Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. member's speech. I did catch what she talked about, the importance of home ownership in Canada, which many of us believe in. It is important for many reasons, whether for enhancing the family, sense of ownership, pride and so on.
She mentioned the necessity for CMHC to be involved specifically in lending money to build homes on native reserves. I agree with the member it is very important for people to own their own land. I would like to see the right to own property entrenched in the Constitution, something we do not have constitutionally now.
I wonder if the member thinks it would be useful to allow natives on reserves to actually own the land. Then they could mortgage it and put houses on the land, just as everyone else does in Canada. It is a bit of a problem. The federal government is the only lender which will guarantee those mortgages because the natives do not own the land they live on in fee simple.
She talked about the pride of home ownership. I wonder if it would not be a move in the right direction to allow natives to own the reserves in fee simple so they could then take out mortgages like any other Canadian and have the pride of ownership she spoke about earlier.