Madam Chair, thank you.
It's great to see ESDC and CMHC friends. I had the great privilege of working with some of you in my first year in Parliament as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Social Development.
I was in fact at the meeting in which Evan Siddall first threw out the idea of a set-aside for women and girls, which we then implemented in policy and in the budget. I'm interested in how we're tracking and monitoring to ensure that we're doing what we say we will do.
The other issue a number of colleagues are interested in is why universal design isn't mandatory. Thinking 20 or 30 years down the line, we would have to retrofit anyway. This is pushing that efficiency up front. I know we have those kinds of provisions for LEED buildings, green buildings and that sort of thing.
Then I have a question for Ms. Holden regarding senior centres and the battle against loneliness, particularly among senior women. I see it very strongly in my own community. Seniors' centres are popping up. They can barely pay their expenses; they're really struggling. Do you have any suggestions for supporting these centres? A $25,000 grant just doesn't cut it.
An organization that will be appearing before us, Pembina Active Living, has just received one. They're delighted and are going to do good things with it, but we really need more of these centres, to have, as they say, “a place to go, a place to grow.”