Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to thank the Member for his comments. I believe that we do have to encourage more people, especially with our growing economy or seeing people with more dollars in their pockets with the diamond industry and oil and gas industry. I think we have to direct people who are presently in that high-income range to get out of social housing and get them into the private housing market by way of our programs. We have the EDAP program, we have the DAP program, we work with the banking industry to get these people into a mortgage so they can own their own homes and be able to access capital through a mortgage.

To date, since 1997 with the DAP program, the Housing Corporation has contributed almost $23 million. But we were able to access grants from the banks for almost $40 million. So we put almost $60 million of capital into our economy and this program is there to entice those people in social housing. More importantly, the employees working with our clients in public housing educate them on what it means to be a homeowner. I think again it comes down to our relationship that we have with our tenants to offer them different options.

One of the problems we're running into is with regard to the arrears that people are carrying. Now they have a lot of dollars they didn't have before because of the system we have of collecting that rent based on the formulas we use. In some cases, that's almost 25 percent of your gross income. Again, we have to find ways of working with our LHOs to work with their clients, to work along with the ones who have high-income thresholds, to work into an EDAP program, a homeownership program and get them out of social housing so we can make those units available to social housing clients.

Again, we are working through different programs. We're looking at a program now that's a two-year, phase-in program where the client is able to pay the operational costs of those units on top of what their rent was before so they know that part of being an owner of their own unit means they will have to take on the responsibility of managing and making sure your bills are paid on time. They cover the operational costs, your power costs, your utility costs. Also they need to be able to manage their budget so they know you have so much money and so much money has to be put aside to pay for that mortgage. They need to be responsible for taking care of the utilities of that unit. We're already in the process of developing that. We are working with clients who either want to own the unit they're in or get into one of the programs I mentioned. EDAP is one of the programs where we assist you to go to the bank, get a mortgage and buy your own home, but I think we have to put more money into that.

I just want to point out to the Members that the Housing Corporation has been drastically cut since the 13th Assembly. There was a 10 percent cut across the board there. Again we're realizing another 10 percent cut to the budget. Because of that it has had a direct effect on the operational cost of the local housing authorities to maintain what they have. They've had to cut back on a lot of the program responsibilities they had in the past. They've done away with a lot of the maintenance programs we used to have before. I think that is driving what we're seeing today with regard to our needs survey. A lot of that is because of the cuts that have taken place have had a direct effect on those local housing authorities just to maintain and upkeep the maintenance of the units.

Again, I'd just like to thank the Member for the question and I'd be happy to direct those people who are now finding themselves and getting them out of public housing, but also help them by way of our programs and services to get access to bank financing and get them into their own private units. Thank you.