Mr. Speaker, I rise today, too, as well, to support the motion that's before us, with regard to housing. Just with that alone, that's one of our basic core needs: food, shelter and clothing. That's fundamental to any existence anywhere in this world. I just want to speak to the fact that, upon being elected...It has almost been a year now and people warned me, they told me, they said, Kevin, the single most common concern that's going to come before you, especially for Nahendeh, is housing. And it's true. Over the course of the year, I can say that at least 50 percent of the concerns I've been dealing with have been housing; not only for the constituents, but for the housing staff in Fort Simpson, as well. They are doing the best they can, but they are lacking the resources with which to handle this huge problem that's overwhelming in my riding of Nahendeh.

Basically, the constituents at the basic people level are telling me, there's one word that they use in Slavey called "nahetsandile" and that always strikes a cord to me, Mr. Speaker, because what it means is that nobody's caring or taking care of us. I want to tell them today that I care and I want our government to care.

A motion like this kind of does that, I believe. I certainly believe. What it does is bring to the highlight that yes, it's very important to our government and I just don't want it to be a spoken kind of caring, Mr. Speaker, because the last three or four years, our government has steadily been decreasing the budget. The budget for the Housing Corporation has been steadily declining and those kinds of actions don't show the people or give confidence to the people of our North that it is high on our agenda.

I'd like us to review that and say look, it's very important to us that we support our people and their needs and one of the ways of doing that is to review the way we're making housing a priority. I know it means spending more money, especially in my riding alone, just to address the current needs to update, to bring current the homes that are there, especially to national standards. I know it's not there yet because of the mould problems that exist there. That alone is an indication that the houses have been poorly constructed and need attention today.

One other thing I want to speak to is the Housing Corporation Act was created in 1981 and that's very old. I believe that it needs addressing. We have to look at some other comparable systems in other jurisdictions like in the Yukon. They have an appeal system that's independent and that people enjoy because the way it is set up now, Mr. Speaker, is that when somebody has an issue and they want to appeal a certain decision by the Housing Corporation, they are asked to go back and see people that said no. So what hope is there of having their decision overturned at all? So I believe that, yes, we have an old system here and it has to be revitalized and it has to be more user-friendly to the people and constituents that are out there, Mr. Speaker. Just with that, I would like to thank my honourable colleagues for taking the time to listen to me and I'll be supporting this motion. Thank you very much.

---Applause