Evidence of meeting #68 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Gerard Kennedy Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Just very briefly, Mr. Chair.
It's becoming the standard. It's already in use by most provincial governments. And again, it's not all LEED gold. It just simply has to observe these things. And what most public housing has done is wish they had used it earlier because it saves much more money on the operational costs in terms of heat and so on than it does on the other. That's at the basic level. In fact, there are private companies now that make money going to not-for-profit housing and capturing the savings, because that's how favourable the economics are.
4:55 p.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Mr. Chair, given how the LEED standardization system is organized in Canada, we can't expect that it will disappear in a decade or even more. The system is a matter for private enterprise, not the government. It is entirely to the advantage of private enterprise to retain it. So it is almost certainly going to be in existence still in 40 or 50 years. The first level of LEED is not more expensive. It is mainly a question of choice, organization and land. Mr. Kennedy is right: investing in LEED may even providing savings on building maintenance.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you.
If there are no other questions, I'll call the question.
(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
We'll turn now to amendment LIB-7.1 on the next page.
Mr. Kennedy.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Gerard Kennedy Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Again, this is a relatively small change in wording, but it's meant to organize the idea a little bit more clearly. It says:
give priority to ensuring the availability of secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing to those without housing and to members of groups particularly vulnerable to homelessness, including
The point there is that it could be read previously that people who had suffered from lack of housing but had obtained it could still be somewhere favoured in the queue. So really all this does is gather that together and say no, just to be very clear, we mean if they are from these groups but also do not have good housing now. It's putting the semantics in line with the original intent of the bill.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
If there are no questions, I'll call the question.
(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
We're now going to move to amendment LIB-8.1 on page 6.5.
Mr. Kennedy, the floor is yours.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Gerard Kennedy Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Mr. Chair, this is a similar type of thing—“for greater certainty”, as the lawyers are wont to say—that members or groups denied housing are added in as a class of those vulnerable people who should be recognized.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Raymonde Folco Liberal Laval—Les Îles, QC
I'm not against this at all. I just want to know the difference between “those who are” and “members of groups who are”. What exactly is the difference between the two? Is it a matter of legalese? What does it mean?
5 p.m.
Liberal
Gerard Kennedy Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
I'm sorry. This is the advice we got from the drafting advisers, that this had more precision. That's all I can say. I'm sorry, I'm not certain on why they make that distinction.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
All right. Are there any questions? Then I'll call the question.
(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
We're now going to go to amendment NDP-5.1, which is on the next page, page 7.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Okay. Thank you very much.
All right, so then we go right to amendment L-10.1, which is on page 7.1.
Mr. Kennedy, the floor is yours.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Gerard Kennedy Liberal Parkdale—High Park, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This recognizes the reality that much of the affordable housing need is for families who have been victims of family violence, or at risk of it, and it is preventing that from taking place, and that's just including among the recognized vulnerable groups.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Okay. Any questions on that?
(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
(Clause 3 as amended agreed to)
(On clause 4—Implementation of national housing strategy)
We're now going to go to clause 4.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
We've already dealt with clause 3.1. That was the one we spent the first little bit of time on.
We're now going to move to clause 4.
We will not be dealing with BQ-3 because we carried NDP-3. We don't need to deal with NDP-7 because we carried NDP-3, which takes us to Liberal-14.
We will go to the L-14 amendment. The page is 11.1
5 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Mr. Chair, I have a point of clarification.
I know clause 3 carried. There's a number of subclauses to that, like (1), (2), (3), (4). Those would have carried as well, I gather. But what was the reading of subclause 3.(3), as carried?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Komarnicki Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
I'm assuming it's passed. How does it now read, subclause 3.(3)? The bill had, “The national housing strategy shall also ensure”, and that wording has changed. What does the beginning of subclause 3.(3) read?
Does it now read, “The national housing strategy shall include incentives for affordable rental housing and shall...”?
