Thank you for that.
Yes, there is a gap. When you think about a territory the size of.... Think about 49 communities in northern Ontario. Many of those are fly-in, and many of those are accessible only when the river ice has broken. Some of those are accessible only by winter roads. That tells you how difficult transportation is.
The other challenge to that is that building and construction materials need to be trucked in over the ice roads during the winter or shipped in by barge when the waters are open. All of that compounds the cost of building materials. A couple of years ago, I heard an estimate that the cost for an ordinary three-bedroom bungalow in the far north was $700,000. It wasn't a fancy or big house by any means. It was just a plain, ordinary, little three-bedroom bungalow for $700,000. That was three years ago. With the rates of inflation the way they are, who knows what that number is now. What's happening is that housing affordability is beyond the reach of many people, in particular women.
One of the questions you want to ask yourself when you're working with this is, what do we need? It's not, what do we want? "What do we want" tells you that you should have a three-car garage and a swimming pool. “What do we need” tells you this: Can I have a door that locks at night? Can I be warm when I wake up the next morning? Can I have a window to look out of? Is there a place I can cook, wash and sit and enjoy my book?
The big question is the difference between need and want. As I drive around here in the south, I see so many examples of want, want, want, and the destruction of natural resources just because of want. It's heartbreaking.
I'm sorry. I wish I had a better answer, but there it is.