I'll go back to housing, because I think it is critical. In all the work we've done--CCPA and other groups--we've heard that housing is the biggest priority for people who are living in poverty.
I don't have the numbers with me, but in terms of how we fund social housing, there's a significant surplus in CMHC that could be directed to it. If we had slowed down on the tax cuts, we could have redirected some of that to build more social housing. But in the early 1990s the federal government pulled out of social housing entirely, and then the response in early 2000 was the affordable housing initiative, which very much focused on the private market as the solution to affordable housing.
I want to be clear that we've finally changed the discourse here in Manitoba around housing. We don't talk about affordable housing anymore, because affordable housing doesn't really mean anything; it depends on how much income you have. We're focused on social housing, and I'm pleased to hear some of the committee members using that term.
As Lindsey noted, we need housing with rent geared to income. The reality is that the private sector is not going to build that kind of housing. It's not profitable for them. I'm not criticizing the private sector for that, but the reality is that it's a public responsibility to ensure that low-income people are adequately housed. So we need to shift that discourse and get the federal government back in the game of focusing on building social housing for people who are in most need of housing.