Bill C-304 (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 and Aboriginal communities in order to establish a national housing strategy.

Jobs and Economic Growth Act

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, here we are having returned to the House. We have had a throne speech. We have had a budget announcement, and now we are discussing the budget implementation bill. Like other budgets before it, I was hopeful about this budget. I was hopeful that it would be bold and visionary and that it would actually steer Canada toward a position of strength, but unfortunately, like other budgets, I was left disappointed.

The piece I am maybe the most disappointed with is the disconnect between the throne speech and the budget. In the throne speech, we actually saw some pretty interesting language about an innovation and productivity agenda. That really caught my eye. I was pretty excited about that language, but to even take that language at face value, we would have to ignore recent history.

If we just think about the Nortel experience very recently, the government essentially allowed Nortel to collapse before our very eyes. That company did the bulk of private sector research and development. It made Canada a leader in telecommunications. We just stood by and watched it fold and watched all of that research, all of that knowledge, all of that innovation get bought up by other countries.

That knowledge was our knowledge. That knowledge is our knowledge and now it is gone. If we add to that the fact that the government has utterly failed at least to try to protect the pensions of those knowledge-based workers, it does not bode well for any future innovation and productivity agenda the government purports to have.

Despite that recent example, in thinking about the future I was still optimistic about this productivity and innovation agenda. If we think about how best to accomplish that agenda, the moment was the stimulus budget and it was another lost opportunity. Innovation requires basic infrastructure such as broadband Internet access and investments in energy infrastructure. Last year's stimulus budget was the perfect time to invest in those infrastructure basics. It would have created jobs. It would have laid the groundwork for a real innovation and productivity agenda, but the government did not act then and this budget actually makes things worse.

The government's strategy is not to build infrastructure but actually to deregulate. Deregulation has proven to stifle innovation, whereas investment has proven to boost it.

We are on the wrong track. Members might wonder why. What I see is that the government has its head stuck in the tar sands and is unable to look beyond a tar sands growth strategy. This is what is going to impede any innovation agenda no matter how strong it is.

Canada has a history of resource dependency which has led to a tendency toward lower rates of productivity and innovation. Canada has done fairly well as a hewer of wood, drawer of water and pumper of oil, but we have paid the price with a less productive economy. This is an economic history that is catching up to Canada.

We have an ageing population. Add to that the growing importance of innovation to participate in a world economy, as well as the ecological cost of a resource-dependent economy, and we find ourselves in a very difficult position when considering the future. It is one that demands vision and bold action, but sadly, the government's economic strategy thus far has been to get rich off the tar sands.

We still offer subsidies to these companies, making the Canadian dollar a petrocurrency that fluctuates. These fluctuations make long-term value-added investments very difficult. That does not sound like very much of an innovation strategy to me.

We have been told the problem is that Canada's business class was lazy and that reducing the tariffs through free trade would whip them into shape. Free trade, corporate tax cuts and deregulation were supposed to solve our productivity problem, but they have not. What they have done is reinforced our nation's dependence on resource exports. It has hampered the government's ability to facilitate real innovation strategy.

Innovation almost by definition means doing something different. It means experimenting. It means promoting diversification of our economy. A laissez-faire approach will actually do the opposite. Giving tax cuts will increase profits to sectors that are not a part of the cutting edge, but they are actually a part of Canada's resource track.

A real strategy would provide direct support to entrepreneurs in the communities they are a part of. It would nurture them in early experimentation. It would help them network with other sectors and industries to facilitate knowledge exchange. It would give them basic infrastructure, and this does include social infrastructure, such as access to family security and strategies to gain community support for their endeavours.

An innovation strategy for Canada needs to include social infrastructure that will support communities and support hubs of knowledge sharing and innovation. This basic infrastructure must include housing. We are a country in desperate need of a national housing strategy. We are the only G8 country not to have this strategy.

My colleague from Vancouver East has introduced Bill C-304. This would create a national housing strategy for this country, a strategy that would also incorporate the very latest environmental and energy efficiency standards into this framework. We could transform communities across Canada, by providing not just stable and affordable housing, but sustainable and energy efficient housing as well. A stable community, a housed community, a community that has the means to survive: this is a productive community and yet the overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs do not support our housing bill.

