The short answer is no. A new tool called the land bank was recently launched. You can consult a website that maps out all federal lands in Quebec and Canada that are part of the bank.
The way it currently works is that we say we want to receive proposals for these lands instead of saying that public lands will be reserved for social and community housing projects. If we did that, we would be sending a signal that it would be worthwhile for communities to organize and for non-profit organizations to submit their projects quickly. However, the opposite is true. Competition is created between private developers and potential social and community projects. It isn't encouraging, and it doesn't send a positive message.
In Rimouski, in particular, there is public land that could be used for a housing co‑operative. People in the community are already organized and have set up a co‑operative project. There are also public lands located in the Petit Champlain neighbourhood in Quebec City. Once again, these lands were just added to the land bank.
I want to clarify that very few federal surplus lands have been placed in this bank and that other federal surplus public lands are under the responsibility of Canada Post or the Canada Lands Company, for example. There are major challenges, for example at the Wellington Basin in Montreal; the community has mobilized so that the land can be used to meet the needs of the community, which is very organized. A wonderful redevelopment project has been created in the Pointe-Saint-Charles neighbourhood. Since there are no clear guidelines from the federal government on the priority use of surplus lands, we have to negotiate on a case-by-case basis. So an immense weight is being placed on local organizations and the public. We need to reverse this trend by establishing clear guidelines for the use we want to make of public lands, which belong to the community.