Bill C-48 (Historical)

An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments

This enactment authorizes the Minister of Finance to make certain payments out of the annual surplus in excess of $2 billion in respect of the fiscal years 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 for the purposes and in the aggregate amount specified. This enactment also provides that, for its purposes, the Governor in Council may authorize a minister to undertake a specified measure.

Budget Implementation Act, 2006, No. 2

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, we had set out a number of conditions which the Conservatives have met in tabling the budget. It is somewhat similar to the situation where the New Democratic Party voted in favour of the Liberals' main estimates before the election. There was nothing in that budget to improve the plight of children or to correct the fiscal imbalance. It is true that the NDP also got Bill C-48, which provided for social housing and transfers for education. But at the time when the NDP voted in favour of the main estimates, the budget it voted for contained no social elements.

We had set the following condition: for us to vote in favour of the last budget, the subsequent one would have to correct the problem of fiscal imbalance once and for all. That would help children in Quebec and across Canada. Out of the $3.9 billion requested, $285 million would be earmarked to remedy the Conservative government's decision to renege on the $800 million deal for child care. So, that is included. Another condition was correcting equalization as a means to combat poverty in general and child poverty in particular.

I will conclude by saying that reforming the EI program so that it really provides an adequate social safety net is something else that can be done to remedy child poverty. The Bloc Québécois cannot be said to have been dragging its feet on that issue.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his comment. It gives me the opportunity to remind the House that everyone voted in favour of the budget bill. As I recall, when the Chair asked if anyone wanted to put the question, no one, even on the side of the Liberals and New Democrats, rose to do so. We have all voted in favour of this bill, unless the hon. member can tell me otherwise, saying that they had a moment of inattention and forgot to rise to put the question, but I do not think so.

The people from the NDP, like those from the Liberal Party, are intelligent people. I believe it was a deliberate move to prevent an election from being called. An election call would be no problem for us. In Quebec, the polls are looking very good right now for the Bloc Québécois, with over 44% support. The Bloc would be winning back seats it has lost in the Quebec City area.

We negotiated with the Conservatives. Perhaps our priorities are not the same as those of the NDP or the Liberals. Two Conservative government promises were important to us in the budget. First, the fiscal imbalance has to be addressed by the next budget. We want to know what steps will be taken to solve this problem--which has been acknowledged by the Conservative government—the timetable for arriving at a solution, and the extent to which the fiscal imbalance will be corrected. I can assure my colleague that, if this is not in the next budget, the Bloc Québécois will vote against the budget. We are not afraid of an election. It would not have bothered us if one had been called this past fall because of the Kyoto protocol. I hope my colleague is of the same opinion.

We have negotiated resolution of the fiscal imbalance and an assistance program for older workers. The assistance program for older workers introduced by the Conservative government does not meet our expectations. However, we obtained a commitment at least insofar as the budget is concerned. I remember that this was negotiated in advance. Since the leader of the Bloc Québécois had obtained what he had asked for from the government and the Prime Minister, five minutes later he was able to say that the budget was satisfactory.

The member knows quite well that it is impossible to amend a budget. The proof is that the NDP, to support the Liberal's budget, negotiated another budget, Bill C-48. They did not change or amend the first bill regarding the budget tabled by the Liberals, but they voted in favour of it when the budget was presented, even when the Liberal Party had lost all credibility in the eyes of the public in Quebec and Canada as a result of the sponsorship scandal.

I feel that the Bloc Québécois made responsible decisions; it will do so in the future. I can assure the member that the Bloc Québécois will conduct tough negotiations with the Conservative government. If the results of these negotiations are not what we believe to be in the interest of Quebeckers, we will vote against the next budget.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this morning we notice that there is yet another international report that speaks of the need for Canada to invest in children. It is very much connected with the budget that we are debating today.

The annual UNESCO report on education in developing nations finds that the majority of countries, especially Canada, need to focus their efforts on policies that address the needs of an age group that it says is often overlooked. The report urges Canada to ensure that early childhood education is a high priority.

We know that in this budget, that is proposed for April 2007, the money for early childhood education will be eliminated. This follows a report that comes from the OECD which says that Canada is in fact at the bottom of the heap. It says that Canada has a failing grade. The report said that it is Canada's dirty little secret that we have actually tumbled down all the way to the bottom in the ranking. The report said that Canada should be investing at least $10 billion, which is the OECD goal, and 1% of the GDP as the minimum government investment.