While the U.K. is committing to retrofit all homes by 2030 with firm interim targets, our government just announced that it is going to cancel the very successful eco-energy home retrofit program. According to Green Communities Canada, which was actually the first organization to deliver the national home energy efficiency program, this program has stimulated hundreds of millions of dollars in energy savings for Canadians. A program like this generates huge savings. It also creates green jobs and improves our competitiveness, yet the program is being cancelled.

We are fed the line that the answer is to cut taxes, that if we cut taxes, we will instantly become productive and competitive. I recently attended a showing of Poor No More, a Canadian documentary. It was shown here on the Hill. It did a great job of dispelling this myth. It took a look at Ireland.

Ireland is often held up as being an example of a country that cut all of its corporate taxes and then succeeded economically, providing a model to follow. However, the example of Ireland is much more complex and nuanced than that. One piece of the puzzle is that Ireland has free post-secondary education. Ireland is committed to educating its citizens, inspiring them and creating a strong competitive and knowledgeable workforce that is the perfect breeding ground for innovation and productivity.

We need to take that kind of bold action in Canada. We need to ensure that every generation of Canadians has access to training and education in order to maximize the nation's productivity and responsiveness to new trends in research. We need to remove barriers to post-secondary education and stop the year-to-year increases in debt that graduates are laden with.

As the NDP critic for first nations, Inuit and Métis affairs focusing on urban aboriginal issues, it is of particular interest to me that aboriginal friendship centres have again been left out of this budget. Friendship centres need increased funding to provide services, to renovate their crumbling buildings and to better their technological capabilities. They are the heart of the urban aboriginal community. We have learned that about half of our first nations people live in urban centres. The friendship centres are vital to Canadian urban centres. They are a hub of activity and culturally appropriate programming and community collaboration. They deserve a fair shake. They are an economically sound investment.

If we invest in social infrastructure and add to that investment in other infrastructures that will specifically support innovation, we can start to piece together an innovation strategy for Canada. Imagine that. It can be done.

We know historically that certain technologies have created waves of innovation and that nations can position themselves strategically within these dynamics to achieve economic performance. In the last century we saw growth position around oil, and automobile and mass production, as well as a move toward an economy based on information and communications technologies.

Last year we found ourselves in a recession. Well, this was an opportunity because typically recessions are periods of change, when new periods of technology break through. This is why the Conservatives' scattershot stimulus spending was so short-sighted. They have run up a deficit, with nothing to show for it, and they failed to position Canada for the next wave of innovation, and the next wave is very likely to be one based on ecologically friendly technologies, and it needs to be if we are going to avoid catastrophic climate change. This is where Canada should be building new knowledge and expertise and encouraging entrepreneurship.

The NDP has already fostered successful co-operation with our green car industrial strategy. The Conservatives, on the other hand, are pushing against this wave, as we have seen in their attempts to--

Bill C-304—An Act to ensure adequate, accessible and affordable housing

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to address some of the points raised by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons relating to an amendment made in the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities to Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, I will refer to a ruling that you made on January 29, 2008, referring to a committee amendment to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act then before the House. In that ruling, you said:

In essence, what we are dealing with is the distinction between the principle of the bill and its scope. The principle refers to the purpose or objective of a bill, while the scope refers to its legislative scheme or the mechanisms that will give effect to the principle, purpose or objective of a bill.

In Bill C-304, the parliamentary secretary himself stated in his argument on April 1 that the purpose of this bill was to “require the development of a national housing strategy” by having the minister “consult all provincial and territorial ministers on the development of such a strategy”. He then said that the rules explain that amendments cannot be outside the scope or principle of the bill as passed at second reading, a rule with which we are all familiar.

I would submit that while the parliamentary secretary did give an accurate description of the principle and the scope of this bill, the principle is to develop a strategy and the scope or the mechanism is to do that through consultations. The key to the government's argument seems to prejudge what the results of these consultations will be.

The amendment in question is a permissive, not mandatory, amendment. It would give the minister an ability to achieve the principle of the bill, a national housing strategy, by refining the scope in terms of consultation to include an option that has been in place in other social policy strategies throughout Canadian history. Therefore, I would submit that the amendment does not change the scope or purpose of the bill but rather seeks to clarify it.

