Mahsi. Are there any further comments? Ms. Nokleby.

Yeah, just quickly something my colleague said made we wonder. If we want to get out of leases, because we're trying to get them into smaller -- or sort of get more landlords involved in our portfolio, for lack of a better word, but yet we have a housing deficit, I don't understand then why we wouldn't just turn around and lease more spaces to have more housing units. Why do we need to remove leases to add new leases and not just have more spaces as needed. Thank you.

Mahsi. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll have President Young respond. Thank you.

Ms. Young.

Mahsi. Ms. Nokleby.

Yeah, I probably didn't maybe explain my question right; it's been a very long day. So I guess why would we not add more leases? I'm not talking about like so we would actually need more money, not saying that can we free up any money by doing this. More of a sense of, like, is there -- if there really is -- and I mean, I guess I'm answering my own question because I don't think you're really going to find any spaces so it's probably a moot point. But I think if we have people on a waiting list and we have the ability to enter into new leases, then we should be doing that to just get people housed. But, again, maybe that's more of a comment, Mr. Chair. I don't know if the department wants to answer. Thanks.

Mahsi. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll take that as a comment.

Any further questions?

Actually, this might be a little bit of leeway as well but since my colleague brought up the security at these apartments -- and it is my understanding the security that has been jointly hired does look after several of the apartments, not just one building in particular. But it is my understanding that the more specialized firm that had been hired earlier on coming from Alberta was -- is no longer being contracted and it's back to northern security firms. Could the Minister or department confirm if that is truly the case? Thank you.

Mahsi. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll have vice-president Jim Martin respond.

Mr. Martin.

Mahsi. Ms. Nokleby.

Yeah, my question was is that southern firm still being contracted for this work, or has it gone back to a northern companies that don't have necessarily the same specialized training as that southern firm had? Thank you.

Mahsi. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll have vice-president Jim Martin respond. Thank you.

Mr. Martin.

Mahsi. Ms. Nokleby.

Thank you. And yeah, and I do appreciate that at the time when we -- you know, I was raising this issue and the department was responding, and the reason to bring in that southern firm was that training but, you know, as that goes farther, and I hear that we're looking at this contract and this arrangement, I feel that maybe the best way to maybe go forward, and perhaps you have to pull the colleague in from ECE or something is to help -- or to ITI, is to, you know, help develop the local firms to have that capacity in the North to do that more critical risk control type work, which does, you know, require specific types of training that just aren't available.

I do want to note that I have looked and seen the security guard position posted for our largest lease provider, or largest landlord, and it's like, I want to say the salary range is, like, $18 to $23 an hour full-time. So I can't remember what that worked out to but it was, like, I want to say $60,000 max maybe, not even, for some of it. And for that level of pay to be doing that level of work is just unacceptable and, really, I think is a liability. So more, again, of a comment. But I really feel that rather than us saying this is a problem, we can't deal with it and I don't like security guards there, however, let's try to develop that northern people -- and I'm happy to hear -- but I don't want to see the answer be that that company comes up and sets up another shop and that competes with four other firms that are operating here already. So while it's great they're hiring local, you know, I would rather see we build that capacity into the northern firms. Thank you, Mr. Chair.