Thank you, Madam Chair. I have just a few general comments. We, as a committee, had a number of meetings with the Housing Corporation over the last number of months, and I just want tell the Minister and the officials there that it has been generally a very positive relationship. I think just by happenstance of having a new Minister and a new president of the corporation might have, not that I'm saying anything bad about the former ones, I'm just saying that sometimes new players bring an opportunity to work on something. I'm happy to note that we have been able to work through the mandate and the consolidation of new programs. I don't believe there are a lot of changes being made because of the consolidation, but it is certainly streamlining and improving in some areas.

I'd like to know from the Minister whether that will be used as an opportunity to continue to improve and to refine the programs and such, with a main goal that we would like to have as much housing and houses built and enhanced in our communities as possible.

Another question I want to ask is we know that the federal presence in the housing contribution to the North will continue to decline. I know that I've heard...I'm sure the Premier, or Minister who is also the Premier, is looking for ways to impress upon the federal government that we need them to step in further. There have been media reports about what's happening in that regard, so if he could update us on whether there is any movement in that regard.

My third question has to do with land. Our committee report spoke about passing the issue of all the players working together to increase the availability of land, because obviously that's the essential part of any housing initiative; however, that's not to say that this issue is not

urgent. We would like to see the corporation and the government move as far and as quickly as possible on that issue. I'd like to know if the Minister could update us on what sort of measures he's taken to move that process along.

Gee, I'm being really quick today. I don't want to have too long of a preamble because we've been here for, this is the fourth year and I've probably said everything I need to say, unless of course I want to have some follow-up to some of the answers that the Minister will give. However, the fourth one has to do with what we found in our committee review. We mentioned that in the report, about the fact that lots of contractors, well, maybe it's not lots, but there are a few contractors who don't do the work as well as they should or not completing the work in a quality way. I think we were overly generous in our report saying that, you know, if you don't do the work, you're not going to get work. I would like to know, why hasn't that happened before? In any private contract thing, say if you're building a house and somebody doesn't get the job done, then they are not going to get paid. I would like to know if the corporation has such a policy in place where I would think that any contract work...The payment plan could be divided so that you do the first part of the work...It could be money upfront, but, you know, payments are made on a base-by-base basis with the last payment being held back until all the work is done, or done in a satisfactory way. I would like to know from the Minister what is in place to make sure that happens. Thank you.