Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, the Member is asking my opinion whether I think it’s right. All I can say is that public housing units are charged the government water rate, which is three times the actual residential rate.

Mr. Chairman, I have Jeff Anderson and Revi Lau-a with me.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, we will do a little bit of digging and find out what we have in terms of documents that could shed some light on the questions that the Member is raising. Mr. Chairman, once again, it should be clear that we only carry the balance of what the federal government is paying and what we are paying, so there is $23 million that goes against the debt wall and the rest is covered by the feds.

Mr. Chairman, we will ask Mr. Anderson, who has been dealing with this issue, to respond.

Mr. Chairman, the Market Housing Program was set up so that we could buy a number of mobile units, waive the BIP policy on it and put them in the communities where there was a demand and have them available for operation by the LHOs and/or for sale. That was the design of it. I think we bought 42 units overall over a couple of years and then didn’t carry it out any longer. The housing for staff is more towards trying to provide incentive to communities, development corporations and businesses in the communities, band councils or municipal councils to invest into providing units for people that...

Mr. Chairman, we’ll have Mr. Anderson explain the details of the $39 million.

Thank you. To demonstrate, I am willing to live with the will of this House. I was considering abstaining but…

---Laughter

Mr. Chairman, I think the time has come that we have to introduce new technology, whether it is BlackBerries or laptops. I think we should try it out and really monitor how well it works. If it is something that we need to introduce for the long term, then we will do that. We need to make sure that we police it well. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, that has been looked at in various manners including with the Auditor General, so we totally agree that the finance recommendation is correct.

Mr. Chairman, no, it doesn’t. There is still $60 million earmarked for this coming year that is carried over.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We had anticipated that we would be part of the process for next year, so that is what we are working towards.