We are at this time a dismal .03%, which is a fraction of the OECD target. It is no wonder that Canadian productivity is slipping and that Canadian businesses and industries are worried about our competitiveness and the competitiveness of our workforce. The OECD has clearly made a link between the national investment in quality early childhood education and productivity and competitiveness and growth.

I want to speak a bit about some of the kids in this country. A few years I asked children in my riding of Trinity—Spadina what they would do to make the world a better place. A five-year old wrote back and drew a very cute picture. She said that she wished from God that there would be money to buy groceries.

If we think about it, Canada is a really rich county. We have children in Canada that are praying to God for enough money to buy groceries. This means that obviously in her house and in the houses of some of her neighbours and friends there is no money to buy groceries. This means that oftentimes this little girl would go to bed and wake up hungry and would not be able to concentrate at school.

We see this especially in aboriginal communities. There are boil water advisories. We know of kids that have to sleep in shifts because there is not enough room in the bed in their house for them to be able to sleep at the same time. There is often only one room and there are several children.

In this kind of situation it is inexcusable that the government in this budget would not invest in aboriginal housing and early childhood education. Any money that the government has put aside in trust is last year's budget surplus. That money came from Bill C-48. This was the NDP budget money. These are the only dollars that the government is in fact investing in aboriginal housing, foreign aid and many other critically important areas.

I particularly remember a young person from the Dene nation. She had tears in her eyes when she talked about the sense of hopelessness that she had in her area. Yet, there are so many young people with many talents and skills to offer if they were to receive the kind of support and training that they so desperately need. These are young people who want to lead their communities and set a good example. We have not given them the tools in the budget to contribute.

On the youth employment front, I have received many letters from people in Toronto who talk about the importance of investing in young people, especially in the summer time. We know that recently there was a budget cut of at least $55 million. At this time we should be investing more on youth employment rather than cutting it.

I have a letter from Jacob Blomme, a concerned student, who talks about the job he has during the summer and how essential it is for him to have the opportunity to work in his field of study, so that he can make connections and be job ready when he finishes school. He knows that he is going to graduate with a $25,000 debt, which scares him because he is going to have to pay it back himself. Without jobs and training in his field of work, it is going to be even harder for him to find a job in the future. These are the young people of our future.

I have other letters. I have one from Canadian Crossroads International, for example, that talks about hiring dozens of young interns in recent years during the busy summer months to train young people overseas as volunteers by creating and supporting networks, working with HIV Without Borders, helping to manage the international AIDS conference in 2006, and supporting fundraising and ongoing research for organizations.

There are other organizations that say they desperately need money to invest in young people. They talk about the youth employment program standing out as a bright light of hope and empowerment in their own communities.

There are youth organizations that, because of training in the arts, were able to create many jobs, like the Fringe Festival in Toronto. There is a ticketed attendance of 47,000 people and $340,000 was given back to artists in the neighbourhood. When we invest in young people and in the arts, as a country we actually get the money back in our budget.

There is really no excuse. We know there is a surplus of $13 billion and none of it is invested in people or the future of our youth. It is the same with the new surplus of $6.7 billion. There is nothing invested to help people break the cycle of poverty or to eradicate child poverty. With the surplus, somehow the government feels it can tell Canadians they are overtaxed. It slashes programs and calls for tax cuts and yet our children go to bed hungry. I do not know whether members of Parliament know what it is like to go to bed hungry, but there are certainly a lot of those kids in this country.

If we look outside this country, we know that foreign aid is desperately in need of getting a boost in terms of investment. We know that more than 800 million people go to bed hungry around the world and 50,000 people die everyday from poverty related causes. That is why we absolutely have to increase Canadian aid by 18% annually and commit to a plan to meet the internationally agreed target for aid spending of .7% of our GDP by 2015.

We must also raise the annual Canada child tax benefit to $4,900 per child and ensure that all low income kids receive the full benefit of this program because that is in fact the demand of Make Poverty History. Think of what we could do with $20 billion. There are so many lives we could touch, but I fear the government does not get it. Perhaps it is not surprising that the government has so few women in their caucus.

The government thinks that the war on poverty is really a war on the poor. It thinks poverty is a nasty little habit that should be punished, stopped and penalized. It punishes the poor and gives tax breaks to those who do not need it. It gives the biggest baby bonus allowance to the spouses of the wealthiest people and the least to single mothers. We have a war against the poor rather than a war against poverty.