I believe that the committee chair's opinion on the principle of this bill may have been well-intentioned but the committee members were also correct when they decided that the amendment to allow the minister an option to respond to consultations, up to and including an opt-out for Quebec, was within the scope of possible consultations that are required to allow the minister to meet the principle of the bill, which is to develop a national housing strategy.

This option provided in the amendment is a reasonable one and one which is as old as Canada, the option to treat different parts of our country as different and unique.

The House recently passed a motion to define Quebec as a nation within our nation. We have the Canada pension plan and the national child benefit, two well-functioning national programs that Quebec has chosen not to participate in but instead to provide similar services. Quebec has opted out of the Canada student loans program since 1964 and recently received its transfer of approximately $125 million from the federal government in support of student financial assistance programs for the most recent academic year.

To go back further, the Liberal government's 2004 action plan on health exempted Quebec from the criteria and accountability set up for all other provinces and territories while guaranteeing full health transfer payments.

A further example is Canada's Social Union Framework Agreement of 2002, which was a pan-Canadian approach to the reform of Canada's health and social policy systems to which all provinces were signatories except Quebec. The Canada-Quebec accord on immigration allows Quebec to establish its own immigration requirements, distinct from the rest of Canada.

Governments for years, as former prime minister Paul Martin noted, have recognized “Quebec's unique place within the Federation”. It is reasonable that members of Parliament understand that any national strategy must reflect Quebec's right to protect its unique nature through the delivery of certain programs.

The amendment in question today does not alter the nature of the bill but clarifies this right. The government argued that, because an amendment to exclude Quebec from Bill S-3 was inadmissible, this amendment on Bill C-304 should also be inadmissible.

However, these two bills are not comparable. Providing the option for Quebec to opt out of a consultation process as outlined in Bill C-304 does not have the same effect on the act as the exclusion of Quebec does from Bill S-3, which was an act affecting the duties of every federal institution in Canada by enhancing the enforceability of the Government of Canada's obligations and of part 7 of the Official Languages Act.

It is also relevant that the 2005 ruling was not challenged by the majority of the committee members as necessary to the bill, as was the case of the amendment to Bill C-304. The aim of Bill C-304 is to ensure the delivery of the right to adequate housing.

Quebec is in the unique circumstance of having ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, recognizing the right to adequate housing, and currently meets many of the objectives outlined in Bill C-304.

Therefore, as this House stated when it defined Quebec as a nation within a nation, the principle of this bill being a national housing strategy should naturally reflect Parliament's definition of our nation, which is that it can include an asymmetrical form of federalism without changing the principle of being a united Canada.

Quebec has an existing agreement in place with the federal government giving Quebec jurisdiction over the development and delivery of its housing programs, clarifying that Quebec may participate in the process of establishing a national housing strategy, as was the case before the adoption of the amendment. It will only serve to enhance Quebec's potential willingness to participate in the process set out in Bill C-304.

Therefore in closing, I submit that the amendment made in committee is permissive and not mandatory. It only clarifies in nature an acknowledgement of our understanding of a nation within the scope and consistent with the principle of Bill C-304.

I further submit that this is a rare case when the chair's decision on the scope is misplaced and the members of the committee were correct in allowing this amendment to stand.

Mr. Speaker, I hope you will take this into consideration and support the committee members who agree that this amendment does have its rightful place in Bill C-304.

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I had understood that you were going to consider the question and I rose on my point of order a little too quickly. As you know, in the Bloc Québécois, we are quick off the mark.

As I was saying, on April 1 the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons rose on a point of order to have an amendment moved by the member for Chambly—Borduas to Bill C-304 ruled inadmissible. That bill was introduced by an NDP member with the goal of creating a national housing strategy. In fact, we should call it a Canada-wide housing strategy. Since the Quebec nation has been recognized by this House, there are at least two nations in the Canadian political space, if not more, counting the first nations and the Acadian nation.

The amendment proposed by my colleague would allow the government of Quebec to opt out of the Canada-wide strategy and to receive an unconditional payment equal to the total amount that would have been paid within its territory under that strategy. That is a very familiar principle: the right to withdraw unconditionally and with full compensation.

