Bill C-400 (Historical)

Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act

An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians

The purpose of this enactment is to require the Minister responsible for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to consult with the provincial ministers of the Crown responsible for municipal affairs and housing and with representatives of municipalities, Aboriginal communities, non-profit and private sector housing providers and civil society organizations in order to establish a national housing strategy.

Housing

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, although we share some of the same concerns and agree on certain issues, I invite the parliamentary secretary to take note of some of the constructive bills that the NDP has introduced to help people gain access to safe and affordable housing.

I am talking about Bill C-241, which seeks to recognize an individual's right to proper housing at a reasonable cost, and Bill C-400, which seeks to ensure secure, adequate, accessible, and affordable housing.

Having been the head of a community housing organization for more than 10 years, I am well aware of the different roles of municipal, provincial, and federal governments. I worked in the world of social housing for more than 10 years. I expect great things from the federal government when it comes to social housing. I saw thousands of young people benefit from social housing and saw how it gave them what they needed to get ahead in life.

Economic Action Plan 2015 Act No. 1

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to what is called the 2015 budget. However, to my perspective, it is actually the 2017 budget because none of the money for cities will arrive for two years.

We will hear in conversations from the other side about how the Conservatives have put all kinds of money into cities through the gas tax. I would remind everybody here that this was a Paul Martin Liberal Party initiative. To take credit for it is to give us credit for forward thinking.

However, the budget has been described by the minister on the other side continually in question period as having three Ts, and I agree with him. There are three Ts. This budget is totally useless, totally unnecessary and totally unfair. For cities, nothing highlights this more than the housing promises.

There is a provision in the budget bill to forgive mortgages held by CMHC taken out by public housing providers and to put a fund in place to pay off the penalties for discharging mortgages and refinancing, and that is taking up a second mortgage with a second, private sector lender. What is not detailed, but has now come out through questioning, is that when public housing providers take advantage of this so-called opportunity, they lose their subsidies for the rent-geared-to-income units in those buildings. In other words, they would give up a mortgage, take on a new mortgage and somehow, magically, would be expected to finance subsidies for low-income seniors, people with disabilities and other individuals who need assistance. They would actually end up spending more money, relieving the federal government's obligation to people who need housing.

That is the most cynical bait and switch I have ever seen on the housing file. What it ends up situating is one of two opportunities. Either low-income Canadians are subsidizing the government so it can provide tax cuts for affluent Canadians, literally Robin Hood in reverse; or else, the housing providers are given an opportunity to refinance the housing, but in doing so they send the poorest in the housing sector out onto the streets. Out west in Manitoba, where the minister resides, most of those people, close to 5,000 of them, are seniors on fixed incomes. Putting those people at risk is unfair. The fund is totally useless and the response to the needs of the housing sector is totally unreal.

However, it is not just that. There is a promise of $1.7 billion being spent every year as a result of provincial and federal agreements. The Conservatives said that would be continued, that there would be no cuts to this program. They know damn well that those funds actually shrink year after year as subsidies disappear and as mortgages expire. The suggestion is that because they would have no mortgage, they could somehow have a poor neighbour subsidize a less affluent, even poorer neighbour. That is just not fair.

What is really cruel about this is that the assumption is that because housing providers have retired their mortgage they can finally find sums to pay for the subsidy. The truth of the matter is that the funds that are needed when these mortgages retire are there for state of good repair. Because there is no federal capital funding to repair old and aging housing stock, the money that suddenly becomes available to housing providers is dedicated for that, not for subsidies for other poor people. It is the most regressive way of running a housing program we have ever seen.

We have a housing policy, and that policy is more than a plan to have a plan. It involves partnering with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funding directly, through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, to create supportive housing programs with an endowment. The second part of that is to renew the co-op and housing agreements and to step back into the housing market, but then also to take those savings as they accrue to the department and reinvest them once again in sustaining and building more co-op and affordable housing across the country.

The final piece of this is that with a shrinking CMHC and pulling CMHC out of the housing market, we also need to ensure we do not just focus on affordable housing but housing affordability. That housing affordability is critical in places like Calgary, Saskatoon and Edmonton where, because of the drop in commodity prices, the housing market has suddenly become very fragile. We need a federal government that protects middle-class homeowners, access to rental housing and access to the market for first-time buyers. Instead, what we get is some sort of laissez-faire attitude that says “do what you will”. We have not indexed, for example, the tax breaks for first-time homebuyers, so it is still stuck in the 1980s model as opposed to being updated annually and making housing accessible to everyone who wants to gain that opportunity.

These programs need to arrive. The government on the other side has no program other than to pull money out fo the public housing sector and use it to subsidize tax breaks to the affluent.

The NDP, to its credit, has a plan but it is only a plan to have a plan. If we read Bill C-400, we see it is to have a big meeting. There are no actual specifics as to how to solve the housing crisis in the country.

When we speak about it and folks criticize an earlier government, they are fine to go off and build a time machine, and go back and prosecute that election. It is time to start building housing in the country and the Liberal plan would do that. This budget does not address one iota of that.

On transit, it is even sillier. There is no money for two years and then it comes in dribs and drabs. The program the government has proposed is too big for small cities and too small for big cities, and it will not get transit built in a timely way. Cities need that money now, and not just for new projects. The state of good repair in places like Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver is a critical issue facing urban centres. Without additional dollars, not earmarked for ribbon-cutting exercises but earmarked for the development and sustaining of existing transit systems, those transit systems will fail.

Stepping in and providing that revenue is critically important today, not in two or three years' time. If it arrives in two or three years' time, the new transit does not arrive for five to ten years, and that is not a response to gridlock. In fact, what the Conservative government is saying with this budget is, “Wait at the side of the road. Wait for the bus for two or three more years. Wait, wait, wait, we'll get to you at some point”, because right now it is more important not to provide the assistance to cities for which they have asked.

Finally on infrastructure, two years ago there was a 90% cut. Last year, there were zero dollars in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, and small communities and small towns right across the country. The odd dollar arrived, but the bulk of the program, once again, is back-end loaded for 10 years. For critical infrastructure, to build strong cities, in which close to 82% of Canadians live, there is no new money in this budget. There is not a new timetable. It is absolutely unacceptable, and the cities know this.

This budget has to change, and it has to change to support those very programs I just mentioned. If it does not change, cities will not grow, our country will stagnate, and 82% of all Canadians will see their cities fail as the government promises tax cuts that, quite frankly, do not even address the socio-economic needs of the people who live in those cities. This is a huge problem and it needs to change and it needs to change with a go-forward argument, not a debate about what happened 25 years ago.

[Ève Péclet, NDP, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the member may not be familiar with our many initiatives, because he had not yet been elected at the time, but the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot introduced Bill C-400, which is precisely our proposal for a national social housing strategy. I invite the member to look it up online to see the details of our plan.