When we asked the government why it continued this track, why we were here day after day, it said it was because the Liberals were just as bad in the last 13 years. Imagine that. We had 13 years of Liberal neglect of important programs and the government used that as an excuse to reward the wealthy and punish the poor. This government seems determined to behave just as badly as the Liberals and to be even meaner in the neglect of social programs.

What kind of dumb ambition is that? That is the kind of ambition that we do not need in this House of Commons. We want to compete to be the best, not compete to be the worst, which is what is happening right now. Imagine being worse than the Liberals. I cannot even imagine that, but it is happening in front of me.

This House should rise together and demand better for refugees, children, senior citizens, women, aboriginals, immigrants, and for all of us. This budget is a sham. The poverty is real and more children are going hungry during this Parliament.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would just pick up on the last point the hon. member made. I would bring to his attention that every time the government stands up and brags about money it is putting into anything that is socially progressive, that is money that came from Bill C-48, the NDP budget.

What I want to know is why the Bloc did not take the opportunity to see if we could make further amendments that would advance the very issues the member says are the key priorities for the Bloc, rather than just playing this game that as long as they are okay, they will not worry about everything else.

If we work together, we have more votes than they do. Why did the Bloc not take the opportunity to do what the NDP did, and that is amend a bad budget and bring in good things that benefit the people of Quebec and Canada?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank your, Mr. Chairman.

I thank you for your presentations, which are very important.

If we want to discuss the issue of productivity and competitiveness in Canada in the context of globalization, education remains the most important factor. Could anyone disagree with that?

It is been almost 10 years since the federal government really broach the issue of education and its funding. In the first budget, apart from bill C-48 as put forward by the NDP, and regarding which the conservative government finally tabled the motion, the federal government simply granted a tax credit for text books. That's it.

It seems to me that transfer payments must be increased by least 25%. Moreover, we must ensure that funds are made available for colleges, CEGEPs, as well as universities. So how could we convince the Conservatives to solve this problem of transfer increases?

I am putting that question to you, Mr. Juneau, Mr. Godbout or Mr. Patry.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Thank you.

My colleagues wanted me to point out to Mr. Arseneau that the $1.4 million for affordable housing was C-48, which was passed by the Liberal government.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

I want to ask Mr. O'Hara a couple of questions. In your brief you talked a lot about problems and that we need more money for social housing and more money for education skills, employment strategies, and child care.

Except for the child care, because we know what happened there, some of these programs or what you're asking for already exist, do they not? You addressed on a few occasions the social housing aspect. The money has been transferred, from what I understand, and there is going to be more money being transferred out of Bill C-48.

What happens? Locally, the federal government does not get involved, from what I understand. If the housing market is booming in Halifax, that's great, but shouldn't there be something done at the local level for low-income housing?

I'm from Montreal, and I know the City of Montreal looks at low-income housing and they make sure there's a percentage of low-income housing. There are always problems with additional moneys coming in, but that's a negotiation that's being done at the local level, at the municipal level, and provincially and federally .

What's happening here? Make me understand, because I think I'm missing part of the puzzle.

[Ian Johnson, Policy Analyst/Researcher, Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning.

I'm here on behalf of our president, Joan Jessome, who is unable to attend. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this morning.

We're following a letter that was sent by my friend Chris Parsons on behalf of our Post-Secondary Education Coalition, which includes the Canadian Federation of Students; us; the Association of Nova Scotia University Teachers; and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 3912.

I'm here just to present a few opening remarks for your consideration before the discussion begins, and I think you have our submission from earlier on.

In general, we support the right of all Canadians to participate in public education and training, including post-secondary education. Unfortunately, we don't see a great deal of progress being made either nationally or provincially toward the achievement of this principle. If anything, we seem to be moving backwards.

In our view, there should be little doubt about the importance and even the centrality of post-secondary education for the pre-budget consultation theme of the committee, Canada's place in a competitive world. For all the stated objectives in your media release of June 27, post-secondary education must play a central role.

As we've outlined in our submission, we see a critical situation developing for post-secondary education in this province, and probably across the country. That includes decreasing affordability and accessibility, diminishing teaching and staff resources, and crumbling infrastructure, all leading to a reduced quality of education and, worse still, a possible collapse of the system as a whole. In fact, even as reported today in media outlets here, enrollment is down more than it has been in five years in this province, in Nova Scotia universities.