In his submission, the parliamentary secretary to the minister asserted that the national housing strategy has to be developed in collaboration with all provincial and territorial ministers, and that any amendment to exempt a province would be inconsistent with the purpose of the bill. Obviously, I do not share that view, since there are already many examples of so-called national strategies that are in fact Canada-wide strategies, in which Quebec does not participate, and this is not something new.

In the early 1960s, for example, Quebec had already established its own pension plan. In 1976 and 1977, if I recall correctly, there was an agreement between the Government of Quebec and the federal government concerning the selection of immigrants. There is also a child care program. If that Canada-wide program had been adopted, as proposed by former Prime Minister Paul Martin, then, because Quebec already had its own system, it would be exempt from the other. I also recall, and I think it was in about 1998, that the government of Quebec and the federal government, after 30 years of negotiations, also agreed to exempt training measures so that Quebec could have its own structure with a commission of partners and local employment centres that deliver those services, which had formerly been offered by the Canadian government. Again, there are several examples of so-called national strategies that are in fact Canada-wide, where Quebec has the right to withdraw unconditionally and with full compensation.

In addition, the purpose of Bill C-304 is to establish a housing strategy, and the amendment would allow Quebec to opt out of the strategy in an area that is already under its jurisdiction: housing and social housing. It is therefore particularly understandable why my colleague from Chambly—Borduas introduced that amendment.

We certainly do not want the fact that Quebec is opting out to keep the other provinces, along with the federal government, from implementing a pan-Canadian strategy.

The committee that studied the bill felt that the Bloc's amendment was very much in keeping with the spirit of the legislation. On October 26, 2006, you rendered a decision—we do read your words, Mr. Speaker—on the admissibility of an amendment accepted by a standing committee, and you spoke about the general principles that guide your evaluation of decisions made in committee:

As all hon. members know, the Chair has always been extremely reluctant to be drawn into procedural arguments over committee proceedings since to do so would reopen matters which are properly left to committees themselves to resolve. Perhaps more significantly, such a practice would also undoubtedly tie up the time of the House in reviews of committee decisions defeating the very purpose of committees.

As I mentioned, the amendment presented by my colleague from Chambly—Borduas was accepted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. Your comments from 2006, Mr. Speaker, were wise and I see no reason, in this case, to stray from these words of wisdom.

I would therefore ask that you consider the amendment presented my colleague from Chambly—Borduas to be admissible, given that it was accepted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Usurpation of the Title of Member of Parliament

[Pierre Paquette, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on April 1, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons rose on a point of order to state that an amendment was inadmissible, the amendment proposed by my colleague from Chambly—Borduas to Bill C-304, introduced by an NDP member to—

Housing

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the last petition from Victoria is in support of Bill C-304, calling for a national housing strategy, for secure, adequate, accessible, affordable housing for all of us.

[Leilani Farha]

I'll just add a little bit to that.

I think what Alex said is right; when I went across the country to talk about the UPR and get groups engaged, I was floored with the response. Civil society responds to this.

I think it may be somewhat unique to Canada. I've travelled around the world. I've done human rights work in many places. I find that people here are able to very quickly translate the issues and concerns into human rights language and framework.

So I think civil society is certainly ripe for what you're suggesting and for what Alex was suggesting, engaging in real consultations with, as Alex said, not the usual suspects. I met groups and organizations and encountered issues that I didn't know were going on, and I'm a human rights advocate; I get around a fair bit in this country. So I think there is something to be said for just doing that.

I will also say that we in civil society have not been supported in our efforts to try to do post-UPR work to keep it going. There are no funds for us to do that. There's no institutional support. There are no means for us to do it. Those of us who happen to be based in Ottawa gather at Amnesty, basically, and some of us use our volunteer time to make things happen. So if...that is not a fulsome support of civil society in this endeavour.

There's one other point I would make. I think there's the “big” UPR--that is, dealing with the UPR and getting people to understand the UPR as a whole, the process, all these recommendations. Then I think there's another approach that can be taken. It's a little bit more piecemeal, and I think it's good that it's piecemeal. That's why I brought up Bill C-304, the housing legislation, which is going for third reading. That's a very small piece of the pie but it's an important one. Housing has been a major issue with every treaty-monitoring body since 1993, as has poverty, homelessness. Here's one little piece responding to all of that. I think those little piecemeal approaches can be effective as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay.

