Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to ask two questions.
As many of the witnesses recognized, the budget was released yesterday. There are two areas of the budget that I was most interested in, as the parliamentary secretary for Indigenous Services. One relates in particular to housing off reserve, in the urban and rural areas. It was announced yesterday that $300 million in urban and rural housing is going to be brought forward.
I was interested in some of the comments made by other panellists earlier on. I want to clarify one thing and then ask a question.
The one thing I want to clarify was the comment made about the programming being “controlled” by the CMHC. I think that was the word that was used. That's, in fact, not the case. Unfortunately, the federal government doesn't have a department of housing and therefore we delegate and/or count on the CMHC to be a flow-through for the monies we would otherwise be putting towards those programs. In this case, that's what they are—a flow-through.
It's imperative that as the money flows through, we hear from the indigenous community to ensure and/or move forward with the recommendations that are brought to us by the indigenous community.
I think the question might be appropriately given to Ms. Smith. I will aim this question at you.
Can you elaborate on some of the specific strategies that you can see some of these dollars going to? How would it be rolled out to these different objectives in the urban and rural housing environment?