At the same time, we're disappointed and frustrated—and my friend just talked about this—with what has happened to Bill C-48, passed by the last Parliament in May 2005, and, going with that, Bill 207, also passed by the Nova Scotia legislature in May of last year. At first we were pleased with the passage of both bills, with Bill C-48 allowing up to $1.5 billion in additional funding per year for two years in supporting training programs and enhancing access to post-secondary education, and we were pleased with the passage of the companion bill in Nova Scotia that required that the funding, when it was made available, would reduce post-secondary education tuition fees and provide needs-based grants to post-secondary students.

We understand that if it had been provided earlier, this funding would have been enough to reduce tuition fees by more than $300 for every student enrolled in university this fall. It would also have been more than enough to reinstate the needs-based grants program that had been cut more than a decade ago by the then Liberal provincial government. Since then, however, we've seen buck-passing from one level of government to the next.

We're especially concerned that in the Harper government's first budget, the federal government “confirmed” the $1 billion to support urgent investments in post-secondary education infrastructure. In turn, this change by the Harper government led the MacDonald government here in Nova Scotia, in its budget measures legislation, to change the whole intent of Bill C-48 and Bill 207.

The amendments the provincial government brought forward allowed the funding that was to be provided for tuition reduction and needs-based grants to be made available for other purposes that are different from or even inconsistent with the purposes set out by both the Nova Scotia government and the Government of Canada. In other words, the provincial bill effectively scrapped Bill 207 in order to bow to the whims of what the federal government seemed to be saying.

Even after the federal government announced on September 26 that it was sending the money to Nova Scotia under Bill C-48, amounting to $28.8 million over two years for Nova Scotia, and even after it was apparently clarified that this funding could be used to reduce tuition fees, improve access to apprenticeships, and establish needs-based grants, the provincial government still hasn't decided how it's going to use these funds. The end result to date is that not a single student in Nova Scotia has been helped, even though the money was committed over a year and a half ago.

We ask the committee to accept the recommendations that we put forward in our submission: that the government ensure that the funding under Bill C-48 be used to improve access, as originally intended; that the government move to provide a per student allocation of funding for post-secondary education instead of a per capita allocation; that there be a separate dedicated funding transfer to provinces for post-secondary education established in this budget year; and that there be a national post-secondary education act to develop national objective standards and mechanisms, similar to what's done in health care with the Canada Health Act. And I'll just skip down to the last one, which I think is important: that the federal government establish a national department of education to better coordinate the provision of post-secondary education and ensure that all Canadians have a right to post-secondary education.

Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions and comments.

[Chris Parsons, National Executive Representative, Canadian Federation of Students]

Thank you. Good morning. My name is Chris Parsons and I'm the Nova Scotia national executive representative of the Canadian Federation of Students.

I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to present. I only have a few minutes today, so I would like to focus my remarks on a few key areas.

Canadians have long seen post-secondary education as a vehicle for social opportunity and yet low- and modest-income Canadians continue to be denied that opportunity because of costs. Tuition fees in Nova Scotia are at a staggering average of more than $6,500 per year, and the average student debt in the province has risen to more than $7,000 in just five short years, to reach more than $28,000, on average, for an undergraduate degree.

Statistics Canada reports that students from families with incomes in the lowest quartile are half as likely to participate in university as those students from families in the top earnings quartile. If Canada is going to reduce economic inequalities among provinces, as well as the inequalities among individuals in those provinces, and increase its competitiveness internationally, the Government of Canada must make affordable post-secondary education a priority.

The adoption of Bill C-48 was an excellent step forward to begin working to make post-secondary education in Nova Scotia more affordable; however, almost two years after its adoption, students have yet to see a penny of tuition fee relief. While the Conservative government reconfirmed its commitment to providing additional funding for post-secondary education, it significantly cut the money available and changed the focus from tuition fee reductions to infrastructure. While we agree that infrastructure is a problem in our province, its support should not come at the cost of continuing to neglect access. After all, it won't matter what sort of condition our buildings are in if no one can afford to study in them.

Additional funding for post-secondary education should not be a one-time investment. We recommend that the federal government, in cooperation with the provinces, create a dedicated post-secondary cash transfer payment for the purpose of reducing tuition fees and improving equality at universities and colleges. This transfer formed part of the Conservative platform in the last federal election; however, there is no commitment to increasing funding. The federal government should return spending levels to at least 1993 levels in real dollars. By most estimates, transfers currently fall short of 1993 levels by at least 20% on a per capita basis.

