Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to welcome the Minister of the Department here today. As I said in some of my past comments when we have been doing either operational budgets or now capital budgets, and it’s hard sometimes to get these types of comments out of the Member for Range Lake, but I do appreciate where this department has been going. There has been a progression of success. There has been a transparency of information to the committee, which on all accounts, when we ask, is delivered on time and with the proper detail. So I applaud the Minister, I applaud the Housing Corp for really moving up, I believe, true to their word in wanting to do a very collaborative and consensus style approach. First and foremost I was going to make sure I echo those words.
I am very pleased to see that the current budget for capital has a number of new units in the seniors and caretaker area. It is important to me because I have been trying to raise the awareness. We have a number of new reports out there, you know, Our Elders: Our Communities, Aging in Place, the Continuing Care. We all know that we are going to be faced, in the very near future, with areas of concern with enough facilities for our seniors and our elders.
My first general question, seeing the fact that I know Fort McPherson here seems to be a benefactor as well as Whati, and I think there is another small unit in Tuktoyaktuk, how does the department come up with their strategy and framework for dealing with literally the large investment that will probably be required to deal with our aging senior population when it comes to infrastructure of facilities? Thank you, Mr. Chair.