Ms. Boutin-Sweet, thank you for your question and for your support of our sector. I will reply to you in English.
When operating agreements expire, and as I've said, that has already begun—we've already seen approximately 800 agreements expire just in the past year or so—providers are essentially scratching their heads and figuring what they do now. A lot of work has been undertaken by individual providers, hopefully trying to scale that up to look at some innovative solutions to diversify the operations of social housing units such that they can continue to operate subsidized housing for their tenants.
For example, we're seeing greater use of mixed income units, possibly commercial space. I should add that this ties back to the conversation that was just had regarding the private equity funds and the private market. Some proposals are now starting to be developed, including a proposal that will be going to the gouvernement du Québec to use, or to try to leverage private equity to essentially bring that into the social housing sphere, in other words, to use some of that private money for social infrastructure. Quebec is going to be recommending a proposal in that area.
Innovative solutions are occurring on a more local and grassroots level. More are being looked at as providers are looking into the future and realizing their expiries are coming up, but what we need, and this goes to our third recommendation, is essentially an ability and some capacity to scale up some of those innovative solutions. For example, one of the deliverables from the mandate letters was the concept of an infrastructure bank and could that potentially be another source to diversify the operation of social housing.
Several options are being implemented, being considered, being studied, but essentially we need to scale them up. We need to leverage them so they are not just grassroots initiatives. They can be copied. Their best practices can be shared across the country.