people to take no risk. Thank you.

Mr. Handley.