Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Actually, Mr. Schmale brought up some great points. There's a whole different discussion we can get into with respect to long-term financing, debentures, etc., which can actually attach to what Ms. Pfoh was talking about with respect to the money that's needed.
I do want to preface my comments to all of you by saying, first of all, thank you for being here this afternoon. At the last session of Parliament, HUMA, the human resources committee, tabled a report recommending the creation of an urban, rural and northern housing strategy. With this, after the last election, our government appointed obviously our first ever Minister of Housing. As well, part of his mandate letter in December gave him a mandate to co-develop and implement a dedicated urban, rural and northern housing strategy with now Minister of Indigenous Services Canada, Minister Hajdu.
That's what we're working on now. We're working on co-developing the strategy for indigenous communities both on and off reserve. I want to open up the discussion, because it is timely—before the budget, and with them working on that strategy—and have some thoughts from all of you with respect to your input.
By the way, we're not going to try to fit this into four minutes. I will open up my door and my phone line for further discussion on this, as the parliamentary secretary for ISC.
Starting with the mayor, I'd like to hear some quick thoughts on that strategy as well as on the 41% of indigenous housing we're looking at moving forward with in the rapid housing initiative.
Did we lose Mayor Bell?