Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday in the House, I was handed a clipping of a newspaper ad by a Member of Cabinet and it read, and I quote: "We live and work in the North, building successful aboriginal joint venture partnerships since 1988, ATCO Frontec."
Mr. Speaker, I raise this now because I believe there is a misunderstanding in this House that my questions and concerns about the government promoting the Novel housing concept are somehow motivated by an anti-ATCO company sentiment. Nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Speaker. My concerns are related to due diligence and the process the government has followed to date, and its apparent unwillingness to consider a wider range of possibilities to meet the social housing needs of the North.
It is unfortunate that the promotion of a specific product proposal from a specific company has been injected into this debate through the budget address. This has had the effect of focussing the debate on the company in question and its product. In my opinion, the debate should be focussed on due diligence and the process the government plans to follow to meet the NWT's social housing needs, as opposed to a particular company or product concept.
For this reason, Mr. Speaker, I will, from this point forward, refer to the company that the government has signed a memorandum of agreement with as ABCD Company and its proposed product as the new housing concept. I would like to invite my colleagues in this House to do the same.
In so doing, Mr .Speaker, I hope to distance the debate from the company and product in question, which I have no particular opposition to, as I am certain I would be doing the same had it been for any other company, and focus it more properly on the due diligence and process the government is using to meet the very obvious and pressing social housing needs in the NWT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.