In addition, this transfer should be guided by legislation or other binding forms of agreement that would establish conditions for the transfer and commit the provinces to upholding principles similar to those of the Canada Health Act.

In 1998 the federal government made an important commitment to reducing student debt and improving access to post-secondary education when it introduced the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, and $2.5 billion should have gone a long way to achieving those goals. Regrettably, the arm's-length foundation model of student financial assistance has proven to be a total and absolute failure. In Nova Scotia our provincial government simply replaced its own financial commitments with millennium scholarship money, meaning that students were no better off.

This fact alone is reason enough not to renew the foundation; however, the foundation's organizational culture makes the situation even worse. Its administrative costs have increased over 500% in the last six years, and literally millions of dollars have been funnelled into the Educational Policy Institute, an American outfit run by two former employees of the foundation. Many of those contracts were awarded without competition. The foundation is a case study in unaccountability and wasted Canadian tax dollars. Students need non-repayable grants. That's not the issue. The issue is how the Government of Canada administers grants, and the record is clear. The foundation has failed in doing this, and there is a better way.

Therefore, we recommend that the federal government wind down the Millennium Scholarship Foundation and fund a national system of needs-based grants. Systems are already in place through Human Resources and Social Development Canada to administer grants through an accountable means, ensuring that students actually get the assistance they need.

Many students relied, as I did, on full-time jobs throughout the summer to help pay the cost of education. Unfortunately, because of recent cuts to the summer career placement program, many students may find themselves without employment. In the round of service cutbacks announced earlier this month, the Treasury Board saw fit to make a 50% funding cut to the summer career placement program. Not only do students with no prior career experience desperately need this program to gain work experience in their fields, but more importantly they need the program to pay the bills. Tuition fees are higher today than at any point in our province's history, even when accounting for inflation. Cutting a summer employment program for students will guarantee that many students will need to go deeper into debt and acquire more loans. We hope this committee can reverse the Treasury Board's job reduction strategy.

Due to time constraints, I am unfortunately unable to speak to all of our recommendations. However, you have been provided with our brief, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about some of our concerns this morning.

[Christine Cram]

In terms of Bill C-48, it's our understanding that there's a $1 billion, one-time, post-secondary education infrastructure trust fund to provide supplementary funding to the provinces and territories. I'm not an expert in this regard, and we could find more information for you on that program, if you would like, but this money is to go to the provinces and territories. It's not going specifically to aboriginal organizations.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

So on Bill C-48 on capital expenditure...?

[Michael Shapcott, Co-Chair, National Housing and Homelessness Network, National Housing and Homelessness Network]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Michael Shapcott. I work at the Wellesley Institute, a policy institute in downtown Toronto. I'm here today on behalf of the National Housing and Homelessness Network.

Mr. Chair, if I could, what I'd love to do with my five minutes is take the members of this committee outside. I think there's nothing like a very cold and wet autumn day to convince people that the issues of homelessness and the affordable housing crisis are not good. We know they're not good for people's health, they're not good for the economy, and they're not good for neighbourhoods and communities.

Mr. Chair, on a cold day like today, which I'm sad to say is only the start of what will be a very cold winter, I think this committee really needs to focus on what the United Nations in May called the national emergency of housing and homelessness in Canada.

We submitted a submission back in September, with several recommendations. Before I turn to that, I'd like to with respect make two very specific appeals to this committee on urgent items.

First of all, I'd like to invite members of this committee to make an urgent recommendation in terms of the renewal of federal homelessness and housing rehabilitation funding.

In just a few weeks, of course, the blizzards of winter are going to move across Canada, but literally thousands of agencies that provide critical health and social services to homeless people are going to be forced to shut their doors and lay off staff. It's because the federal homelessness program, which has funded thousands of transitional homes and thousands of health and social services and has provided capital dollars to improve shelter and food programs in 61 communities, is due to sunset, in the words of the bureaucrats, this fiscal year.

It's going to have a devastating impact on communities right across the country, not simply on poor urban neighbourhoods in Vancouver, north Winnipeg, north Halifax, or the east end of Vancouver, but even in the booming province of Alberta, where all indications show the economy is doing very well. I'm sure members of this committee can attest to the fact that there's a housing and homelessness crisis even in the province of Alberta.

