Mr. Speaker, grants awarded by SCPI this year amounted to $135 million, of which $20 million went to Quebec. These amounts were absolutely necessary to provide assistance to the homeless, and, to our knowledge, these funds were well used.
The four little pilot projects announced last week by the Minister of Human Resources and Social Development will not make SCPI obsolete. We support that announcement to the extent that those pilot projects can contribute to enhancing SCPI, but they must not be used as a pretext for reducing SCPI in any way.
There are more than 12,000 homeless people in Montreal and more than 150,000 across Canada. Only an enhanced and permanent SCPI program can help these people, as the Bloc Québécois has been demanding for a long time.
Is the minister’s refusal to act for nine months a matter of ideology or simply a lack of expertise?