Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The first question was about the people and how they are selected. They are not selected. This is strictly their choice. They have the option to go live in the economy, as we say, in the private sector, or to come and ask for a house from the agency locally. That's strictly their choice.
In terms of your technical question about how the rent is assessed, up to 2013, the rents were assessed by CMHC. That's not just for DND. It was the appraisal by the official appraiser, if you like, for all crown housing, including the houses owned by the RCMP, or Parks Canada, and so on. There was a whole process for how to assess them. We were working with CMHC identifying benchmarks on some typical houses and adjusting the rest of the portfolio. The rent was established that way, compared with the local market. That was the basis of assessing all the housing. It has to be in accordance with the market rate and according to policy.
Since 2013, when CMHC decided not to provide appraisal services anymore, we've been applying, starting with the values that CMHC provided at the time, the latest. We are now applying the consumer price index, which is the escalation factor that we use. We apply it across all the sites, and other departments are doing the same thing as an interim measure until we are told by Treasury Board—it's a Treasury Board policy—