My colleague from Hochelaga introduced a bill before Parliament calling on the government to continue to invest in rent subsidies, thereby maintaining the agreements. I invite the member to also look that up online for more details, and to consult the NDP website to learn more about our plans. We have concrete plans. We have brought them before the House, and the government refused to support them.

Finance

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway for that very important question.

Affordable housing is definitely one of the biggest losers in this budget. Many organizations have condemned the lack of adequate funding. None of the recommendations coming out of the pre-budget consultations really address this issue in any meaningful way, despite the fact that we heard witnesses talk about the importance of investing in housing and express disappointment in the federal government's lack of interest in this issue.

Also, in our supplementary report, we specifically talked about how the government should take immediate action to address the affordable housing crisis facing Canadian municipalities by renewing social housing agreements and working to develop and implement a national housing strategy as proposed by Bill C-400.

Unfortunately, the government did not pay attention to that recommendation, which is a real shame because the affordable housing crisis is affecting the whole country and is not getting any real attention from the federal government.

Housing

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on October 29, I asked the minister about homelessness in Canada, about homelessness strategies that the government was not employing and the fact that homelessness was getting worse, not better, under the government. The minister's answer was somewhat glib and somewhat non-specific to what has become a crisis in our country.

Homelessness costs Canadians $7 billion. Beyond that, there is a critical housing shortage.

When my colleague presented Bill C-400 in the House last year, the Conservatives voted against it because they that said it would cost $6.2 billion. The purpose of that bill was to find a way to ensure that everyone in our country had a home. The $6.2 billion is less than $7 billion, so it would have been cheaper for the government to have adopted Bill C-400.

In my riding of York South—Weston, close to half the residents are renters and of those, more than 36% spend more than 30% of their income on housing, which is the standard by which the government and the banks determine when people are spending too much. Almost 90% of the renters living in those big concrete towers, which is 45% of my riding, have some form of insecurity attached to their housing, yet the government says that everything is fine.

Close to one-third of those renters are in critical risk of homelessness. They have four or more aspects of their housing that is on the edge, that is either insufficient for the number of people in their household or is costing way too much for them. If they miss one paycheque, they and their children will be out on the street, and nobody wants to see that happen.

In the past few years, the government has signalled that it will not renew some 600,000 affordable housing units that are provided through the co-ops that have agreements with CMHC, with the government. These are coming to an end over the coming years. Many of those co-ops will be unable to continue. They have huge bills that have mounted up over the years because they have been living on the edge and they will be unable to continue once that funding ends.

It is almost criminal for the government to suggest that the funding will end, that the money will return to the treasury and that everything will be rosy when in fact, it has admitted, through its responses on Bill C-400, there is a $6.2 billion gap in the housing in our country, a $6.2 billion need for housing. There are 1.2 million households that have some kind of housing need. Those households have an average of $4,779 of need and the government has decided it will not provide it. It is not going to talk about it because it does not want to know. That is no way to address a real problem.

Some answers have been given to us by those who have written the “State of Homelessness in Canada 2014” report. I would like the government to at least consider these recommendations: a new framework agreement that sets clear priorities and requires local planning between the federal, provincial and municipal governments; increased housing first investments that target chronic and episodic homelessness through an expansion of the homelessness partnering strategy; direct investment in affordable housing programs, specifically, federal funding for social housing, co-ops, non-profits, as operating agreements wind down; a housing benefit for those who face a severe affordability problem; a new affordable housing tax credit; and a review and expand involvement in aboriginal housing both on and off reserve.

Child Poverty

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as official opposition critic for Employment and Social Development, I want to thank the member for Scarborough—Rouge River for bringing this important motion forward, especially because this debate falls just a day away from the 25th anniversary of the all-party motion to eradicate child poverty.

At the end of last week, I had the privilege of attending a phenomenal conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which addressed a large component of this motion: affordable and accessible child care. The NDP was the only federal party whose leader was in attendance. I want to take a moment to personally thank the leader of the official opposition for making it his priority to be in attendance.

I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the important announcement made by the leader of the official opposition last month. An NDP government would see no parent in our country paying more than $15 a day for child care and would create one million new child care spaces. That announcement cuts to the very heart of the child care crisis in Canada right now. It cuts to the very heart of child poverty and to the eradication of poverty.

Right now in our country, two parents, working full-time at minimum wage, would struggle to pay for a full-time daycare spot. In Winnipeg last week, the leader of the official opposition said that this was not okay, that it should be no more than $15 a day for accessible, quality daycare. The NDP has also called for a $15 an hour minimum wage for federally regulated employment.

No parent should have to choose between affordability and safety. In 2014, in a beautiful developed country like Canada, one of the top in the G7, it is absolutely flabbergasting that we have child poverty. Unfortunately, eradication of poverty is not a given. Canada ranks 23rd among the countries in the OECD, despite the fact that we like to see ourselves as part of the G20 and the G7.

Not only that, but when it comes to public spending on early learning and child care, Canada ranks dead last among comparable countries. We can do better. Simply put, we do not prioritize our young people and that will have a significant consequence on the future of our country if we do not turn things around.

Currently 900,000 children in Canada are in need of affordable, quality daycare spots. The government promised the creation of 125,000 new spaces in 2006. Where are those spots? Not a single new spot was created.

The importance of quality early childhood education in the development of children cannot be understated. It prevents social exclusion and ensures that every child has an opportunity to develop into a contributing member of our society. Studies suggest that growing up in a household that lacks adequate financial resources for basic family needs has long-term negative impacts.

According to research by Pierre Fortin, Quebec's model of child care has a positive effect on the economy, and we know how much the Conservative government likes to believe it is a good economic manager. More than 70,000 mothers were able to join the workforce and generate a return of $1.75 for every dollar spent on child care.

In 1989, my friend, Ed Broadbent, introduced a motion that was was unanimously passed in the House. All parliamentarians in this place came together and committed to eradicating child poverty, because all of them could agree that one child living in poverty in our country was one child too many, yet here we are. One in seven children currently live in poverty. When we look at aboriginal children, the numbers are bleaker. Two in five aboriginal children live in poverty.

On these numbers alone, I implore all members of the House to stand and support my colleague's motion, but words are not enough. We need to take action. Let us all come together again in a renewed commitment for the betterment of all Canadian children. Surely all members in the House still agree that one child living in poverty is one too many. Surely, with all of the divisions that exist within these walls, we can agree on that.

I want to take a moment to thank a mentor of mine, Laurel Rothman, who has dedicated her career to eradicating child poverty in Canada. I have the deepest respect for her tenacity and dedication. In our short time working together, I have learned so much from her, both factually and ethically. She is my hero in countless ways, and I wish her the very best in her retirement. Laurel is an inspiration and I am a better person and member of Parliament for having worked with her. From the bottom of my heart, I thank her.

