Thank you, Mr. Ouellet.
The problem emerges from the Canada-Ontario affordable housing agreement, which is similar to the agreements that are signed between the federal government and every other province and which defines affordability using the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's private rental market survey.
Affordable housing is defined as the rent that a private landlord charges for a unit. That, in fact, is not affordable, as you well know, Mr. Ouellet; it's simply what landlords charge to tenants. Many tenants cannot afford private rents, and that is one of the reasons we have a very serious housing problem across the country. However, all of the federal-provincial agreements, in their affordability definition, set that as the benchmark. That's why, when we finally got the federal government to release some information about what actual rents were being charged, we were disturbed but not particularly surprised to find that they're just barely below the private market rents.
We're providing a subsidy. I could tell you the exact subsidy that the federal government is providing in Ontario for those 1,000 units. It is $26.5 million in the fiscal year 2007-08. For that, we're achieving rents that are just barely below the average market rent. As I mentioned to you, that means, for many households whose incomes are not sufficient to afford the average private market rent, that this program is not working for them.