Hello.
I'm honoured to join you today from the unceded and traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.
My name is Marie-Josée Houle.
As the first federal housing advocate, I am here to lead national action to ensure that laws, policies and programs respect the right of individuals to adequate housing.
Since Canada enshrined the right to housing in the National Housing Strategy Act enacted in 2019, it has had an obligation to uphold that right for all. I'm here today as a representative of my office, a human rights accountability mechanism.
Today, I would like to address three points. First, I will talk about the harmful effects of the financialization of housing, a situation that the government must address. Second, I will talk about tenant protection, which must be a priority. Third, I will talk about the fact that the government must invest in the supply of non-market housing.
First, financialization is harming people in Canada. Many of the activities this committee is studying are about treating housing as an asset for profit, and not as a human right. Financialization has jeopardized Canada's affordable housing supply. Our research estimates that 20% to 30% of Canada's rental housing is financialized, with disadvantaged groups most impacted.
It started in the 1990s, when Canada allowed the creation of real estate investment trusts and pension funds to invest in financial markets and instruments. It's not new that these buildings are privately owned. What is new is that they're owned by large institutional investors whose obligation is maximizing returns for shareholders. These firms evict tenants, deny services and dramatically increase rents for profit.
Financialization is contributing to housing unaffordability and violating people's human rights. The federal government must curb financialization with measures like tax reforms that make financialization less profitable, especially for REITs; regulating pension funds so that their investments uphold human rights; and preventing banks from financing the acquisition of buildings if the building plan relies on excessive rent increases or evictions.
This brings me to my second point, which is that we must protect tenants and stabilize rents. Financialization, speculation and inflation are driving up housing costs. This has the greatest impact on renters, like people from disadvantaged groups, people who are one rent increase away from homelessness, people who are being evicted because of financialization and the people most at risk, who cannot afford any housing at all.
Again, curbing financialization is a key measure. The federal government must also work with all governments on rent stabilization measures, ensure national standards for access to justice for tenants facing eviction and expand supports for tenants facing rising costs.
To my final point, governments must invest in housing for the public good and prioritize non-market housing. Our research estimates that Canada is short 4.4 million affordable homes for those in need. Flooding the market with new housing will not solve the problem. We're losing affordable units more quickly than we can build them, and financialization is a major contributing factor.
Supply alone does not result in affordable housing, nor does using public funds on incentives for the private sector without safeguards for affordability.
The way forward is for government to invest in non-market housing. It is the best use of taxpayer dollars, and it creates permanently affordable and accessible housing for a wide range of people. It means that disadvantaged groups have more money for food, medicine and child care.
It has economic value. It benefits everyone, because it is not inflationary. When people are not paying so much for their housing, they spend in other areas, which bolsters economic stability.
Canada can protect and grow its affordable, non-market housing supply. We need the national housing strategy's $82-billion suite of programs to change course to prioritize non-market housing. We need the federal government to create an acquisition fund for non-market and indigenous housing providers to buy, repair and operate existing buildings. We need the federal government to attach conditions to infrastructure funding that mandate the creation of non-market housing in new projects and link funding to affordable housing targets.
Other measures include strengthening affordability criteria for national housing strategy programs, CMHC insurance and other federal programs.
We all know that all levels of government have a role to play, but the federal government must lead the way.
Thank you.
I will be pleased to answer your questions.