The Conservative government has led the country into such a housing crisis that one in four Canadian families spends more than one-third of its overall income on housing. Housing prices in Vancouver, and outskirts like Surrey and Delta, are sky high, yet Canada is still the only country in the G8 without a national housing strategy. I am devastated by that. Housing costs are among the top concerns of my constituents in Surrey, and I am sure the same holds true for the constituents of many members in the House.

The NDP proposed Bill C-400, an act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the government. Had it passed, it would have addressed the plight of 300,000 homeless Canadians and approximately 1.5 million households, many with children, that could not access a decent, affordable home.

For the NDP, a housing strategy that establishes a structured coordination between the federal and provincial levels of government, as well as with other relevant organizations, is of fundamental importance.

The eradication of poverty will only be possible when the national housing crisis is addressed. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is pleading with the Conservative government to invest in long-term funding for affordable and sustainable housing. Due to cuts from the Conservative government, many low-income renters are in a state of panic.

Since the 1970s, low-income renters have received federal subsidies, but the government claws them back and people are left without a solution. In first nations communities, the situation is even more dire.

This motion is not asking for too much. Quite simply, we are asking the Conservative government to make the elimination of child poverty a priority, not just in words but in real actions, and to develop a poverty reduction plan with timelines and measurable benchmarks that would include components to address children's poverty. That would involve taking action on the crisis of poverty for indigenous children, making housing more affordable for lower income Canadians, creating a national early childhood education and child care program, addressing childhood nutrition, and improving economic security for families.

Children are poor because their parents are poor. No child chooses to be born into poverty. Because of that, it means addressing poverty in a comprehensive way is essential to addressing childhood poverty and to ensure the future of our country. Poverty affects three million Canadians. Three million children, seniors, indigenous people, persons living with disabilities, single parents and recent immigrants are all more likely to live in poverty.

Over 967,000 children live in poverty, and 22,000 adults under age 25 are homeless. Canada ranks 15th out of 17 among peer countries when it comes to child poverty rates, and B.C. has the ignominious privilege, if I can call it that, of having the highest child poverty rate in Canada.

Thirty-eight per cent of children living with single parents live in poverty and forty per cent of indigenous children live in poverty. I said it already, and I will say it again, that collectively we can do better. As members of Parliament, we can stand together in the House and recommit to eliminating child poverty. What more meaningful way to mark the 25th anniversary of the unanimous motion passed in the House with an objective we have yet to achieve.

I ask all my colleagues to support the motion, because no one should be left behind and, mostly, no child. Let me remind the House, no child chooses to be born in poverty. It behooves each and every one of us to address this stigma on our country right away.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should work in collaboration with the provinces, territories and First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities to eradicate child poverty in Canada by developing a national poverty reduction plan that includes: (a) making housing more affordable for lower income Canadians; (b) ensuring accessible and affordable child care; (c) addressing childhood nutrition; (d) improving economic security of families; (e) measures that specifically address the unique needs of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities; and (f) measurable targets and timelines.

Mr. Speaker, today on the eve of the 25th anniversary, I am honoured and privileged to stand and present my Motion No. 534, to reiterate our commitment to eradicating child poverty in Canada.

A quarter of a century ago, in 1989, a similar motion was introduced by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent to eradicate child poverty by 2000. That motion received unanimous consent in the House. Here we are 25 years later, and not much has changed.

I do not want to make accusations to any of the successive Liberal or Conservative governments for not taking proper actions to eliminate child poverty since the House made the promise and commitment to do so. However, I also cannot keep quiet and pretend that poverty rates among children have improved compared to 25 years ago, or that Canada is poverty-free.

For 25 consecutive years, Canadian children and their families who live in poverty have been left behind and marginalized on the agendas of successive governments. Twenty-five years is a long time. It makes me wonder why almost one million Canadian children are living in poverty today and why successive governments have allowed the rate of poverty to increase compared to 25 years ago. It makes me wonder whether the Liberal and Conservative governments over the last 25 years have felt that the opinions of the impoverished do not matter.

What went wrong? Why was a promise to our country's children broken? If we did not keep the promise to our children, then that is fine; it is perhaps that the governments of the day felt that children do not vote and so they are not a huge priority.

However, how about the promise that Canada made to the rest of the world when we ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1991? We agreed to uphold international principles, values, and standards. According to article 27.1:

States Parties recognize the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.

The section then continues and holds states more responsible by obliging them to do the following:

[...] take appropriate measures to assist parents and others responsible for the child to implement this right and shall in case of need provide material assistance and support programmes, particularly with regard to nutrition, clothing and housing.

My motion deals with all of those, but specifically nutrition, housing, and child care.

As a state that is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada is not meeting its commitment globally today.

This past week, I spent a lot of time with children in our schools in Scarborough, and many of them found it difficult to imagine that there are children and families who go hungry and cannot afford to have their daily meals. The reality is that it is happening right here, in one of the world's richest countries, our great Canada.

In its November 7, 2013 report, Campaign 2000 stated:

Food security among families is highly critical with 1.1 million children experiencing food insecurity, a situation of inadequate or insecure access to food because of financial constraints, and children represent 36% of food bank users in Canada.

According to another recent article by Huffington Post, on November 4, 2014, there are 375,000 people in Ontario who use food banks, of whom 36% are children.

Health Canada's report entitled “Household Food Insecurity in Select Provinces and Territories 2009-2010” showed that Nunavut, in Canada's north, has the highest number of households in Canada that are food insecure, which is 28.8%. That is more than double the number in the Yukon, which holds second place at 11%.

Another question that one might think to ask is what the current government has done to lower the levels of poverty in Canada. When we pose questions in question period, the government says that it has lowered the levels. Let us look at some details.

The reality is that not much has been done. Some cabinet ministers have even demonstrated quite embarrassing hospitality when the UN special rapporteur on the right to food was in Canada. It was quite a shame.

The United Nations has also described housing and homelessness in Canada as a national emergency. An estimated 250,000 people are homeless, with another 1.1 million living in inadequate housing, and more than 500,000 are facing a serious financial burden which threatens their housing security. Over 10% of those identified as homeless are youth aged 16 to 18.

In its first universal periodic review, a number of members of the human rights council expressed significant concerns about poverty and housing in Canada. A number of recommendations were made to enhance the catastrophic situations of housing, for which we as a nation were heavily criticized. Despite the original denial from the government, it involuntarily, and under pressure, accepted some of the recommendations from the member states.

Canada agreed to consider taking on board the recommendation of the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, specifically to extend and enhance the national homelessness program and the residential rehabilitation assistance program. Canada also committed to double its efforts to better ensure the right to adequate housing, especially for vulnerable groups and low-income families.

