The role in affordable housing is really dual. Often people look towards the private sector in terms of asking how do we get involved with the building of new housing, but the private sector is also heavily involved with current housing. Given the whole element of filtering where people are, the aging housing stock, and the fact that people are moving from different areas and different ages or types of housing, it's crucial for the private sector to be involved. And frankly, they're interested because they own the hard assets of the housing.
For instance, when discussions come forward on Canada's aging population, there will be a shift in the desire for types of housing. Certainly the private sector is fully involved, needs to be involved, and can't avoid being involved in movements towards conversion of housing from single-family dwellings to different or mixed housing and towards keeping seniors in place and all of those items. The vast majority of Canadians are living in private housing and we're involved in that sense.
Regarding how to maintain the private sector, it's certainly important to share the information and to be receptive to discussions with the private sector. As was mentioned in the presentation, the private sector is best able to provide the shelter component of housing, and a number of municipalities are moving forward, in that how do we have government assist with the supportive elements of the broader sense of housing so as to use the private stock?
Again, to answer the question more directly of how the private sector gets involved, well, it's by making it profitable for the private sector, by demonstrating to the private sector the benefits of being involved, and frankly, because a gigantic portion of the cost of housing is borne by government, by tax policies in addition to income support policies. So we need to work with the private sector on lowering those costs so that we can provide housing that is more affordable, especially on the moderate—