Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first comment is related to what I see as the social trend, the trend of social housing and moving away from homeownership. As we know, in communities we are challenged with finding employment and business opportunities, for that matter. Having a job is very far and few. If you do indeed work, you’re working on a seasonal basis. For example, in my home community there’s a large injection of job opportunities at the health centre and that’s not going to start until about April and people manage to get by in terms of trying to make a living, at the same time they ultimately strive for the ultimate pride, which is owning your own home.

I know in the past the Housing Corporation has offered a program in terms of first time homebuyers. I think it was a program to at least give some incentive for people to buy their own homes by giving them a portion of equity to go to the bank with. I don’t know if that’s still in existence or not.

The other point regarding social housing is that you’d indicated that there are about 39 older units that exist. Whether that’s just one community or throughout the NWT, there are elders that have lived in their homes for a long time. They’ve raised their family there. Now they’re living on their own and they continue to pay rent and some of them are appalled, basically, that they’re not given the option of either buying their home outright or at least given credit for their homes.

I wanted to at least get an indication from the Minister that these things have been contemplated in terms of meeting the needs of elders. That’s my first point. I want to seek some information from the Minister.