Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, everyone, for being here this morning.
I too was going to get into the property management aspect, because there's just so many things, among others, that shout out from the page. The fact is that so few units, fewer than 1,000 units, were actually updated, renovated, or whatever over a period of what looked like close to 10 years. I may be be corrected on that, but I saw that. When I look at a stock of 12,000 units, with an average lifespan of 10 to 15 years, that's clearly inadequate.
The resources should be there, because if you're charging market rates, then the rental income should cover repairs. The whole capital spending coming in too late for the construction site.... These are easy things, relatively speaking, to repair, but what I'm really hearing is a classic case of mission drift, and I think that's the root of the problem.
When I hear that housing was being given to support veterans of the Afghanistan war and their families, essentially it's veterans housing. Of course, we are moved in that direction, but I want to get to the root of the purpose of this military housing. Originally, it was to meet the needs of performing actual military tasks, because they need to be on base to complete their tasks. If you need to provide housing where there is none, such as in a remote area, you need to provide that housing. You need to provide financial support to members in need. Maybe that is a reason, and that needs to be incorporated. Here this morning is the first time I've really heard about that.
If it's to provide a benefit to military members who just happen to be in the right place at the right time, and we're talking about an actual taxable benefit, I'd like to hear from the Auditor General if there's a risk that members are going to be reassessed on below-market rental rates for x number of years—I've seen that happen in other corporate housing situations—then we've really got ourselves into a mess. I would like to have some comments on this. Has that really been addressed? The purpose of the agency in providing the housing is not to make money, but it's not to lose money, and it is to provide effective housing. So what's it going to be?