Thank you, Mr. Chair. The user pay electricity was put over a three-year period. I think that this was the last year of it, where public housing tenants are now paying their electricity bills. As the Minister mentioned, it is moving towards self-reliance, and eventually even preparing some of these tenants who want to get into homeownership. You have to pay your O and M costs for your house if you are a homeowner, so it is preparing people for the future.
One of the big things as a corporation that we have done over the years is making sure that all of our repairs and all of our new bills are very highly energy-efficient units, and the whole reason for that is to cut down on our operation and maintenance costs. That is ongoing, and it is a requirement under some of the new federal programming dollars, as well, that energy efficiency is a top priority when you make these investments.
We want to make sure that the tenants are self-reliant and are prepared to take some ownership in their home. It is going to improve their tenancy. One of the things that we say as a government is that we have the cheapest rents. In most jurisdictions, the rent is based on 30 percent of their household income. Our rates are based on 19 percent of the household income, so that is a big difference between the other jurisdictions. We are just having tenants pay some of their own way. Thank you, Mr. Chair.