However, just when we thought there might be improvements, the current Conservative government voted against Bill C-400, an act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians. It did not stop there. In the June 2012 budget, it also defunded and closed down the former national council of welfare, the NCW, which was an organization that highlighted poverty and warned policy-makers of the consequences of neglecting those in need. By eliminating the role of the NCW, the government officially shut down the source of reports and information that depicted the depth and breadth of poverty in Canada. Instead of eliminating the problem of poverty, it eliminated the messenger, the NCW.

It is something like the metaphor where the cat thinks that if it closes its eyes and drinks milk that nobody around can see it.

We have heard the parliamentary secretary stating that we do not have much of a poverty problem in Canada. The truth is that we do not have a national information centre, the NCW, to do the research and present any reports to us. The government does not understand that affordable and adequate housing does not only offer shelter but also offers individuals and families a sense of stability, security, and motivation. The children I met with last week knew that. They know that ensuring that they have a roof over their houses means safety and security for them.

We need a comprehensive plan to tackle this issue and save more money for Canadians and the national revenue. According to a study conducted by homelessness Canada, each year it costs the system approximately $55,000 to leave a homeless person on the street, while providing adequate housing and support services would cost only $37,000.

Another report by the Canadian Medical Association, in 2013, concluded that child poverty is at the core of socio-economic problems. Over 20% of health-care related expenditure is derived from inadequate housing and the consequences of low-income conditions.

By implementing what is being introduced today through my private member's motion, Canadians will benefit on many levels. First, we will do the right thing; that is, removing homeless Canadians from the streets. Second, that will save Canadians more than $15 billion dollars annually—that is five from removing the homeless, and ten from savings on health care from inadequate housing—which could be used in other areas that could benefit Canadians in various tax benefits and could finance a national child care program, which is the third piece of the motion.

On many occasions when the government was asked about child poverty rates in Canada, there were no clear reasons as to why the rate of child poverty had increased over the last 25 years. On October 28, UNICEF issued its annual report card, and on November 3, it had a symposium entitled “Children in the Wake of the Great Recession”, which was dedicated to child poverty. Neither in the report nor during the seminar was anything positive said about the current and previous federal governments' serious engagement and commitment to eradicating child poverty. Even though the current government and ministers may avoid the facts, poverty is a reality for far too many of Canada's children. If these irresponsible policies continue, that will continue to be the reality for even more of our children.

The government likes to acknowledge that 180,000 children were pulled out of poverty due to its great efforts, which it likes to celebrate. However, it is in denial of the truth, that poverty exists and Canada has a high percentage of child poverty.

On several occasions, the Minister of State for Social Development and the Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism have referred to the UNICEF report and quoted only the favourable parts from it.

I would like to bring to their attention that on November 3, I was present at UNICEF Canada's annual symposium to hear from other experts about report card 12. The government did not even bother to send a representative there to hear from experts on the ground.

The conclusion from the day was that children are worse off today than when the crisis began in 2008, and much worse off than they were 25 years ago. Here is some of what the spokespeople of UNICEF Canada had to say on the day that report card 12 was released:

...what disturbs us is that the relative poverty rate hasn't budged for many years. As a wealthy country we are not doing well enough for our children.

That was from Lisa Wolff, the director of UNICEF Canada.

I have another quote from Tiffany Baggetta, the spokesperson for UNICEF Canada at the symposium. She said:

Overall, child poverty in Canada has decreased but children who were the most poor to begin with have slipped further into poverty.

This means we are not really helping the most vulnerable people in our country: our children.

We can see that the government has a trend of doing things in its own way. We know that it does not like to have much consultation and it does not like to listen to experts or people in the field. It is true that during the recession years, Canada's child poverty rate did decrease from a shameful 23% to 21%. However, 25 years ago, when Parliament made the commitment to end poverty among our children, the rate was only 13%. Successive governments have contributed to the child poverty rate increasing from 13% to 23%. The Conservative government is celebrating that it is now at 21%, which is a significant increase from the 13% it was at when we committed to eradicating poverty in this country.

Let us compare our country with Scandinavian countries and the U.K. These countries have actually done a great job in reducing their child poverty rates. The child poverty rate in Nordic countries is below 6%. It is not 21%, as it is in Canada.

What have we done in the past 25 years in this regard? We can go in circles and have the Liberals and the Conservatives blame and accuse each other for irresponsible governing, but those excuses and accusations will not feed the poor or the children in our country, nor will they provide them with adequate housing, security, or child care.

Again, let me return to parts of the UNICEF report. The government quotes frequently from this report. The quotes lead the government into believing that it has accomplished the mission of eradicating child poverty by pulling 180,000 children out of poverty. According to Statistics Canada, in every year since 1989, on average, 180,000 to 250,000 children are removed from the category of being poor children. Regardless of these numbers, the child poverty rate has continued to increase, despite the fact that the fertility rate has not increased in the same time period. Therefore, it is not that we are having more children: the number of children being removed from poverty remains the same because they are aging out, and our poverty rates continue to grow.

None of the previous governments has done enough. Many factors have contributed in removing these 180,000 children from poverty. Around 12% to 15% of those children who were 17 years of age became 18 years of age and were removed from the count of child poverty. Basically, we removed them statistically from child poverty to make them adults living in poverty, and more than 23,000 of them are now homeless.

Over 70% of those children and their families were lifted above the poverty line through the efforts of provincial governments, private corporations, NGOs, charities, and other social agencies, such as food banks and shelters.

Mr. Speaker, you are giving me the one-minute warning, and I have so much more to say.

Poverty is also racialized in our country, and I will give members some statistics from the GTA before I conclude. Among the broad ethno-racial groups in the GTA, the rates of child poverty were about one in ten in global European groups; one in five for east Asian groups; one in four for aboriginal, south Asian, and Caribbean groups; one in three for children of Arab and west Asian groups; and one in two for children of African groups. Today the GTA has 79% of Ontario's immigrants and 81% of Ontario's visible minorities. This means that far too many of our racialized people living in the GTA are living in poverty.

I would like to conclude by saying that implementing a national strategy to eradicate poverty would have a positive impact on our Canadian economy in both the short and long run. High levels of child poverty generate very significant and growing human and fiscal costs to society and to the economy in the long run.

This motion calls for the eradication of child poverty by investing in affordable and accessible housing, child care, and child nutrition programs. Those are the three social determinants of poverty among our children, and it is our responsibility as the lawmakers of this country to ensure that we are investing in the most vulnerable people in society, our country's children.

Opposition Motion—Affordable housing

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments of the Minister of State for Social Development.

