Thank you for the question.
I'm not in a position to offer a definition of “rural” for you on the spot here, but I wouldn't take issue at all with the way you described it.
We do have very different markets, as you know, across the country. Housing policy has to respect and reflect those different regional realities. That's one of the things that make housing policy not only very exciting but also extremely complicated.
I'll say a couple of things about that. In Build Canada Homes, which is, as you know, the new organization that has been established, we have adopted an income-based approach to affordability, which has been discussed at committee today and which will enable, I think, a better match. When projects take place in rural areas, it will be the local market's average income rate that will be the basis upon which things like the affordability levels will be changed, so that will be very positive.
The question about rolling this out across all programs is, I think, a bit more complicated. First off, the programs are all in stream at this point, and the affordability definition, the market definition, is not a second- or third-level factor. As the Auditor General pointed out, it's kind of a core piece of it. If you change the affordability levels, then you really need to look at what the fiscal allocation of resources is to those programs, because you will get fewer units and your targets will change. It has a significant impact on it.
Where we have been focused for the last number of months, since a new government was elected, has really been around Build Canada Homes. The focus there is on having not a programmatic approach to doing housing, but actually an investment-based approach, which will be a lot more flexible to exactly the kinds of considerations that you're bringing forward, which I agree with.