Finance Committee on Oct. 11th, 2023

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

CMHC administers the housing accelerator fund but doesn't have a history of delivering that type of programming. You alluded to that. With CMHC being put in charge of social and affordable housing programs, I worry the agency lacks the capacity it needs and, for pragmatic reasons, will have to focus on applications from major urban centres. Since their applications involve larger housing projects, CMHC would be able to allocate fewer resources to support the construction of housing. That could mean that smaller municipalities are overlooked.

Do you share my concern? From your comments, I assume you have a good level of support from CMHC. What are your thoughts on what I just said?

[Andrew Black]

Well, I guess I'm not sure if that's the case. I don't know if larger cities tend to get looked at over smaller communities by the CMHC, but I would think that larger cities would be able to submit more applications, and their applications may be more complex.

I know that municipalities do get kind of sidelined waiting for funding applications to be approved. There have been times in the past in Tantramar—not so much with the CMHC, but in other funding applications—when they had to come back to us for further information, mostly around infrastructure funding. That, of course, delays us in being able to do the work. In the case of housing, it would be the same thing.

Especially when we're in a crisis right now, maybe being able to have capacity through the CMHC—maybe they would have more bodies doing the work—would increase the speed at which applications could come back, and maybe the funding would then come to municipalities to be able to build the houses people need.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

Now we'll go to the NDP with MP Blaikie.

Go ahead, please.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

Mayor Black, I want to continue along similar lines. I'd say we heard in the last block the negative side of the issue. I don't mean that in any kind of a pejorative sense, but just in terms of the problems you encounter.

I wonder if you might be able to describe what you think a funding model that would empower municipalities to move forward on projects more quickly might look like, either in terms of a direct relationship with the federal government or through whatever you imagine being a more efficient model for getting those funds into communities and getting units actually built.

[Andrew Black]

Through the chair, that's a good question.

With respect to the housing crisis, I don't want to say it's new. The housing crisis is a bigger issue now than it was in the last few years, or was, as I said, seven years ago.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

It's been a long time in the making.

[Andrew Black]

In the municipality of Tantramar, I've created a mayor's round table on housing. We've had two meetings—we've met only in the last two months—to bring in non-profit organizations working in the housing sector to discuss this very issue.

What is the municipality's responsibility for housing? Are we landlords? I know municipalities do that, but not every municipality has the ability to do that. In my community, I think a funding application, from a municipal perspective, would look at supporting non-profit housing. Within our community we have non-profit housing developers who are looking to build a significant amount of housing. They, again, have to go through funding applications. It's not private investment; they're trying to generate the money they need to be able to do this work.

A baseline would be for municipalities to maybe be the go-between among the orders of government to be able to get that funding and then partner with non-profits to be able to do that work.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

We heard reference earlier to the Conservative leader and some of his thoughts on housing. One of the things he's proposing is to take resources out of existing funding for municipalities that don't meet a certain target for new units, like the GST rebate and the gas tax.

When municipalities are already struggling to deliver housing, do you think that reducing their resources would help or hinder their efforts to build housing in their communities?

[Andrew Black]

It's a good question.

I think it would hinder, certainly. I think the housing issue from a municipal perspective, as I said, is so complex. We have been pushed into this realm of dealing with housing where we've never had to before. In New Brunswick, the same thing goes for health care. We've been pushed into this environment that is not really our responsibility.

Because it's so complex and because municipalities currently don't have the capacity to be able to build housing units and we're still trying to struggle with what our position and our role and our responsibility are with private development and non-profit development, it seems a little too early to be taking resources away.

If we all knew what role and responsibility we had to play within housing as municipalities, then maybe there would be a higher level of accountability for us to demand to build housing, but at this point it's still too early to tell what role we play. To take access to funding to build housing away from municipalities would be hugely detrimental.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Blaikie.

We'll now go to the Conservatives and MP Duncan for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You couldn't have timed that any better to clarify the comments of Mr. Blaikie.

It is for big cities that are not meeting targets. They are setting plans or passing resolutions and having all these ambitions, but the actual follow-through is not going there. Again, I'm happy to promote the merits of our leader Mr. Poilievre's private member's bill and to say that those penalties will happen to large cities that have targets.

I can assure you that your municipality would not fall into that. Rather, what we would do is that rural communities that are leading with that would be bonused for those that have targets and exceed them, that are building and adding to the housing portfolio and the need for 3.5 million homes, according to the CMHC. That means we have to triple the current number of housing starts that we had last year. As a point, now we're actually seeing housing starts decrease, not triple like they need to, just to meet demand. I wanted to note that for the record to make sure for a second time that we're clear on that and that there's no misinformation.

Mr. Boyd, I appreciate your presentation. The statistics you've provided have been very helpful in understanding the seriousness and the depth of the challenge you've been facing and seeing on the front lines of what you and your staff have been doing. I want to give you a bit more of an opportunity to speak.