I have two things to say. One, on the issue that we did not ask her questions at committee, we would welcome her return to the committee so we can do that. It is not a problem for us to schedule committee meetings so she can come back. I understand that the questions centred on temporary foreign workers. When we only have 12 minutes to ask questions and the temporary foreign worker program is such an enormous and timely problem, it is difficult to ask all the questions we would love to ask the minister. If she came back it would be wonderful.

The second point is on the $1.7 billion or the $2 billion they are spending currently on housing in some manner, some of which is inherited money from the existing programs or existing mortgage subsidies, as she calls them, although that is not what they really are. When Bill C-400 was presented, the Conservatives suggested that the size of the problem was $6.2 billion. If they are spending $2 billion and the size of the problem is in addition to that, so that the total problem is $8 billion, where would that $6.2 billion come from? Where is the Conservative strategy? Why are the Conservatives suggesting that this little drop in the bucket is enough?

Housing

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's comments. However, they confirm my worst fears, that in fact the current government intends to cut the $1.7 billion it is now spending on affordable housing through the co-op agreements by simply allowing those agreements to expire without any replacement funding whatsoever.

In fact, the government will apparently determine that it will save $1.7 billion, which would then go to provide a more balanced budget, which at the same time, would leave several hundred thousand Canadians without adequate, suitable or affordable housing.

The government suggested, in its opening statement, that it has a commitment to safe, suitable and affordable housing. Yet, when presented with Bill C-400, which would have in fact allowed the government to create a strategy with the provinces and territories to do just that, the government decided to vote against that motion and to kill any idea that the government would be involved in a strategy with the provinces, territories and municipalities.

In conclusion, it appears that the government has not yet answered the question about what will happen to those people whose residences would become unaffordable when these long-term agreements expire.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on November 27, I asked the minister for social development about the government's plan to address the affordable housing crisis that exists in this country. Her answer shows that the government just does not understand the depth of the problem. It is a crisis that is causing the city of Toronto to bring people to Ottawa to rally and to ask the federal government to stop the cutting. It is amazing to see a city send people here. It is one thing to have social groups, but a city sending people here to rally is quite an amazing feat.

As the Conservatives allow the long-term housing agreements to expire, up to $1.7 billion in annual funding for housing will be lost. Low-income Canadians will bear the brunt of these cuts. They will no longer be able to afford to pay their rents when their rent-geared-to-income programs end.

I asked why the government is allowing the funding for housing to expire. What I received in reply was a litany of what exists today in helping people who are in housing need. There are 800,000 families and individuals currently being supported in part by federal funds, the result not of the government's action but the actions of previous governments, including the deal cut between Jack Layton and Paul Martin in 2005. The current government voted against it, and I heard nothing about the government's plans to help those in housing need.

The government has been cutting and plans to cut even more from its contribution to housing. The federal contribution to affordable housing was $3.6 billion in 2010. It has fallen to about $2 billion today, and it will fall further, to $1.8 billion by 2016. This is a 52% cut over six years, at a time when the need for affordable housing continues to increase. Further, the number of households served by federal funding to make their rents affordable will also decline, from 800,000 today, to 525,000 by 2016.

The minister also in her answer suggested that job creation would somehow solve the problem. It again shows how out of touch the government is. Many of those receiving assistance already have jobs, but the cost of housing strips many of their ability to pay for their rent. The government is making it worse by forcing people to accept less when coming off EI.

The need for affordable housing for low-income families in this country, which is already great, is growing. Housing need is defined as having to pay more than 30% of one's gross income on shelter.

In my riding of York South—Weston, there are nearly 16,000 households in housing need today. That is over one-third of the households in my riding.

If government members had passed Bill C-400, presented by the NDP, it would have forced the government to begin creating a strategy to deal with this crisis in collaboration with provinces and municipal governments. When it killed the idea of a strategy, it said that to fully correct the problem would cost $6.2 billion. It is good that it has identified the scope of the problem. That is based on the 1.4 million households needing help and that the help needed is an average of $4,779 per year per household. The government is good at pointing its finger at the problem but refuses to lift that finger to help.

When housing costs eat up so much family income, there is little left to pay for health needs, for the needs of children, or to save for the future. There is little left for food. It is no wonder that food bank use is so high in this country.

My question remains: With housing costs at an all-time high, why is the government allowing the funding for housing to expire?

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House this afternoon to move concurrence in the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities presented on Wednesday, December 12, 2012, with respect to labour and skills shortages in Canada. The subtitle of the report is “Addressing Current and Future Challenges”.

There is no doubt that a vital competitive economy in the global era requires the development of a skilled workforce that provides Canadian employers with the workers they need and that provides Canadian workers with the opportunities they deserve. In order to achieve that goal Canada needs to find the right match between skills and employment opportunities so that we do not suffer from skills shortages and high unemployment at the same time.

My NDP colleagues and I supported the standing committee's report on labour shortages in Canada, and we were particularly pleased to see recommendations on incentives for training and labour mobility. However, we also think there are some important areas in which the recommendations did not go far enough in addressing the crucial challenges that Canada faces.

Let me begin with some general areas of concern that were raised in testimony by a number of witnesses who appeared before our committee.

It is true that labour shortages were already being felt prior to the 2008-2009 recession, especially in the western provinces. The recession eased this pressure, but already shortages are reappearing in certain regions and sectors.

Given the aging population, it is likely that labour and skills shortages will increase, but this will not be true for all regions nor for all occupational groups. While shortages may be less severe in occupations requiring fewer qualifications, low-skilled occupations are also experiencing shortages, especially in regions with strong and rapid economic growth.

The first finding of the study, which was reiterated by many witnesses, is that no single solution will magically solve the challenges caused by labour and skills shortages. Various complementary solutions must be identified.

One solution that was mentioned often by the witnesses who appeared as part of the study was to make all the essential information on future labour needs available so that educational programs can be created and modified accordingly, and so that consequently young people can choose occupations that will be in high demand.

Obviously that will not be possible without high-quality labour market information. The holders of these data must work together to avoid duplication and find ways to improve both the quality of the information as well as the distribution of all LMI products to the people who can benefit the most from its use.

Another solution the committee heard throughout the study was to maximize the untapped potential of individuals and certain groups of the Canadian population that have a lower participation rate or a higher unemployment rate than average, such as mature workers, people with disabilities, aboriginal peoples and recent immigrants. These groups represent a huge pool of untapped talents and could help address a significant part of the skills shortages.

Other suggestions made by witnesses include increasing labour force mobility, increasing awareness of trades and professions in demand that are not popular with young people, providing workers with adequate on-the-job training, increasing the level of basic skills, improving worker productivity and increasing reliance on partnerships between various levels of government, companies, educational institutions, students and workers.

Of course, special mention was made of the temporary foreign worker program, around which there was a significant consensus that there had to be reform. Given the recent media spotlight on the temporary foreign worker program, I do not think that will surprise any member in the House.

