Thank you for the question.
Absolutely.
We know that the government, in its budgetary plan that is coming out in a few weeks, is going to be looking at a short-term investment plan primarily focused on stimulus programs, shovel-worthy projects, possibly green, etc. However, in addition to that, it is absolutely fundamental that we look at this from a longer-term perspective to address a number of the issues you've just raised. That's why, in one of the principles I mentioned in my opening remarks, we feel the strong need to create a forum whereby we can bring together a large range of stakeholders, including the federal government, provincial governments, municipalities, providers, and aboriginal groups, etc., to really define the policy framework for a long-term national housing strategy in Canada.
We've talked this afternoon about a number of options in terms of how funding could go and how that could be sliced up among the number of different possibilities, but essentially we need to sit down with the range of stakeholders and say, “Okay, 10 years out, what would that policy framework look like? What are the investment targets? What is the accountability? What are the measures of whether that program has been successful?”
As an organization, CHRA is making ourselves available to act as a convenor, a forum, to create that space. We soon will be in talks with CMHC to see if we can essentially operationalize that. Frankly, we're hoping for the support of this committee for that concept, so that we can really flesh out in a collaborative fashion what a long-term housing strategy would look like.