Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I do have to agree with the Member that even working from the territorial perspective and also nationally with the previous First Minister of Housing and the First Ministers' conference on aboriginal issues, housing is probably one of the more stemming issues that are in aboriginal communities and we are no different in the Northwest Territories. We do have processes that now allow us to address the self-government process and it allows people to take over government programs and services such as housing. I think the Sahtu is well on their way.

In other parts of Canada, you do have First Nations housing, on reserve and off reserve. We have to start looking at how those programs and services are being delivered. Also, we have to realize we are taking steps to improve the quality of housing, especially in the Sahtu communities. This year we are looking at some 35 units. We are hoping to deliver 94 units over three years. I think that will really improve the housing conditions in the Sahtu communities.

One thing we have to pinpoint is where does this problem stem from. I believe it happened in 1992 right across Canada, not only here in the Northwest Territories where

the federal government, through CMHC, made a decision to get out of social housing and stop funding social housing programs. At that time, they changed the format from looking at social housing to look at running the programs by way of using the mortgage systems such as bank financing, EDAP, another program such as that based on looking at financial institutions to provide housing across Canada.

I think the Member is aware that we are going to be hosting a housing conference in the Sahtu possibly at the end of March. There is another opportunity for the people of the Sahtu to tell us, as government, exactly how we should lay out the delivery of 34 units in the Sahtu communities. Where should they go? Are we putting them in the right place? Are the programs we have going to meet the challenges that are in a lot of these communities? One that I touched on is land development in a lot of these communities, especially the experiences we have had in Fort Good Hope where we have had floods. We have an area in the community which is a slide zone. We are not allowed to build any more houses there. We are being restricted on how we can deliver programs on those types of communities.

Again, I would like to thank the Member for his questions. Hopefully a lot of these issues will come out when we have the conference in Norman Wells at the end of March and we will be able to address a lot of these issues and lay out to the communities what is going to be allocated over the next number of years and how they can assist us by meeting the goals and objectives of getting these houses on the ground. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.