Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to take a note from my colleague Ms. Lee's book here, and hopefully do some loud crowing and roostering about the housing situation here in the Northwest Territories.

---Laughter

You know, since we last met here a few weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, there have been a number of signals that show that it is getting and it is going to get even more expensive to keep a roof over your head and that of your family. Mr. Speaker, thinking of buying a house, the average here in the Northwest Territories, we learned last week, for a three-bedroom unit is now $246,000, the second highest in Canada. Mr. Speaker, a house that listed for $200,000 four years ago now costs $315,000 dollars. That is a 58 percent increase, Mr. Speaker, in four years.

Do you want to rent an apartment? How about a two-bedroom here in Yellowknife? That is $1,282 dollars and that may not include utilities, Mr. Speaker. Compare this with Calgary and Edmonton where there is apparently lots of money, too. In Calgary a two-bedroom unit costs you $806; in Edmonton, $730. If you are working in Edmonton and you want to come north to Yellowknife to work or perhaps you are a northern student who wants to come back home, you are going to pay 70 percent more to move to Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker.

In March of 2003, I tabled a petition here with about 500 signatures from Yellowknife renters and landlords, seeking better ways of resolving disputes about rent increases and ways to better manage our landlord-tenant situation. We now learn that in Inuvik, even more residents are going to take this even further and I anticipate that their petition actually seeking rent control will be tabled here in the next few days. I look forward to that debate, Mr. Speaker.

I have been ringing the bell here continuously for our government to become more aggressive and innovative and show leadership in ways to deliver more affordable housing. We could be doing things with land development and tax breaks and cash incentives, but we continuously fail to do so. What are we going to do to reverse this trend, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.