Masi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this Valentine's Day, when many people were receiving chocolates and flowers from their sweethearts, the Yellowknife Women's Society received a very bitter present indeed. The women's society was told by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that they would not receive funding for a social housing conversion project dear to the hearts of many Yellowknifers and dear, also, to the hearts of the people in my riding of Monfwi. The Arnica Inn project would have provided small, self-contained apartments for 42 of the 338 disadvantaged people, Mr. Speaker, who are currently living without housing in Yellowknife. Many of them come from my hometown of Behchoko and Monfwi riding.

The reason the Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation turned down the application was that the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation was not prepared to contribute its required 25 percent of the capital costs, an amount totalling $660,000. For that trifling sum, we could have leveraged upwards of $4 million from the federal funding for homeless Northerners.

Our share spread over the project's 42 self-contained apartments, would have cost this government $16,000 per unit. Mr. Speaker, you would think that a government that cares about homelessness would jump at such a great deal. Yet, astoundingly, the territorial housing corporation didn't respond to the society's request for support, let alone offer to help.

Mr. Speaker, this raises questions in the House, and from the public, as well, about the concerns of people living out on the streets in the capital city, Yellowknife. I intend to question the Minister of Housing at a later time regarding this very important matter for my constituents. Masi.