CMHC's $2-billion annual subsidy or operating expenditure is going to sharply decline as those 35-year operating agreements expire. My advice to the federal government and to CMHC would be, don't spend more than you've already been spending. Take that money and create a short- and long-term equity fund and a financing fund that could be made available to community-based groups who've shown they have the capacity and shown that they can actually deliver on the ground, and use it to de-risk the housing proposition for private equity partners who can come in early and stay late. It would be a game-changer in Canadian housing policy to have those kinds of equity funds available to us.
On February 17th, 2017. See this statement in context.