Thank you.
When you go to the communities and you see the number of houses compared to the number of people living there, you know there is a severe housing shortage. The number of housing units needs to increase. I know the government is the largest landlord in most of the communities. They don't even have enough money to upgrade the houses to standard.
Money is good, but how much? As Gord said, the money that comes into the north to build a one-bedroom or three-bedroom apartment is about two times the cost in Winnipeg, for example. You can build two houses in Winnipeg for the cost of building one here in the north. Money helps. If we can get the money to increase the number of units in the communities, that would help a lot.
When you look at Inuvik, for example, you have families that don't have places to stay. They tend to travel down to Yellowknife because it's a big city and they might get an apartment. They might get other resources. They might get counselling services. They might get treatment services, those kinds of things. If they don't have anywhere to stay and they come here and have a friend or someone to stay with for a while, they choose that.
Yellowknife is short of houses, as are all the communities around the north, both in NWT and in Nunavut.
It's a really basic need, but if we provide enough money to build those houses for four people, I believe that will solve a lot of problems. At least a basic need will be met. At least families will have a place to put their heads, a place where they can take the time to gather their energy to take care of their families.