Before I turn it over to the first questioner, I will ask just one quick question.

You didn't mention which MP is sponsoring Bill C-304.

[Leilani Farha, Executive Director, Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation]

I welcome this opportunity to address this subcommittee.

The UPR has been a process that I've been involved in for some time, particularly as it pertains to Canada. The work I do is very much related to the UPR. I spend most of my time trying to implement the right to adequate housing domestically, so using international law, in the domestic context.

I want to start by commending the subcommittee for having agreed to study the ways in which the recommendations of the UPR can be implemented. I actually think this is very much in keeping with the concerns of civil society across Canada.

In the lead-up to Canada's UPR, I had the good fortune, along with Alex and some others, to travel across the country and meet with organizations from west to east--unfortunately not from north to south, but certainly from west to east--and we ended up meeting with over 125 organizations. What was so striking was that though they were there concerned with different issues, whether it was children's rights or women's rights or indigenous issues, there was unanimous consent, and the unanimous consent was on the issue of implementation, or rather on the issue of the lack of implementation, of international human rights obligations domestically.

What I'd like to do now, with my remaining minutes, is talk about Tanya. Who is Tanya? Tanya is one of my clients. She called me a few weeks ago, and she told me a bit about her life. She is currently working in a low-income job. She has three school-aged boys. After her divorce, she found it pretty difficult to find a place to live. She has a small income, a largish family, and she experienced a fair bit of discrimination in the private rental market. She has her name on a social housing waiting list. She was told it would take seven to ten years before she would get to the top of that list.

The only place she could find is a rundown house that she rents. It's in need of major repairs. The landlord refuses to do those repairs. She doesn't have the money to apply to the landlord-tenant board to make an application to get those repairs done.

Tanya lives in inadequate housing, and she knows that she is one crisis, one emergency, from falling into arrears or becoming homeless.

When Tanya calls me at my office, and she asks me, “What are my rights here? Don't I have the right to live in a decent place?”, what do I tell her?

I told her that Canada has signed and ratified treaties that include the right to adequate housing, including the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. I told her that the international community has expressed grave concern about the situation of homelessness, inadequate housing, and poverty in Canada, and that in 1993, in 1998, in 1999, in 2005, in 2006, in 2008 and in 2009 the United Nations has told the Government of Canada that homelessness and inadequate housing must be addressed by implementing the right to adequate housing domestically.

I told her that a United Nations special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing was so concerned about the housing and homelessness in this country that he came here to investigate, and that he reiterated many of the same recommendations of the UN treaty monitoring bodies.

Then I told her about the UPR, that Canada's human rights record was reviewed, this time by states, and that the verdict and the recommendations were much the same as their predecessors'.

Tanya was elated. And I am not kidding; this is a true story. Maybe I didn't go on at quite this length, but in any event....

So she asked me the next inevitable question: “What's been done, and how do I get the right to adequate housing; where do I go?”

I think we in this room all know the answer to her question. There is nowhere for her to go. She could go to the landlord-tenant board but, as I already said, she doesn't have the money for that application. Even if she did, even if my organization could lend her the money, that board would say that claiming the right to adequate housing there is outside of their mandate.

She could try going to a provincial human rights tribunal, but it would be a similar situation: there is no codified right to adequate housing in provincial and territorial human rights legislation.

She could try a charter challenge, if she could get access to moneys for a charter challenge. The court challenges program doesn't exist any more for her type of claim. Even if she made it to court and made that section 15 or section 7 argument, the lawyers on the other side representing the government would argue that the right to adequate housing is not justiciable—a position, I might add, that is entirely out of step with the international community.

As Alex just said, there isn't even a minister we can point her to in terms of speaking to them.

So where is Tanya likely to end up? In your constituency offices, with MPs as the last-resort international human rights implementation mechanism.

Where will you send her? Right back to me.

I'm going to suggest that we have two options for Tanya. We can tell her that international human rights are lofty ideals, aspirations, or goals with no real-world significance, or we can roll up our sleeves and do the work to figure out meaningful options for implementing these rights. I think this subcommittee has wisely chosen the latter.

I would like to also suggest that the work that needs to be done isn't actually that hard. I think maybe I could suggest that it's somewhat simple. I think the first step is for MPs to understand that human rights are not just lofty ideals and principles. Human rights is a practice. It's a way of governance. It's a way for you to do your job.

