Thank you, Madam Speaker. When providing public housing, the government should not be paying market rent. However, Madam Speaker, as we know, right now in order to get a income housing allowance you must be placed on a public housing waitlist. Why is this? It's because we know providing people housing in public housing we own is cheeper than paying market rent. Yet despite this, presently income assistance is paying market rent for 885 people at a cost of $7.3 million a year. Additionally, our own Housing Corporation is paying another $3 million in market rent to Northview instead of building public housing, Madam Speaker. We need to build and own and operate more public housing.

We hear this continued concern about operations and maintenance. Where are we going to find the O and M money? Well, it's in the ECE income assistance budget presently, Madam Speaker. There is $7.3 million of operating money that we are giving to private landlords, predominantly in Yellowknife, predominantly to Northview, which could be hundreds of public housing units built. I will have questions for the Minister of Housing about whether and when we are going to build some more public housing and actually put an end to our public housing waitlist which, right now, is simply being paid at market rents well above what the rate should be. We save money by building housing. We save it in health, we save it in justice, and we save it in income assistance. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

---Applause