Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
In listening to both witnesses, I do want to highlight two areas, and I want to make a point to Mr. Quesnel and Mr. Bailey that having your testimony as part of our final report is very important to us.
Therefore, I am going to open the door wide for you to give that testimony with respect to housing investments and how important it is to leverage those investments with health care investments, education investments and economic development investments. Equally important as part of overall community planning are the infrastructure investments vis-à-vis the growth-related investments that would be needed to complement housing investments: water, sewer, roads, sidewalks, parks, emergency services, recreation and the list goes on.
I have two questions. One—and Mr. Quesnel, you touched on it, something I'm a fan of—is the First Nations Fiscal Management Act and allowing an opportunity for communities to borrow—“debenture” or whatever you want to call it—to leverage the money the government has given them to then accelerate those investments that need to be made.
First, opening the door to you, is to take the opportunity to comment on that so we can get that into the testimony and how important it is to allow that change to happen under the act and to then leverage those monies.
Mr. Bailey, I'd like you to comment a bit more on health care. You mentioned it earlier, but I want to give you an opportunity and open the door for you to comment on health care because we do know that housing is a key social determinant of health, and I'd like you to comment on that.
Mr. Quesnel, how about we start off with you on the financial levers?