Thank you, Madam Chair. First and foremost, I think it is important to give credit where credit is due. After going through the old Hansards and going through some of the opportunities that this area had, has been definitely noted in the scriptures of the very four walls of this

institution. I have to commend the hard work that has gone in during the life of the 17th Assembly.

Again, I don’t want to earmark any one particular individual. I know it is a team effort here, but there has been an enormous amount of cleaning up and putting back on target what is one of our largest expenses. It is hard to get compliments out of Range Lake office, so take them when you can. This is a good job, Madam Chair.

That said, I think it is also prudent for me to talk about where we are spending our money and opportunities where I see that I have to ask the appropriate questions.

We know that all communities are in need of new infrastructure, large and small. I know full well that we have a certain amount of money. I know that we have money that is sunsetting from the Government of Canada and that we are going to have to be very creative over the next 20 to 30 years in terms of how we distribute these monies and look after the needs of all Northerners. But all Northerners includes the city of Yellowknife. I for one don’t want to take money away from communities. That is not the intent of my question. My intent is always fairness.

Earlier today one of the other Members talked about population moving back into the communities. I can assure you that statistics are showing quite the opposite. There has been a migration from the communities to the urban centres. The last 10 years or so, it has been an 8 percent-plus in-migration. The urban centres, including Yellowknife, are becoming larger. With that, a lot of the community patrons and residents are moving into a more regional base.

Given that statistic, right now in the city of Yellowknife, there are 168 people currently on a waiting list for housing needs. When you look at that number, it’s pretty daunting, it’s a big number, it’s a large number. If you had to put that number up against any other communities, it would probably represent a large number of our communities out there. The interesting thing is that of the 168, and I don’t have the full statistics on it, but I can assure you that a lot of them are from the communities that are now here in Yellowknife.

When I look at some of the breakdown that we have here in the activity summaries as we are going to go through here, I notice that there is a good distribution. I think there is some stewardship behind this, but again, with that number I indicated earlier from Yellowknife, there isn’t very much happening to address that large number. I will start that first part of my general comment in that breath.

The second part of my general comment has more to do with we know that there have been a lot of initiatives that the Housing Corporation has undertaken to reduce or mitigate costs of energy. We know that. We know there are retrofits. We

know there are biomass programs. We are looking at cells, photo PV systems. I encourage the housing authority to come up with more and more of these initiatives.

That said, we have not really heard the statistics yet in terms of what has been some of the bigger savings in a general sense. Has there been an overall 7, 8, 9 percent savings in energy costs overall?

I am just clarifying some of the generalities. If we can get those two things on the opening comments agenda from Range Lake, that would be appreciated. Then again, I want to thank the hardworking crew down there. I want to make sure that it is resonated loud and clear with all members of the Housing Corporation. Thank you.