I will confess to you, Mr. Kennedy, as a long-time housing advocate, that I've often thought that violence sometimes might be necessary, but of course you can't put a gun to people's heads. This bill, although it doesn't put a gun to people's heads, adopts basically a naming-and-shaming strategy, which is the mechanism that's often used when you can't physically coerce. What it says is that the minister has 180 days to convene a process and to report back, and that provides some political accountability, some naming and shaming.
I mentioned that the federal, provincial, and territorial housing ministers used to have a practice of meeting on an almost annual basis. Certainly after they signed the historic agreement in 2001, they did meet on an annual basis. They stopped meeting in 2005. The federal government was invited to meet in February of 2008, but the federal government decided not to attend; “declined to participate”, I think, was the wording.
In August of this year, the provincial and territorial ministers met again in St. John's. The federal minister again declined to participate in the meeting, so clearly the provinces' asking the minister to come and meet with them is not enough to get the federal government. This bill will ratchet it up a bit more. It will say to the minister that she has to report back to Parliament. Then, when the minister reports back, it will be up to you and other members of Parliament to judge whether the minister has discharged her responsibilities.