The recommendations in the report address many of these concerns. In fact, there were 38 recommendations made by the committee, most of which my NDP colleagues and I agreed with. Let me re-emphasize the word “most”, because as one can imagine, on a Conservative-dominated committee, much of the language in this report is both self-congratulatory and slanted to the needs of employers only. Nonetheless, we did find some significant common ground.

There were, however, also areas of significant disagreement, and I want to spend the better part of my remaining time on those areas. These areas represent a huge missed opportunity, and I would hope that moving forward, the government will take a second look at our minority report and use it to shape additional measures that were lacking in the original recommendations.

Let me begin with comments about labour market information.

Time and time again the committee heard from witnesses that labour market information in Canada is not good enough. We heard that the data are not granular enough and do not allow for sufficient breakdown by occupation or region. The data are also not published frequently enough and do not allow for high-quality projections of shortages in the future. In fact, the committee's final report offers numerous instances in which the testimony from industries and the data available from current surveys disagree on whether or not there is or will be a skills or labour shortage in a given industry.

The Certified General Accountants Association recently published an examination of available sources of data that concluded that our current LMI is not good enough to enable policy-makers to effectively deal with labour shortages. It recommends “...closing the statistical information gap and improving the relevance and reliability of labour market statistics at the regional and occupational levels”.

Given that good LMI is the linchpin to good skills training and labour force development policy as well as crucial to good immigration policy and management of the temporary foreign worker program, we find the report's recommendation on LMI to be very weak indeed. We need more than better publicity for the data that are already being produced.

The experts on the advisory panel on labour market information established by the Forum of Labour Market Ministers have already provided an excellent blueprint of the steps that could be taken to improve the collection, analysis and use of LMI in Canada. For that reason, my NDP colleagues and I recommended that the government take steps to implement the recommendations made in the final report of the advisory panel on labour market information.

We also noted in our report that the weakness of our labour market information has been exacerbated by cuts to Statistics Canada and its surveys and by the elimination of core funding for sector councils, which play a crucial role in bringing together industry partners and provide very useful sector-specific LMI. Therefore, we also recommended that Statistics Canada be provided with the funding it needs to improve labour force-related surveys and that core funding be restored to sector councils.

Moving on to a second area that merited additional attention, I want to focus next on the need to develop the Canadian labour force.

While employers are experiencing shortages of both skilled and low-skilled labour, unemployment in Canada remains high, with six unemployed Canadians for every job vacancy. The Conservatives' response has been to blame the unemployed for their unemployment, to reduce access to employment insurance while trying to force Canadians to move to other parts of the country and to use the temporary foreign worker program to drive down wages.

By contrast, New Democrats believe that Canadian workers and employers benefit when Canadians are given the tools they need to be able to take available jobs. That is why we believe that investments in skills training are so important. We laud the report's recommendation that the government consider incentives to employers to invest in on-the-job training. However, we also recommend that the government review its bilateral agreements with the provinces to ensure that they provide maximum benefit to Canadians in need of training. For instance, the fact that the largest part of funding for skills training provided through labour market development agreements is limited to those who qualify for employment insurance benefits makes no sense when more than 6 in 10 unemployed Canadians are not qualifying for EI.

Similarly, we believe that Canadians need support for labour mobility rather than to be threatened with the loss of their EI benefits if they do not move for the jobs. We are pleased that the report recommends support for a tax credit for travel and lodging for those working more than 80 kilometres away from their residence. This is a proposal I have been pushing for years by introducing Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act for travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons. The building and construction trades have been lobbying for this bill for over 30 years, and it continues to be one of the key priorities at each and every one of their legislative conferences.

In every Parliament the government has made vague promises of progress to come; then each Parliament ends without concrete action. The time to rectify that situation is now, and I appreciate the committee's support in this regard. The ask is simple: allow tradespersons and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their home.

At a time when some regions of the country suffer from high unemployment while others suffer from temporary skilled labour shortages, the bill offers a solution to both. Best of all, it is revenue neutral for the government because the cost associated with the income tax cut is more than made up by the savings in employment insurance.

Now that the Conservatives have a majority in the House of Commons, there are no more excuses. The government can and must support the bill and act unequivocally to support Canada's building and construction trades. I am hoping to be able to test the government's resolve on this issue in the very near future.

Let me just give a quick shout out to some of the people from my hometown of Hamilton who have been instrumental in putting this issue on Parliament's agenda. In particular, I am thinking of Joe Beattie, Tim Penfold, Geoff Roman, Gary Elleker, Dave MacMaster, Paul Leger and all the members of the Hamilton-Brantford Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council, whose support for the bill has been unwavering and who, frankly, were the first to bring the issue to my attention.

I could talk about my bill and the need for its speedy adoption all day. Nonetheless, I recognize that my time here is limited and I also want to get some other issues on the record with respect to the current skills shortage.

One of the other barriers to labour mobility that was raised over and over again was the lack of affordable housing. Regions that are experiencing an economic boom cannot develop housing fast enough to offer workers reasonable accommodation at prices they can afford. Therefore, in our minority report we recommended that the government support NDP Bill C-400, which called on the government to create a national affordable housing strategy in co-operation with the provinces and territories.

Members will know that in the time since we tabled our report, the Conservatives defeated that bill in this House. To New Democrats and housing activists from coast to coast to coast, that was a devastating rejection of a desperately needed program. Canada remains the only G8 country without a housing strategy, while 1.5 million families and individuals are unable to access adequate, affordable housing. It is a national disgrace. Certainly the evidence we heard at committee confirmed that the lack of affordable housing should have been a priority for our federal government.

Similarly, testimony confirmed that the Conservatives also mismanaged the temporary foreign worker program, allowing employers to bring in temporary foreign workers with little to no monitoring for compliance with the rules of the program. The result has been that Canadian workers have lost out on jobs that should have been available to them, while temporary foreign workers face exploitation and rights violations.

If managed properly, the temporary foreign worker program should provide a temporary solution to a serious problem while emphasizing a longer-term response that promotes the best interests of Canadian workers and employers and our economy. The government has announced a review of the temporary foreign worker program, and New Democrats recommend that this review be conducted in a thorough and transparent manner, with a report tabled in the House of Commons as soon as the review is concluded.

Although this is another topic about which I could talk for hours, I will keep moving along.

Let us look next at the need for effective partnerships. In its skills strategy, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development suggests that all relevant stakeholders must be involved in order to ensure an effective, comprehensive approach to skills policies. Designing effective skills policies requires more than coordinating different sectors of public administration and aligning different levels of government: a broad range of non-governmental actors, including employers, professional and industry associations, chambers of commerce, sector councils, trade unions, education and training institutions and individuals must all be involved.

