Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to pick off my colleagues talked about housing. I was just listening to what they were saying and when business plans go whether it's based on needs and when I take a look at the operational expenses of 121 million and 145 -- $125,145,000, and then you take a look at on the contribution agreement side it's $62 million. So far, the Housing Corporation's getting $183 million and yet our communities in Wiilideh -- in Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh there's $5.4 million just to fix up the Housing Corporation assets.
You know, I'm still not too happy for the fact that here we are, we're asking money what we need for our communities for housing but yet, you know -- I want to bring forward what I think is needed for our communities for homeownership and homeownership repairs in our communities but, you know, we've been at this for 50 years and I'm not sure why the Housing Corporation doesn't have proper needs assessments for all the communities, especially in our riding and throughout the Northwest Territories, but yet here we are today we're looking at adding another $78 million here. So I don't know.
I think with AFN, like I said earlier, they had a housing shortage right across Canada of 45,000 in 2003, and here we are 20 some odd years later and, you know, back in 1999, when I first talked about this was -- and 2003 AFN, I had that much, but here in the North, we have 4,500 homes short. If anything, we should be double that now but we're now going backwards. So I don't understand how the GNWT could go forward and say okay, well, this is based on your need but yet nobody goes into our communities and talked to us. I mean, I've been the Chief. I hear it in the communities, old housing. And housing repairs, nothing. We're only going to fix up your ask is a $5.4 million. But we got a lot of houses -- we got 540 houses in Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh riding and they -- a lot of these guys are -- I get messages every day. I got a -- I got a client -- a constituent in Lutselk'e that has sewage in their bathtub. And yet they apply for funding, yet they get turned down because they make too much or they don't make enough. So the barrier here is your policies that are prohibiting our people from getting help. So I -- I don't know. I'm really not too happy when I see numbers like this, and yet you're -- you know, here we are, you got the -- your operation expenses is about $121 million. So something has to give here. I'm not happy. I'm not happy where this government's going, especially in housing. We're going backwards. We're nowhere near filling the gap of the 4,500 homes. Times it by two, probably about 9,000 homes here in Northwest Territories that need help. So your need, maybe you could elaborate a little bit more so I understand how you could ask for another $78 million to address your needs. Maybe you could help me explain that. Thank you.