We have to remind ourselves that it was the culture of secrecy that allowed corruption to flourish during the Liberal years, yet the shroud of secrecy has fallen over this particular spending program in a way that we've never seen before.
It's rare as a member of Parliament that you get to witness the genesis of a boondoggle, but I honestly believe we've watched in slow motion a potential boondoggle unfold and flourish and blossom before our eyes. We have an obligation and a duty as members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates to blow the whistle on that when we're not getting sufficient information to convince us that things are in fact copacetic.
That said, my specific question to our witnesses is regarding social housing. We might be the only developed nation in the world now that doesn't have a national housing strategy. We've offloaded that onto the municipalities. We haven't even offloaded onto the provinces; it's all the way down to the municipalities, with no corresponding stable core funding associated with it.
Even though I understand there will be pickup on the offer of low-interest loans, is it the position of the municipalities that it is an adequate national housing initiative, and where does that stand in the relative wish list of the municipalities in terms of a true commitment to a national housing strategy?