The national homelessness program has been under a microscope for more than a year. The verdict is that it's been highly successful and that additional funding is urgently needed. We can't wait until February, when the next federal budget is expected, because by then the services will be lost and homeless people will have been abandoned by the federal government.

I want to appeal to this committee today to send a strong message about the federal homelessness program and, secondly, a strong message involving the federal housing rehabilitation program, which is also due to sunset in fiscal 2006.

Over the last number of decades, this program has helped many hundreds of thousands of low-income homeowners and owners of rental property to fix up substandard properties. I don't need to tell members of this committee that it's far less expensive to offer modest rehabilitation assistance than it is to allow properties to deteriorate so badly they have to be demolished and rebuilt.

In my final moments, I want to turn to the submission we made in September and urge this committee to make a healthy and competitive Canada a top priority. In doing that, we believe this committee needs to address and work towards the creation of a comprehensive, fully funded, and permanent national housing program.

We want to acknowledge that in 2005, through Bill C-48, $1.6 billion was allocated to affordable housing, and that was a good step forward. We now know that $1.4 billion of the $1.6 billion has finally been allocated in trust funds, and that's a step forward as well. There's $200 million missing somewhere, and someone might want to look for that. It is a down payment and a very important down payment, but it's only a fraction of what's required to address the urgent housing needs across the country.

Our recommendations for the 2006 pre-budget consultations urge this committee to top up money for affordable housing, to extend the federal homelessness program, and to extend the federal housing rehabilitation program.

I want to point out that since the last time I was at this committee, a remarkable consensus has been emerging across Canada. It's not merely the homeless and their friends and advocates who are calling for a national housing strategy. It's all across the community. It's charitable organizations and faith groups. It's business organizations at the national level, such as the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, business organizations, such as the TD Bank, and local business organizations, such as the Toronto Board of Trade.

If I may, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to close with a quote from the Toronto Board of Trade wherein they say:

Ultimately the supply of affordable housing affects the success of all businesses. Along with other infrastructure components, it helps to determine whether or not companies and employees locate in the city. A lack of affordable housing can lead to a host of other, more serious social and economic problems.

I think we're seeing that happening in Alberta even as we speak.

I'd be pleased to answer any questions or offer more details of our recommendations on the housing priorities of Canadians. Thank you for the opportunity to make these submissions.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Chisholm, Mr. Turner was having his political sport with you. The moneys that flowed were out of Bill C-48, as Ms. Wasylycia-Leis has said, and the irony of this whole matter is that this bill was jointly supported by the Liberals and the NDP in the last Parliament. The Conservatives voted against it; however, because of the surplus, they were required to fund, notwithstanding their ideological biases.

As a consequence of that, the reality prior to that, on the budget itself, I don't think there was any.... Setting aside the $1.4 billion out of the C-48 obligation to fund, was there anything...I don't recollect anything in the budget with respect to social housing and the issues of your concern. Is that a correct statement?

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my colleague, the member for Québec, for introducing this bill, and for defending it with such feeling. The Bloc Québécois is proposing that CMHC limit its capitalization capacity by paying out some of the huge surpluses it has accumulated over the past few years to Quebec and the provinces.

Bill C-285 will enable Quebec and the provinces to invest in housing—specifically, to build social, community and affordable housing. In Quebec, nearly 450,000 households urgently need housing, and in all of Canada, approximately 1.7 million need it.

To learn more about people living in substandard housing and the homeless, I criss-crossed Quebec and Canada last summer. I went to Trois-Rivières, Montreal, Rimouski, Quebec City, Victoriaville, Sherbrooke, Granby, and in my riding, Magog. I also travelled around Canada, visiting Toronto, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Red Deer, Regina, Calgary and Vancouver. In all of these cities, the people and the volunteers who look after those living in substandard housing are desperate for help.

What really struck me was the lack of permanent housing for vagrants and the homeless. How can we lend a helping hand if there is no housing to give them a fresh start?

The situation is becoming increasingly difficult given the growing income gap. In Canada I have seen so many women, elderly people, entire families living on the streets and aboriginal people without a decent place to live. Even a French travel guide, the Routard guide to Western Canada, talks about it as though it were a Canadian phenomenon. Imagine, it says that Canada has an inordinate number of homeless people in comparison to what Europeans are used to. This is scandalous in a country as rich as ours.

