Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I certainly want to echo some of the comments from my colleagues. I would be happy to sit in a late sitting tonight if we were speaking with witnesses, but to sit in another filibuster is not why I put my name forward as a member of Parliament. It is not what my constituents are asking me to do, especially in these final weeks of the sitting session.
To ensure that I remain relevant, I'll be very clear. Mr. Carney is welcome to come to the committee. If the Conservatives would like to put his name forward as a witness, that's their choice, but as a private citizen.... I have not heard a single argument in these very painful hours that we've been in a filibuster that supports why we should bring a private citizen to this committee.
My colleague Mr. Turnbull referenced that the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance was at committee on May 9 and she did answer our questions on the BIA.
I want to highlight and reiterate just very quickly a couple of the points Mr. Turnbull made on some of the key social programs and health programs that I know my constituents want to see moving forward. It is incredibly important: the continuation of child care and the expansion of spots; the national school food program—this is so important for children, for families, and this is food security—and pharmacare with contraceptive supports and diabetes supports.
One of the things that I haven't heard spoken about enough is how important the diabetes medication supports are in a preventative sense. Indeed, it can ensure that someone in the early stages of this chronic disease process is able to be stabilized and to not move to the much more invasive and difficult aspects of diabetes, if they have access to the necessary medications and testing tools.
To hold up these these important programs in a filibuster when we really need to have witnesses before committee who will once again continue to speak about how important this is, I don't believe is a good use of our resources.
I want to spend a few moments to speak about the housing initiatives, because I hear so often in the House about how important housing is to Canadians, and I agree that it is. I'm very proud of the work the Liberal government is doing to ensure we address this problem. Within this budget implementation act—and again, these are the things that we should be debating—is the availability of public lands for home plans: to be able to build on Canada Post properties, National Defence lands and in office buildings. This is something that I have heard the Conservative opposition members speak about over and over. It's in our budget. Let's talk about it.
We're building more rental apartments. Again, it's something that we hear about over and over in debate, both in the House and in committee. There's $15 billion in new loan funding for the apartment construction loan program. That could bring a total of 131,000 new homes by 2031. Let's talk about that.
We're launching the Canada builds initiative, a team Canada approach to building more affordable homes for the middle class on underutilized lands across the country. This program brings forward federal low-cost loans with provincial and territorial investments to scale up construction—again, a solid program that can expand the availability of housing for middle-class Canadians.
We're providing a $400-million top-up to the $4-billion housing accelerator fund. This program is in my community of St. John's East. It's incredibly important. It is welcomed by the community. My constituents want to see us move forward on this program.
We're launching a $1.5-billion Canada rental protection fund to protect and grow the stock of affordable housing in Canada, and providing $1 billion for the affordable housing fund to build affordable homes and launch a permanent rapid housing stream—again, very important. This is also part of homelessness prevention by having homes available along a continuum of need from true homelessness to market investment and investing an additional $1.3 billion in Reaching Home Canada. That is the Canadian homelessness program.
Yes, we have to do so much to help the most vulnerable in our community to have a respectable place to call home. Let's talk about that. Let's look through the important allocation of funds within the budget so we can ensure that we have the rollout of supports for all Canadians across the country.
I can continue. There's streamlining foreign credential recognition for construction sectors, working to narrow the housing gap in indigenous communities and incentivizing Canada's educational institutions to build more housing for students. We heard this through the FES. We heard it in the pre-budget consultation. We hear it from our constituents—at least, I hear it from my constituents. I hear it in the House continually. I hear it in committee. We need to address housing concerns.
This is a robust plan to help all Canadians have a place to call home. I plead with opposition members to let us have a vote. Let's end the debate on the subamendment. Let's move to the work that Canadians have sent us to this important House of Commons, this Parliament, to do. It's the work of ensuring that we meet the needs of all Canadians.
I refuse to take up another 20 minutes just reading notes, but I absolutely ask my opposition colleagues to stop this. Let's get back to the work we are here to do. I'm happy to sit with witnesses. I'm happy to do what needs to be done to move this budget forward, but this filibuster needs to stop.
Thank you.