Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses.
I'd like to start off by echoing Mr. Savage's comments about the work of the Senate, especially Senator Kirby's report and the creation of the Mental Health Commission. A lot of this is tied in with the issue of homelessness and the social challenges we face, from small rural communities to large urban metropolitan cities, throughout our great country.
I had nine years of good experience in local government and spent several years with the housing committee working with those grassroots organizations you mentioned. They have wonderful ideas, passionate volunteers, in many cases, and some employees.
You mentioned a national housing strategy perspective and doing it on a macro basis. I had a conversation with one of the city councillors on the weekend who spent many years in our community with the Society of Hope, a not-for-profit. He totally disagrees with the idea of a national housing strategy, because one size doesn't fit all. If you're looking at what's good for Saskatchewan, it doesn't work in Ontario or British Columbia. Speaking specifically for B.C., we have BC Housing, which works really well. They have a good working relationship between the federal and provincial levels.
I just wanted to maybe get a little feedback, from your perspective. One of the challenges provincially is that they don't want tied aid. It is almost like when foreign aid was tied, and we got rid of that. They don't want to have conditions on their social transfers. But I see, reading the report, that it more or less pins down the province: if we're going to give them money from the federal government, they have to allocate it to a specific expenditure.
Is that what some of your thoughts are?