I'll be supporting this motion. When the province has direction and isn't spending in the poorest jurisdiction in Manitoba, we need to find out why that government is making that decision. We have a national housing program that is made up of different programs. It's not a single program, but a combination of programs around fighting homelessness and around community investments with housing providers and developers. We usually say “providers” rather than “developers” because they share jurisdiction and capacity across non-profits and private sector developers.
We also have the Canada housing benefit, which is the cost-shared program that Ontario is rolling out. Quebec is a province that hasn't signed on to receive federal funding to subsidize low-income tenants in that province. We'd really like to see additional dollars be spent in Quebec. Maybe we can find out why Quebec has refused to receive federal dollars to subsidize low-income folks.
I'm very open to having that conversation. We know that in Alberta they want to rip up the agreement and not spend any money on new housing. I think having an examination of where the barriers are in the program design and which jurisdictions.... B.C. is embracing it and has made a dozen or so housing announcements. It would look at why some governments are embracing it, housing people, subsidizing low-income folks and getting the numbers of homeless people down, while other communities have decided to withdraw services in that area.
I think getting an environmental scan of the whole national housing strategy would be fascinating. We can then understand why perhaps we need to bypass provinces occasionally to help people when they have housing needs, and why sometimes working with other provinces works really well. Maybe there are lessons that can be learned across jurisdictions.
We can also understand some of the challenges that smaller provinces are having in realizing the capital requirements to participate in the program.
I have no problem supporting it as amended. I think we can probably vote on it and get on to the next one.