I think one of the things we deal with in public life and in policy is that stats are important. I think humanizing some of those stories is equally important. In terms of some of your exchanges earlier, are there some stories or examples that come to mind? You mentioned the senior with medications. I'm going back to a family with two parents or a single parent with children who is going from paycheque to paycheque. Could you talk about this? Obviously I'm not naming names, but these stories that humanize this are very important. It's about the severity and magnitude of where we're at in terms of the cost of living crunch in Fredericton.

[Alex Boyd]

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Yes, there are so many stories that have a sort of gut punch when you hear them, but there is also so much hope and beauty in stories as well. I'll share the story of a young lady who actually sits on my board of directors, who was a single mom of two kids and was working two jobs and still couldn't make ends meet. She would leave her job at lunchtime, tell her boss she was going for lunch, and then she would drive to Greener Village to get food assistance, because that's what she needed to do to survive.

As she did that, she also was going back to school and furthering her education. She was able to achieve a degree and upgrade her job significantly, and she was able to earn a second degree while she was at that new job. Now, she's in a job where she no longer needs the support of Greener Village. She doesn't need a food hamper from Greener Village in order to take care of her and her kids. Instead, what she's doing is telling her story.

You can see her story on our website and in our newsletters, saying that this is how the support that we give people.... It doesn't solve the problem for them, but it does keep them alive. It sustains them while we have an opportunity to seek deeper help for people so that they can get back up on their feet. In her case, she comes to an event where she speaks and tells her story, and there's not a dry eye in the room when she tells her story about how the food resources she received kept her going, how they kept her kids going and how that made sure they had the food they needed for school.

A funny thing we do with a local pizza company, one of those a hot-and-ready types of things, is that they give us their pizzas when they're done, and we're able to turn around, put them in the freezer and then give them out to clients. One story she tells is that after she had to go to the food bank, she had the pizza in the box from the store and she was able to heat it up and give it to her kids. Her kids never knew the difference. To them, it was pizza night, like any other pizza night. She tells that story and says, “Now, whenever I go to buy pizza for my kids, I buy it from that store.” She tells that story and the tears are running, because food and security are human. It is emotional. It's hard to speak in a committee like that. I don't want to get emotional here, but the reality is that it's people's lives.

We do boil it down to the statistics. It's important to know the statistics and understand the demographics. It's also critically important to see the humanity, to see the newcomer families who are in Canada for their first winter. They're not expecting the car to cost what it costs or what it costs to buy parkas or all of these things, because they didn't know what Canadian life was going to be as an experience for them. I would say, “I don't know how to make this all work, and I don't even know how to find the resources.” I agree with organizations across the country, like Greener Village, that come beside people at their darkest moments to give them a helping hand. We want to walk beside them for as long as they need us. That's what we're here for. I could spend the rest of this committee talking about the stories of people who are impacted, both by the food bank support and by the educational support.

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

We're out of time, but we thank you for sharing that very human story. Thank you.

Thank you, MP Duncan.

Now we go to MP Atwin. Go ahead, please.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you.

I shudder to think what our community would be like without Greener Village, and you can tell story after story, for sure.

My two big requests around pre-budget consultations are absolutely supporting food banks and having a national school food program.

If a successful program were to be rolled out, I'm just wondering whether that would alleviate some of the pressures you are seeing at the food banks.

[Alex Boyd]

I would say there would be better support for children. I don't know that it would alleviate the need for the food bank, but it certainly would make sure that kids weren't hungry in schools.

Greener Village is also involved in school food. We work in partnership with Food Depot Alimentaire in Moncton to provide breakfast programs to 18 area schools where we provide fresh fruit, snacks, milk, eggs—breakfast materials. The food bank network is very involved in school food as well, so we would certainly encourage better school food support.

In reality, we all know how important education is. If anything is going to solve the issues of income inequality and food insecurity in our society, education has the best chance to actually accomplish that for people. We need to invest in our kids' education in a meaningful way so that not just kids who come from homes that are doing well but also kids who come from homes that aren't doing well are going to be able to benefit from that education.

You can't benefit from education as well if you are underfed. The brain is a muscle. It needs energy to operate, and if you're not feeding kids a good, nutritious diet, then they're coming in already hampered. We definitely need to invest in that in a meaningful way, because that makes a huge difference.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I also can't highlight enough that it is a social determinant of health to have access to healthy foods, so there are downstream benefits as well.

I'll move quickly, with the time I have left, to the issue of housing.