New Democrats agree that policies are stronger when all relevant stakeholders are involved and consulted, and that is why we recommend that the development of policy options to improve labour market information to ensure a better match between the skills of graduates and the needs of employers and to develop strong curricula must always include all relevant stakeholders: federal, provincial, territorial and aboriginal governments, businesses and industry, employee representatives and labour unions, educational institutions and student associations as well as not-for-profit groups.

Speaking of students, my NDP colleagues and I respect that one of the major goals of post-secondary education is skills training. However, we also recognize that this is not the only goal for Canada's colleges and universities and that there is a role for pure research.

We also respect academic freedoms and the rights of scholars to freely choose their subject areas and research projects. Therefore, we recommend that consultations on curricula always be undertaken with appropriate respect for the multiple roles of post-secondary educational institutions.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not say a few words about the participation of aboriginal peoples in the labour market. Our committee heard some very compelling testimony in that regard. As the report notes, aboriginal peoples' labour market outcomes must be improved to ensure that aboriginal peoples benefit from resource development to reduce aboriginal poverty and to provide the skilled labour force that Canada will need in the future.

A key element of aboriginal labour market outcomes is education, yet the report offers no recommendations on aboriginal education at all. If educational outcomes are to improve for aboriginal students, they need adequately funded education that respects their unique culture and history in safe and healthy school facilities.

First nations education is the jurisdiction of the federal government, which does not provide equitable funding for first nations children.

While budget 2012 provided some new funds for first nations education, only eight new schools were built out of 170 needed, and so far, no money has been committed directly to first nations schools for front-line education services.

According to the Assembly of First Nations, $500 million is needed to bring funding for first nations K-12 education to parity with non-aboriginal Canadians. The AFN has also noted that a gap in funding for post-secondary education has prevented more than 13,000 first nations students from pursuing higher education. Those realities are completely unacceptable. That is why my NDP colleagues and I recommended that the government provide sufficient and equitable funding for first nations K-12 education as well as post-secondary education, including vocational training and apprenticeships, and that the government remove the punitive 2% cap on funding increases to first nations.

The Conservatives' failure to take consultations seriously has already derailed this process once, with the chiefs withdrawing from the process due to inadequate consultation. That is why we further recommended that the government recognize first nations' jurisdiction over education and abide by the federal government's duty to consult by holding extensive and meaningful consultations leading to the creation of a first nations education act that respects first nations' rights, culture and history.

The federal government also provides funding for Inuit education through territorial transfers and land claims agreements. The education system is seriously failing Inuit youth, with only 25% graduating from high school. Those who do manage to graduate are still not at the same skill level as non-aboriginal students.

The report of Thomas Berger, a conciliator appointed to resolve differences in the negotiations for the implementation of the land claims agreement, found that education was a key factor in impeding progress on Inuit representation in the public service. It called for an increase of $20 million annually to education funding beyond what is provided through territorial financing.

The same holds true for other jobs. Inuit youth need culturally and linguistically appropriate education that enables them to stay in school and graduate with the skills they need to join the workforce. New Democrats therefore recommended that the government increase funding for Inuit education beyond the funding provided through territorial financing and land claims agreements.

Finally, the committee heard from multiple witnesses that the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy, ASETS, has been very successful in providing the training aboriginal Canadians need and the links with employers that help them find jobs after their training. However, the committee also heard that funding has been frozen since 1996, despite the fact that the need is greater than ever as the aboriginal population grows.

ASETS holders have also noted the heavy reporting burden that comes with their funding. A review of the program is beginning, and New Democrats recommend that the federal government include ASETS holders in the ongoing program review in a meaningful way and work with them to establish a process for stable, predictable and adequate funding to maintain and improve this highly successful program.

Let me try to sum up. To meet our labour force goals, we need more and better labour market data; incentives and/or requirements for employers to offer training programs; more support for workers seeking training; better EI programs; more affordable education programs; enhanced support for labour mobility; the ability of immigrants here to have their credentials recognized and a much faster and more efficient process; and better support for an immigration program that does more than simply provide cheap foreign labour with no path to citizenship.

Overall, we need to see the skills shortage as one important issue among a series of important labour market issues, the most important of which remains the still very high unemployment rate. With 1.4 million Canadians out of work, it is hard to make the argument that we have a national labour shortage. What we have are regional shortages that cannot overshadow the fact that the Conservative government's most lasting failure is to develop and implement a strategy to create Canadian jobs. Until that happens, at best we will be tinkering at the margins.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP contributed to these changes, but the Conservatives are taking all the credit. They do not deserve the credit; Jack Layton does. He worked very hard advocating for social housing.

Bill C-400 almost passed, which was the then Bill C-304. Everyone was in favour of it.

This time around, it is totally ridiculous that the Conservatives all voted against the bill. We were previously unable to pass the bill that the Conservatives agreed with and now suddenly they no longer agree with it. What changed? It is not true to say that it cost money. As I was saying earlier in my speech, a private member's bill cannot give rise to expenditures.

We were simply asking to sit down and talk. Why does that intimidate them? Are they afraid of what they might find? How did they come up with the figure of $5 million, or thereabouts? Were they already aware of the need in this area? Have they identified that need? Is the figure they came up with the one that they should be spending but are unwilling to? Is that the real reason?

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Surrey North.

Almost a year ago, my leader gave me the official opposition housing critic portfolio. Since then, I have risen many times in the House to demand that the government make housing and homelessness priorities.

I also travelled across Canada to meet with Canadians and interest groups to find out what they think about these very important issues. When I read the budget tabled last Thursday by the Minister of Finance, it became clear that I have a long road ahead of me to get anyone to bother listening to these people.

I cannot say that I am surprised by the lack of housing and homelessness measures in the budget. I never once believed that they were priorities for the Conservatives.

I knew what what I was in for when the Conservatives voted as a block against Bill C-400, which was introduced by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot to ensure that the different levels of government and the stakeholders would sit down together to assess needs and establish a national housing strategy. But I was shocked when I saw that, the day before the vote, the government posted a document on the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation website claiming that Bill C-400 would cost Canadian taxpayers $5.5 billion even though the stakeholders had not yet met to discuss what was needed, which was the one and only purpose of the bill. The government must be clear and honest with people.

On pages 1112 and 1113 of O'Brien and Bosc's House of Commons Procedure and Practice, we learn that:

There is a constitutional requirement that bills proposing the expenditure of public funds must be accompanied by a royal recommendation, which can be obtained only by the government and introduced by a Minister. Since a Minister cannot propose items of Private Members’ Business, a private Member’s bill should therefore not contain provisions for the spending of funds.