What does human rights practice or governance mean? What does it look like? I think there are three core principles that can guide your thinking, your policy-making, your decision-making.

One, human rights practice is always about the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. Rights are obviously most important to those groups who are most vulnerable and disadvantaged, because they are most likely to suffer rights violations.

Two, human rights practice involves the setting of timelines and goals, benchmarks, really concrete things to aim for in order to change or better a situation. This is obviously particularly true in economic and social realms, where progress can in fact be charted and measured quite easily.

Three--and I think this is particularly important in light of our UPR discussions today--human rights practice ensures accountability. Someone--or someones--is accountable for reviewing human rights compliance and enforcement.

Putting these principles into practice, what can you do specifically?

I think we only need to look at the recommendations that came out of the UPR process and the treaty monitoring bodies, which have been repeatedly recommended by civil society.

Alex has already gone through many concrete recommendations, which I wholeheartedly support.

I also support the recommendations that Kathy Vandergrift brought to this subcommittee two days ago.

I would add to those the following. I think we do need to look at existing enforcement mechanisms in the country, assess them, review them, and make sure they're actually working to protect all human rights—civil, political, social, and economic. I think we do need--Alex referred to this--a new intergovernmental process for implementing international human rights obligations, and responding to concerns and recommendations with respect to the UPR and the treaty monitoring bodies.

Here's my main recommendation. I'm going to put something very practical on the table for you. I think we do need to develop a system or process that will help ensure that international human rights law and review and enforcement mechanisms are built into every relevant piece of legislation, particularly new legislation that's arising.

I want to deal with a very specific example that will be before you, Bill C-304. I don't know if any of you know of it. It's the bill that's on affordable, adequate, and accessible housing. It's a private member's bill. It calls for a national housing strategy. The bill is, itself, a response to treaty monitoring-body recommendations and the UPR. The way it can be viewed as an actual response to treaty-monitoring bodies' concerns and the UPR recommendations is that it includes the following elements.

It calls for the provincial, territorial, and federal ministers responsible for housing to meet and hammer out a national strategy, and they're to do it in consultation with indigenous groups, civil society, and municipal governments. It recognizes the most disadvantaged groups, and that their needs must be prioritized. It calls for the setting of timelines and targets for ending homelessness. And it calls for the development of a process for the independent review of complaints about possible violations of the right to adequate housing. It also builds into it a review mechanism for follow-up to anything the UN has said about the right to adequate housing in the country.

I would say that this is model legislation that directly responds to the concerns of treaty-monitoring bodies and the concerns of the Human Rights Council at the universal periodic review of Canada.

Of course, none of the recommendations that Alex has put on the table or that I have put on the table will solve Tanya's concerns immediately. But they will signal to Tanya that she lives in a country where all human rights are taken seriously, that someone is accountable, and that if she believes her rights have been violated, she has a place to go to tell her story, be heard, and have access to a remedy, if appropriate.

Thanks very much.

Bill C-304--Secure, Adequate, Accessible and Affordable Housing Act

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order with respect to the admissibility of an amendment to Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, which was adopted by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on December 8, 2009.

On Monday, March 22, 2010, the committee agreed to re-adopt its report on Bill C-304 that was agreed to in the previous session on December 10, 2009. On March 24, 2010, the committee's report on Bill C-304 was tabled in the House.

The amendment appears as clause 3.1 in Bill C-304 which states:

The Government of Quebec may choose to be exempted from the application of this Act and may, if it chooses to do so, receive an unconditional payment equal to the total of the amounts that would otherwise be paid within its territory under this Act.

During the committee's clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-304, the chair ruled that this amendment was inadmissible on the grounds that it was beyond the scope and principle of the bill agreed to at second reading. The chair stated:

...Bill C-304 provides for the minister responsible for CMHC to consult with the provincial ministers to establish a national housing strategy. This amendment proposes to allow the Province of Quebec to opt out of the national strategy. As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, second edition, states on page 766, “An amendment to a bill that was referred to a committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the bill”.

In the opinion of the chair, the introduction of this opt-out provision is contrary to the principle of Bill C-304, and therefore is inadmissible.

