Evidence of meeting #5 for Finance in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was garon.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you, Mr. Leitão.
Thank you, Mr. Cape.
Mr. Garon, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Again, thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Since we don't have a lot of time, I'm going to ask an open-ended question. Much has been said about the fact that there is a housing affordability crisis. Many measures have been put in place to enable first-time buyers to buy a home.
Ms. Keesmaat, you talked about housing units that could one day be acquired at below-market cost. In the greater Montreal area, for example, there is a homelessness crisis. It's obvious that there are a lot of people who, despite all these measures, will remain on the street and have trouble finding housing. This is a major crisis. I understand that your organizations are private organizations focused on construction, design, urban planning and so on. I would still like to ask you about the importance of social housing, that is, housing held by municipalities to help people in need find housing at a price that may be even lower than market value or than what you offer.
The question is for whoever wants to answer it.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Collecdev-Markee, As an Individual
I'm happy to speak to this issue.
One of the ways in which we are delivering social-level housing, and have been in the Toronto context for the past almost 25 years now, is through partnerships with the private sector. Almost every social-level housing, with that level of affordability, has been integrated into a market development. A subsidy that has been provided by either the municipality or the province, or in some instances through CMHC in the affordable housing fund, has deepened the level of affordability.
I believe one of the reasons this has been done is that, on an international scale, we see that mixing deeply affordable housing into market housing is a more socially sustainable way to do so. It's more likely that people will be lifted from poverty over time. In the 1960s model of affordable housing, where we built large developments of deeply social housing—this is absolutely true in the Toronto context as well—they have become places where people have become trapped in poverty intergenerationally. We still have those communities. They are a real struggle. We've been trying to turn them into mixed-income communities.
This model of integrating deeply affordable housing into—
Liberal
President and Chief Executive Officer, Collecdev-Markee, As an Individual
It's a model that works.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Great. Thank you very much.
Colleagues, looking at the time, we don't have enough time for another full round of questions.
Go ahead.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
I imagine you were announcing that we had finished the rounds.
I had a point of order.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
Thank you.
I think we'll wrap up questions here.
I want to give a big thank you to our witnesses for coming today. We really appreciate their time and preparation. I also appreciate colleagues and their excellent questions.
You have the floor, Mr. Garon.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Far be it from me not to thank the witnesses. In fact, I thank them as well.
On a number of occasions, the Minister of Finance referred to a committee report in which, in previous legislation, the Standing Committee on Finance asked him to change the budget cycle. I would like him to send that document to the committee, please, so that we have the information for our future work.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
It's not officially a point of order. Are you asking the committee to look into that?
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
If you agree to my request, I would like the Minister of Finance to send the committee the report he referred to a few times.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I think I might have some clarity. I think it was a previous OGGO report, actually, that perhaps the minister was referring to. That's the operations committee.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
That may be the case, but the fact remains that, regardless of the committee that tabled the report in question, I think the minister would certainly be very happy and very enthusiastic to send it to us, as he said.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Karina Gould
That's great. Thank you.
I want to mention very quickly that all committee members received two budget requests on Friday. They were circulated. I was hoping we could approve both of those.
The first is with regard to Bill C-4. The amount requested was $13,400. For the study on the 2025-26 budgetary cycle, the amount requested was $2,750.
Can we approve those amounts?
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
I'd like to ask one last question.
I'm not going to raise a point of order, because I don't think it qualifies.
Would it be possible for the clerk to send us a schedule of the committee's upcoming meetings so that we can know a bit about what's ahead of us and what we'll be studying?
Liberal
Liberal