That seems pretty clear to me. What this means is that a private member's bill cannot commit public funds. In light of what I just said, I would like to know how Bill C-400—which was introduced by the member from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot and whose only objective was to have government representatives and stakeholders sit down together to discuss housing issues—could have been assigned the kind of price tag that the Conservatives used to justify voting against the bill? Such a bill would have been considered out of order under the rules of procedure of the House. I will not speculate about the government's motives, but will allow people to draw their own conclusions.

The budget presented last Thursday does not satisfy the NDP official opposition with regard to housing and the fight against homelessness, but let us nevertheless play along and render unto Caesar what is Caesar's.

I am pleased that the government has finally committed to renewing the homelessness partnering strategy, as I have requested many times in the House without ever receiving a satisfactory response. However, when I said renewal, I was not just talking about extending full funding for the HPS. I was also asking that it be increased. Unfortunately, funding for the fight against homelessness has never been indexed since the SCPI was introduced in 1999.

You do not need an advanced course in economics to understand that costs and salaries have increased since the program was created and that funding allocated to the fight against homelessness in Canada has been doing less and less to meet the needs of groups in that regard.

I was not only asking that the budget allocated to the program be indexed to reflect those realities; I was also asking that it be increased to reflect the needs of the groups combating homelessness and its repercussions.

Why? Because, unlike my colleagues opposite, I consult stakeholders in the sector and I listen to them. They can tell us about the needs they see, and they can clearly see that homelessness is increasing year after year.

Unfortunately, I get the impression I was simply misunderstood. When the Conservatives say renewal, they understand it in the literal sense. To them, it means “change everything.”

Reading the budget that was presented to us last Thursday, in the section ironically entitled “Housing for Canadians in Need”, on page 228, we see that the government has extended the HPS, providing $119 million in funding a year over five years using a housing first approach.

We in fact learned about this on the morning the budget was presented because, once again, the Conservatives leaked the information to the media in a Canadian Press article entitled “Budget to fund and reorient federal homelessness strategy; new focus on housing.”

There are two important things to know about the HPS. First, not only have the Conservatives not increased or even indexed the program to reflect rising costs and salaries; they have also cut the amount that was allocated to it.

From 2011 to 2014, the program received funding of $134.8 million a year. Now it will be $119 million, which means that groups that already could not meet needs will collectively have to absorb an annual $15.8 million cut to the budget allocated to combat homelessness.

Second, the program's approach has been completely changed. With the housing first approach, any intervention funded by the HPS may be terminated if a number of projects do not give housing priority. Several organizations could thus lose their caseworkers, and the development of new projects to fund capital expenditures could be jeopardized.

In my riding of Hochelaga alone, where homelessness comes in many forms, the program's new purpose could harm several groups already established in the area. Dopamine, a substance abuse organization, and the shelter for prostitutes planned by the CAP Saint-Barnabé could lose caseworkers. This organization may also find it impossible to develop new services starting in 2014.

Far be it from me to speak out against the promising outcomes achieved by the inspirational at home project. However, I want to be very clear. Homelessness is not just a housing problem. Drug abuse, mental health problems and drug-related prostitution should also fall under this program.

In reaction to the budget, Tim Richter, president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, who had asked that the HPS take more of a housing first approach, said the following:

While this news is very exciting, there are some important questions that will need to be addressed, namely: What does the government mean by Housing First? What will this shift to Housing First mean to HPS funded communities, programs and existing investments? How will community planning processes & Community Plans change? How will the transition to Housing First be managed?

It's also important to remember that Housing First is a critical component of ending homelessness, but it is not a silver bullet. There are many other critical elements that need to support community plans and Housing First programs in order to reduce & end homelessness.

For us, the HPS must retain a diversity of approaches and respect the independence of the provinces and municipalities that are more familiar with their communities' problems.

Now, the economic action plan has little to say about funding for social housing. The only intentions this government has are stated in the main estimates for 2013-2014, according to which a net decrease of $23.3 million in CMHC's budget, for this year alone, is “to reflect the expiry of long-term project operating agreements.”

Once again this year, the government is not only confirming its complete withdrawal from social housing; it is doing so on the backs of the least well-off in our society and of the Canadian provinces. Those long-term operating agreements currently allow co-operatives and non-profit housing organizations to grant subsidies to their members and tenants so that they do not allocate more than 25% to 30% of their incomes to rent. They also enable the provinces and municipalities to provide low-income housing to the public.

Many of those agreements with CMHC have gradually been expiring in the past few years, and the government is simply not renewing them. Even worse, it feels it is saving money.

If we let this withdrawal continue, by 2030, these cuts will have amounted to $1.7 billion a year, and CMHC will only be managing approximately 15% of its current budget. When I think that the Conservatives were prepared to sign a multi-billion-dollar blank cheque in the F-35 scandal, I feel like saying, “We want houses, not airplanes.”

Housing

[Marie-Claude Morin, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I introduced Bill C-400, on which we voted recently. It is about implementing a national housing strategy.

The government voted against it, but these people still want a national housing strategy to be developed.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows and has commented, on this side of the House, the government voted against Bill C-400, on February 27 of this year.

It is important to note that investments have been made to address housing and homelessness in our country, in every community across this land. In 2008, our government committed an additional $1.9 billion, over five years, for housing and homelessness programs. As a result of that commitment, the homelessness partnering strategy was renewed for an additional five years.

We have worked closely with the provinces and territories to deliver funding earmarked for housing, most recently through the investment in affordable housing framework agreement, which provides for a combined federal, provincial and territorial investment of $1.4 billion over three years. It is focused on reducing the number of Canadians in housing need.

This funding is over and above the $1.7 billion we provide annually in the form of ongoing subsidies to support over 605,000 households who are living in existing social housing. These subsidies help to ensure that lower income families and individuals living in these homes do not pay a disproportionate amount of their salary or income towards housing, getting at the very root of what the member speaks about in terms of the issue of making a decision as to whether it is home or it is feeding their children or families. We have made a determination that it should be housing and the ability to ensure healthy meals are there on a daily basis for those individuals and families.

In addition, let us not forget the $2 billion-plus in social housing investments that were included in the stimulus phase of Canada's economic action plan. As reported earlier, this funding supported an estimated 16,500 social housing projects across our country. I am sure that in Windsor, as in my community of St. Catharines, those investments were spent immediately and they assisted in delivering on repairs to the units in existence in cities like my home riding.

I know the minister came down a couple of times to make announcements. I know I had the ability to let the region know we are making investments in partnership with the region and with the provinces on social housing.

That was not a commitment the NDP was prepared to support at that time. That was not a commitment that it saw as a need in this country. The NDP made a determination that it was going to vote against it.

During a time when we were in recession, we included an investment in social housing as part of a stimulus program because we believe in the future and making sure we are able to deliver on behalf of these individuals and these families.

On this side of the House, we have made a commitment, and we are going to ensure we stay by that commitment to assist those in need of housing.