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-304 would require the development of a national housing strategy. Clause 3 of the bill would require the responsible minister to consult all provincial and territorial ministers on the development of such a strategy. Amending clause 3 to allow a province to opt out of a national housing strategy is inconsistent with the purpose of the bill and with clause 3 in particular.

There is no suggestion in the bill as adopted at second reading to support the addition of a provincial exemption from the national strategy. Obviously, such a change would fundamentally alter the purpose of the bill.

I regret that opposition members on the committee overturned the chair's ruling and the amendment now appears as clause 3.1 in Bill C-304, as reported to the House.

I would note that the chair's ruling on Bill C-304 is similar to the October 20, 2005 ruling of the chair of the Standing Committee on Official Languages on an amendment to Bill S-3, an act to amend the Official Languages Act. That ruling stated:

I'm informed that amendment BQ-1...is inadmissible. That may be explained by the fact that Bill S-3 reinforces the binding nature of the government's obligations across Canada whereas this amendment is contrary to that spirit. Instead of reinforcing it, it instead provides for different treatment for Quebec.

Mr. Speaker, the amendment to Bill C-304 is beyond the scope and principle of the bill agreed to at second reading. Therefore, clause 3.1 of Bill C-304 should be ruled out of order.

Housing

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to submit a petition in support of a national housing strategy. These petitioners are calling for an increased federal role in housing, through investments in not for profit housing, housing for the homeless, access to housing for those with different needs, and sustainable and environmentally sound design, but investments that actually go beyond the one time stimulus investment in budget 2009 and 2010.

The petitioners are asking for swift passage of Bill C-304; a very timely request since this bill is soon to be reported to the House and receive third reading. So, the petitioners and I look forward very much to the minister's response.

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

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present today, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank all of the members of the committee for their hard work and collaboration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

We will accept it exactly the same way. We'll get it written out and then I'll read it, but right now we're going to discuss Mr. Komarnicki's motion that we accept our report as we decided it on December 10, as is, on Bill C-304.

Can we have discussion on that, please?

Mr. Kennedy, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Okay. Well, as you know, we made a decision several weeks ago that we wanted to take a full day to come back to look at Bill C-304. I would assume that meant that we weren't going to accept it--or we accept it in its format before we prorogued. So I would say that the committee has to make a decision. Either we accept it the way it was before we prorogued, or we continue with our work today and go through it line by line.

Ms. Leslie, I don't know how you feel about accepting Mr. Komarnicki's suggestion.

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Order. We're going to begin the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities meeting number five.

According to the orders of the day today, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, March 3, 2010, we have Bill C-304, an act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, clause-by-clause consideration.

Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), consideration of the preamble and clause 1 is postponed, and I will begin with clause 2.

(On clause 2--Definitions)

Madame Folco.

Resumption of debate on Address in Reply

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Elmwood—Transcona.

For the second time in a year, the Conservatives shut down the work of Parliament. We know they did it to avoid the very important issues of Afghanistan and what happened to detainees.

I was very proud to attend the anti-prorogation rally that took place in Vancouver on January 23. It was wonderful to see the young people who came out to the rally. Some people had not been to a political protest before, but they came because they absolutely did not buy the very flimsy and transparent reasons the Prime Minister gave for proroguing the House.

Yesterday we debated the NDP motion to place limits on prorogation and prevent the abuses we have seen take place under the Conservative government. The NDP motion basically stated that if the House was to be prorogued for more than seven days, there had to be a resolution and vote in Parliament on the reasons for prorogation. I am very pleased the motion passed.

The reason the House was prorogued for five weeks was the government was supposedly recalibrating its agenda and setting a new agenda, with promises to listen to Canadians. When we heard the Speech from the Throne and the budget, there was no other conclusion but to say that it did not come up with anything new.

The things people in my community of Vancouver East need and have called for, whether it is child care reform, an end to homelessness, the need for affordable housing, protection for seniors or an end to the HST, none of those are included in the Speech from the Throne or the budget.

Several major organizations in Vancouver, child care groups like First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition, when asked in the prebudget consultations, made it very clear to “Give priority to federal tax and program spending that will increase Canada’s investment in early childhood development”. They pointed out that for every dollar invested in child care, we put something like $2.30 back into the economy. That is an important economic and social investment, which helps women in the labour force and families overall.

