Thanks for that reminder, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the SAFE program. I think that’s a better approach than we’ve had in the past. When I’ve had occasion to work in small communities especially, I’ve noticed a real need for something like that. I’m glad to see the Minister come up with this solution. I hope he will be monitoring and doing evaluation on this. I think it could be a bit preventative in the long run. If that turns out to be the case, I think we want to be capturing that and maybe even bump up that investment towards lowering long-term costs.

The preventative maintenance, good program, I’m just going over the Minister’s remarks that I do have in hand here. I think the Transitional Rent Supplement Program looks good. I believe the Minister said we have about $900,000 – I’m going off recollection here – that we’re having to divvy up for that we’re not getting from CMHC this year and we’re putting in about another $1 million for the new rent scale. A question in that regard would be do we expect if there is improved success at collecting rent from this approach, that we would eventually see that amount decrease and start to have the program moved towards paying for itself more than it currently is.

In the new rent scale program, there is still some discussion to be had with regard to seniors’ rent. I have had occasion to meet with seniors and I’m not getting the sense that they were satisfied with the degree of consultation that’s been had on that. In the big picture, I do agree with seniors paying rent. But I want to be sure that those that need special recognition get it, especially in communities that have an extremely high cost of living or even the 70 or 80 or 90 dollars proposed might be significant.

I will just leave my general comments at that and I’ll be interested to hearing a response from the Minister and any further comments from my colleagues. Thank you, Mr. Chair.