Mr. Speaker, I hope I will have some good news for the member in the context of this speech which addresses a very important issue that she brings up. How do we ensure that our Canadian Forces men and women and their families have the best homes, the best accommodation, and the best living conditions that we can afford to give them? That is our objective.
The members that we are dealing with, whether they live in Canadian Forces housing or rent or own private homes in their communities, must be dealt with in the fairest fashion possible. That is why we have invested more than $400 million to repair, maintain and address health and safety issues for housing since 1998. For example, the Department of National Defence has replaced furnaces, re-insulated homes, improved drainage and sewer systems, and installed new doors, windows and roofs where required.
There is no question though that more has to be done and that is our objective. There is much more that we can do and are doing, which is quite exciting. We will invest an additional $120 million to renovate, improve and maintain military housing over the next three years. I think that is good news. All rental income is reinvested back into housing through the modernization program and upgrades.
However, we are looking at the housing issue as part of a much broader package. The member is right when she talks about others, such as the PLD and other benefits that CF members are receiving, including pay raises, which should happen very soon. Hopefully, they will be quite pleased with what is coming down the pipe.
In recent years, the government has also introduced tax exemptions for Canadian Forces members serving in high-risk operations, such as Afghanistan, and has introduced new operational allowances, such as the post-combat reintegration assistance program. The government continues to overhaul the system by which we remunerate CF members and their benefits. We will continue to do that for their benefit. We have also introduced five new operational trauma and stress support cases across Canada.
I want to also bring to the member's attention that we are working on ways to ensure that the CF members and their families will receive better health care. We are working on this right now with the minister and the department. That should be quite exciting. The government has also provided substantial pay increases, as we know. Our non-commissioned members alone have received a total pay increase of more than 35% since 1996.
The post living differential that the member referred to is something that we have been dealing with for a long time. It is essentially a cost of living allowance. It is a pool of funds that increases according to the increase in the cost of living for the general public. We hope to ensure that continues. We tried to use that in conjunction with a series of other opportunities and options to ensure that our CF members and their families receive the highest remuneration that is affordable to the taxpayer.