When we compare the economic investment and the positive results, consider that the OECD and UNICEF rank Canada dead last in the provision of early learning and child care. We should be ashamed of that.

What did the Speech from the Throne and the budget produce in that regard? In terms of the Speech from the Throne, child care was mentioned exactly twice. Housing was only mentioned once compared to the crime agenda, which was mentioned 12 times. We begin to get a bit of a comparison of where the emphasis is by the government.

The only changes made in terms of anything to do with child care was a measly increase of $3.35 per week for the universal child care benefit. That will not create a single day care space, not in my riding, not anywhere else across the country. In fact, the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of BC called this measure one of the greatest failures, saying that the taxable $100 a month baby bonus “is NOT a child care program”.

This is a huge issue for working families. After housing in British Columbia, child care is the second highest cost facing B.C. families. That is astounding. I am going to speak about this in a couple of minutes. Housing is bad enough, but the second highest cost facing families is the cost of child care. In fact, $1,200 per month is the average cost of care for a child under three years.

In 2010 a metro Vancouver family with a four-year-old and a two-year-old in full-time child care will pay $23,700 annually in fees. That is astounding. For the average working family, that digs a big hole in its pockets and monthly income. Even for the child care spaces that are available, there are huge waiting lists.

Right across from my constituency office in Kingsway in Vancouver, the brand new Mount Pleasant Community Centre 3 Corners Child Care Centre was forced to shut down its waiting list. Why? It has over 400 names on the waiting list and it decided it did not want to give parents a false hope about getting their child into care when the list was already so long.

That is a pretty dismal record. It really disturbs me that this daily reality that the average family faces around child care and housing was not even addressed in the throne speech or the budget.

I want to spend a couple of minutes talking about the housing issue. In my community of east Vancouver and the downtown eastside and in Vancouver generally, a crisis is taking place. I participated in some of the events during the Olympic period in Vancouver. For example, the Red Tent Campaign, which was organized by the Pivot Legal Society, had 500 emergency red tents established. A tent village was set up in a vacant lot on East Hastings Street that was to be used for parking for Vanoc vehicles because people were so desperate for housing.

We and other groups appealed to BC Housing to help find people shelter so they could move out of the tents into appropriate space. About 70 people did secure housing, but there is still a number of tents sitting in that vacant lot, on the mud, waiting for a proper housing solution to come forward. It is so outrageous, in a country as wealthy was Canada, that the Conservative government cannot give housing a priority.

I have a housing bill, Bill C-304, which calls for a national housing strategy and for the participation of all levels of government. It has huge support across the country, from municipalities, from first nations, from housing organizations, from faith groups. I hope when the bill comes back to the House for report stage and third reading, it will go through.

I could not believe there was nothing in the budget for housing. People in the downtown eastside, students, seniors, even families making modest incomes cannot afford affordable housing, whether it is in Vancouver or metro Vancouver generally. This was a huge failure in the Speech from the Throne.

It has been same with pensions. Our pension critic, the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, has done a tremendous job in bringing forward the issue of pensions and the fact that people are getting ripped off in their private pension plans and that the public pension plan itself is not doing justice to people. Many seniors are living below the poverty line.

We know a modest investment of $700 million toward guaranteed income supplement payments would close the gap of poverty among seniors. It would be such a dignified and important thing to do. Did we see it? No. What did we see? Instead we saw the mad race to the bottom by the government giving away another $6 billion in corporate tax cuts that are scheduled for this year. It is the hypocrisy and contradictions. The people who actually need the help, who should be the priority in our country, are somehow left out on the margins in the cold. Yet these wealthy corporations are doing very well. We know the banks have doubled their profits, for example, but they still get these big corporate tax breaks. I just find it very shameful.

As the member for Elmwood—Transcona pointed out a few moments ago, how can the Conservatives live in good conscience with this kind of massive tax shift that is taking place?

Another point is the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is coming to an end March 31. This is so important in my community. Groups like Healing our Spirit BC Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Society and the Indian Residential School Survivors Society have used this money to help with the healing process. Every day I see the impact of residential schools on survivors and what it means to people in my community. Why is this program coming to an end? Why was it not included in the budget for a further commitment? It is so essential to the respect and dignity of aboriginal people.