I think whenever you're dealing with a new program design—and this is not specific to an acquisition fund, but generally—you want to understand for what purpose the program is in place and whether you are going to achieve that purpose. Right now, the purpose, in my view, of considering an acquisition fund or other measures designed to create more non-market housing is to increase the overall stock of housing in Canada that exists outside of the market.
I think you know this, but for the benefit of the committee, we're at a bit less than 4% of the total in Canada. The OECD average is closer to 8%. If we put measures in place, my goal will be to increase the proportion of homes that exist outside of the market. By the way, about 10% of Canadians, or a bit more, fall below the low income metric. I think we should be aiming to make sure they have a place they can afford.
In terms of the program that I would look at, my focus, if we're trying to support acquisition by non-profits, would be on making sure the building is held by someone who exists for the purpose of keeping it out of a market setting. I don't want to create a scenario where we put public resources on the table to eventually enrich a private investor who could be investing in the market themselves.
Long story short, we just want to make sure that the ultimate recipients of the funds we put in place are held outside of a market context so that 10 years from now we're not in the same place.