MP Duncan, you mentioned the housing accelerator fund and perhaps the lack of success, to your mind. I'd really like to highlight again this difference between rural and urban, because here in Fredericton we have absolutely been able to benefit. We have record development here in the city of Fredericton: 938 new units were approved in 2022. There are 425 and counting here for 2023. We have the 12 Neighbours Community program, which has been this incredible success with tiny homes. It's just revolutionized the supports and wraparounds and peer support that we're seeing, as well as the continuum of care. There are success stories out there.

Mayor Black, I'd like to get your opinion and your thoughts on Bill C-56, which puts in place the idea of removing the GST on purpose-built rentals. Would that help support your community in any way in kind of incentivizing that new development?

[Andrew Black]

I think it would.

I also want to point out that the southeast region in Moncton also has had huge success with the housing accelerator fund, so I don't want to make it seem as though nobody can access it. However, the reality is that it's very small. I would even call us a “have” community. We have a university, so we have a sizable budget. Even for a “have” community like ours, a small community, it is difficult with the housing accelerator fund, but Moncton has also had significant growth, which is great.

Yes, removing the GST would certainly help in our community and other small communities as well, but again, just knowing what role and responsibility municipalities play in the housing sector is difficult. I'm not sure if the federal government can solve that problem. Maybe what's needed is for provincial and maybe municipal associations, like the one on which I serve, to have discussions with municipalities to get them to understand what role they need to play in housing development, but anything that would increase housing stock in general—affordable housing would be even better—would be greatly appreciated.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

I'll just turn quickly to the public safety piece.

I am the member for Fredericton, but I also come from Oromocto, which is a smaller community that has certainly seen an increase in crime, in substance use and in multiple issues.

You mentioned the RCMP back pay negotiation issue and the need for better communication. Is there anything you can point to that would equip municipalities to deal with this kind of mounting crisis?

[Andrew Black]

Really quickly, since we probably don't have a ton of time, I'll just say recruitment. In the province of New Brunswick, the current Minister of Public Safety and Justice wants to have 80 new RCMP officers in the province by the end of 2025. All the mayors of the southeast region met with him last Thursday, and the question I asked him was, “It's wonderful that you want to have some extra police officers for visibility and crime reduction efforts, but how confident are you that you're going to be able to recruit?” People don't want to go into the RCMP anymore. The Mass Casualty Commission report out of Nova Scotia has shed some light on maybe a longer time in Depot. These are factors with which maybe the federal government would be able to help.

Again, across the country RCMP issues arise, particularly around recruitment, so we need better conversations with municipalities when changes are made to the RCMP contracts, but recruitment efforts are going to be especially significant over the next few years.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Atwin.

I'm just looking at the time, members. We won't have time for a full round, but we do have enough time for each party to have about two minutes to ask a question or two to our excellent witnesses.

We'll start with the Conservatives and MP Duncan.

Go ahead, please.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Boyd, you spoke well about food inflation and the increased costs there, but could I get you to elaborate a bit more on some of the stats or, as you say, stories on housing costs?

We know that housing prices have doubled in the country. Mortgages have doubled, and rents have doubled as well. Again, that is a percentage of a family's or a household's income and the pressure it is facing. I know a lot of the stats say that ideally 30% of someone's income is for housing and shelter, and we're seeing now in many cases or regions that being doubled, so that people are spending 60%, 70% or more.

Can you talk about that from what you've seen here in the region and perhaps give us some context for that while we're here?

[Alex Boyd]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That's a huge issue. Housing is an increasing percentage of everyone's expenses monthly. Income hasn't risen by a similar percentage, so people who are struggling now have to struggle with whether they should buy food to feed themselves or try to keep a roof over their head. Very often, the roof over their head wins that debate, because the thought of being homeless is one that is very difficult.

Low-income people especially—people on social assistance, for instance—can't even find a room in a rooming house for 30% of the social assistance rate. It's impossible. There is no availability of any housing that makes any sense for someone unless they can get on the New Brunswick housing list, which will give them subsidized housing. There isn't. You could not find a cubbyhole for 30% of the social assistance rate, so for people who are in the most dire situations for housing, it's a complete scramble to find whatever they can find and to couch surf. We know of people who access our food bank who are living in tents, not because they're not working but because there's just no possibility for them to find housing, so they have a tent in a wooded area and they're saying they don't know when they'll ever be able to find or afford housing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Thank you, MP Duncan.

Now we'll go to the Liberals and MP Thompson.

Go ahead, please.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

I want to thank both the witnesses. This has been incredibly helpful and certainly important work in the sector. I absolutely follow what you're saying and thank you for the work you do.

I have two quick questions. I'll start with you, Mayor Black, and then go to Mr. Boyd.

In your town—I know it's a university town and it's very beautiful—do you have an understanding of the numbers with respect to what we spoke about earlier, being able to quantify the needs of the students or the individuals who are couch surfing, with respect to supported housing, to affordable housing, to market housing? Is there a number so that the housing response is able to tie into actual need?