In CMHC's latest annual report, the crown corporation acknowledged that 15% of all housing in Canada is substandard. Consequently, the 15% living in inadequate housing can be added to those without housing.

Edmonton is in the midst of a boom and rents are rising so rapidly—in one case, from $85 to $1,100 per month—that a growing number of individuals and families are living in temporary shacks, despite and even because of full and highly-paid employment. The situation is the same in Regina and in Calgary. People who work in this sector have urged us to publicize this and the fact that there is a need for shelters, cooperatives and housing that is affordable for everyone. Seniors—especially elderly women, single-parent families and unskilled workers, the working poor are being left by the wayside amidst the prosperity in Alberta, Quebec and all Canadian cities.

Since 1998, CMHC has accumulated a surplus of $5.3 billion. It has never been required to have a reserve fund like a bank. Its mandate is to help households obtain quality housing that is affordable for all, including the most disadvantaged.

CMHC is not a private corporation; it is a crown corporation that serves the citizens of Quebec and of Canada. Thus, it makes no sense, and is even immoral, for it to turn away from its mandate and accumulate such a large surplus when most metropolitan areas in Quebec and Canada are currently experiencing a shortage of affordable housing.

This bill will limit CMHC's reserves to 0.5% of its loan portfolio, or just over $1 billion, enabling it to establish an annual reserve of approximately $100 million. According to experts, this amount is more than sufficient to deal with any reasonable eventuality.

In addition, the consolidated revenue fund has always been the ultimate guarantee. In fact, the legislative mandate and the objectives of CMHC are to promote housing construction, repair and modernization; access to regular, affordable housing for everyone, including the most vulnerable in our society; housing for families with three or four children—this no longer exists, you have to buy a home if you want enough space for three or four children; the availability of low-cost financing, in order to include the working poor one day; and stability for the homeless.

This mandate must be reflected in the plan of the crown corporation known as CMHC.

It is our responsibility as the government to ensure that CMHC carries out this mandate and does not get sidetracked into market forces that do not apply to it. This makes poverty a barrier to a just and equitable society.

The government is swimming in recurring surpluses while the poor in our society are drowning because they are unable to pay market rent. I often think about elderly women.

There are two schools of thought now. Europe is abandoning government housing for market housing. However, it is paying for the poor to live there. Until 1993, England, Australia, the United States and Canada helped house the poor in a more traditional manner. Now, the government seems to want to do neither. Has it lost its mind? How can the government of a developed country give up housing its citizens?

Last week, the minister told us that the government was investing $2 billion a year in affordable housing. Let us be clear: this $2 billion is only for mortgage payments on homes built before 1994.

There has been nothing new since then, except for a paltry $800 million from Bill C-48 in the winter 2005 budget. That is far too little money for the government to live up to its responsibilities in Quebec and the rest of Canada. The federal government has completely given up on developing new social housing units. Once again, it has offloaded this responsibility. It is easy to understand why people are disillusioned with this government.

This disengagement on the part of the government, which has the money, has had a devastating effect on low-income households, both in Quebec and in Canada. CMHC is not an insurance company or a bank. Why is it departing from its role? Is it government neoliberalism that is making its way into government institutions such as CMHC?

By creating a reserve fund, CMHC pretends to be engaging in fair play with the big Canadian banks, but it is not playing fairly with the 5 million Quebeckers and Canadians who live below the poverty line, and the 1.7 million households that do not have proper housing, or any housing, for that matter. Its true reserve fund is constituted by subsections 29(1), 29(2) and 29(3) of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act to provide assistance for housing, not to provide assistance to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions.

I must emphasize that the losses from CMHC activities are guaranteed by the government's consolidated revenue fund. With this bill, the Bloc Québécois and the other responsible parties of this House would like to return CMHC to its mandate, which consists in investing its retained earnings in social housing, affordable housing, cooperative housing, and upgrading the 15% of homes that are not up to code.

We are convinced that the provinces are in a much better position to decide how to use this money most effectively. There is therefore no reason not to give this money to the provinces, which will manage it perfectly.

There is therefore no problem with the fact that it is handing this money over to the provinces, which will manage it perfectly.

[Charles-Antoine St-Jean]

For the federal government, most of our transfers are expenses at the end of the year. Under Bill C-48, this year the expenses will be $3 billion plus.

For the federal government, at the moment, it would not change that much. But in the provinces, I would suspect there will be some tension.