Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to speak in support of this harmonization. I am not going to go through a whole bunch of figures as to why I am supporting it because I already did that in the House when it first came forward. I haven't heard anything in this House that has changed my mind about the figures. All I can speak on, Mr. Speaker, is how this program affects my riding. I'm not trying to sway anybody's vote on this harmonization, but I do want to make some comments in some areas of this initiative and I guess they pertain to how we spend our money and whether we are getting what we should for the money we are spending.

Am I in favour of public housing and having everybody in housing that's affordable? Definitely I am. Am I in favour of having 400 people in public housing and a waiting list of 1,200 because we can't afford to give that 1,200 some kind of help in public housing? No, I'm not. I would like to see a system put in place that can give more housing to people and I think that is what it is going to come down to. I hear rumours that the federal government is slowly pulling back, and maybe drastically, on the amount of money they are going to give us for public housing and what we can do with our money. So we have to come up with some initiatives that will give us the ability to satisfy more people and meet the needs of more people.

That may mean, Mr. Speaker, some people might have to pay a little bit. I know right now that there are inequities out there in the marketplace; we can look at seniors if we want. I mean, I know seniors that are living in public housing that are paying very little or nothing. I also know seniors that don't make very much money, Mr. Speaker, and I also know of seniors that are making a lot of money that aren't paying anything. Is that right? No, I don't think that is right. I think that we have to find a solution for that. As for the people that are saying it's being put to us at the last minute, it's not being put to us at the last minute. We've been hearing about his harmonization for a long time.

I have dealt with the seniors' society in Hay River, I have dealt with the town, I've looked at the numbers. I've got all the numbers for the Territories, actually. I have heard nothing that changes those numbers. I looked at the system. I would like to see a system in place that is going to deal with how we can provide more housing to more people. But to just kill this initiative, I don't think it is going to do anything for us. I think Mr. Bell put it right the other day when he said if we're dealing with the situation, do we want to give seniors free housing, then let's deal with that. If we think we can afford a system to give seniors, single mothers, whatever group of people free housing, then let's deal with that and let's deal with that one issue. But I don't think that that is what this is about. It's about trying to find a system that everybody contributes to, and takes a little responsibility in, and helps out in it.

Now Mr. Speaker, another issue in this harmonization is, since 1997, government has been working for a way to come up with something that works a little more fairly for everybody. I just asked and got an answer from the Minister on how much money the departments have put into this initiative and he tells me, apart from the travel and all the staff from the Housing Corporation and Education, the time that they have put into it and the travel that they've done, it's half a million dollars. When this thing comes before the House, I'll be looking for some leadership. I will tell you, leadership to me is not sitting down and abstaining on a vote.

I think that this is a government initiative that they have spent half a million dollars on, not counting manpower, and I'm going to be looking to everybody in this House to vote on this initiative and it is going to speak very drastically. I don't think that we can afford to throw a half million dollars away and just say, throw it to the guys on the other side House to say whether this is a good deal or not, that was the governments' initiative, they spent a half a million dollars on this initiative. I want them voting on this because I don't want to hear whether this is a good deal or a bad deal. I want to see who is supporting this, who the leadership is on it. If the deal goes down, it will go down with everybody in the House; but if it is turned over to us to make this deal, I don't think there is much leadership in this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.