Because we are a relatively small community, we're very intimate with so many of the people we see living in these types of environments. As I mentioned, my career as a psychiatric nurse certainly allows me to see another end of society that really doesn't get the advocacy it truly needs. We see that many of our people are retained in hospitals simply because of a lack of resources that should be out there. As the mayor of a city that has a mental health centre as its third-largest contributor to our economic engine, I would be remiss if I didn't take the time to say, “Gentle people, we have to come together with some kind of strategy that offers affordable housing at such a broad-based level.”
I have a young nephew who has three young children and is working in a $12 or $14-an-hour job. What kind of home is he going to be able to buy? What are some of the impacts for him in terms of his life? If you want to talk about child care, I can talk child care intimately with you here. If you want to talk about a university education.... I'm telling him to go to school. He's asking how to do it. It really is a crisis.
I know the aboriginal piece well, too; I'm part aboriginal, as are my young nephews. We're living this whole piece. We're coming to you saying that affordable housing is a huge piece that needs to be addressed. You're absolutely correct. If the gentleman next to you were to offer me $2 million or $3 million, you can bet that's the first place we'd be heading, to put some more affordable housing....
Are you going to do it?
It would be to put it into our community, along with retrofitting what is already there. Only in the last couple of years have we seen some of the senior complexes starting to get new windows, new doors, and new appropriate retrofits—as you say, those kinds of things that keep the cold out.