...that were put forth by the Members on this side of the House in response to our constituents who told us of their concerns and their problems when this new practice came into place of having ECE manage the housing subsidy. There were problems. They were logistical problems, in some instances, where ECE and the housing authorities were not co-located and information needed to pass back and forth. We caused some great stress to seniors who were living in subsidized accommodation who, all of a sudden, got letters saying what the economic rent was going to be for their unit and they didn’t understand that they would continue to receive the subsidy. But I think we did the right thing as announced in the budget yesterday by Minister Miltenberger. I applaud the government for that, but we did do the wrong thing in transferring it over and I hope that any of the harm that was caused can be now reversed and mitigated by this decision to go back to the way that things were being done. I think that the LHOs did an excellent job of managing the housing subsidy.

When you have small northern communities where there is no market, people don’t have a choice to just go down the street like they would in Yellowknife or Hay River or Fort Smith and rent a place on the private market; it is not available. So, therefore, people are compelled to rent government units and their rent is assessed based on their income, and that is a very useful role that this government plays in those communities where we

still do not have a private housing market. So to take all of those people who had no choice but to rent from the government and put them all, essentially, on income support and have their housing subsidy, which has been a traditional way of finding accommodation for them, putting them in that situation I think was not, I don’t want to overplay it, but I do not think it was a good way to approach things.

The realities in the North are different. The housing authorities, the NWT Housing Corporation did a very good job of managing that money. I know that Minister Dent at the time went off to some conference and thought this was a great idea to harmonize subsidies. However, it was not -- sorry, Mr. Dent, still talking about you – but, anyway, congratulations to the government, a good move. Thank you.