Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today, our first official appearance before the committee. We are pleased to be here today to present the findings of our report entitled, “Urban, Rural, and Northern Indigenous Housing”, which we were honoured to prepare at the request of this committee.
With me today I have Mark Mahabir, director of policy (costing) and general counsel, and Caroline Nicol and Ben Segel-Brown, the lead analysts on the report.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer provides independent and non-partisan economic and financial analysis to parliamentarians. As the legislation states, we provide this analysis for the purpose of raising the quality of parliamentary debate and promoting greater budget transparency and accountability.
We'd be pleased to respond to any questions you may have regarding our analysis or any other PBO work.
Consistent with the PBO's legislated mandate, at the request of this committee, my office prepared an independent analysis of the federal government's spending to address indigenous housing needs in urban, rural and northern areas. This report examines indigenous housing in all areas of Canada except on reserves.
Canada has 677,000 indigenous households, living in urban, rural or northern areas. Of those households, 124,000, or 18%, are in housing need. Based on our analysis, there is a $636-million gap on an annual basis between what these households pay for shelter, and the level deemed affordable by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
The federal government has explicitly allocated $179 million per year to address indigenous housing and homelessness programs in urban, rural and northern areas over the 10-year term of Canada’s national housing strategy.
We also considered federal transfers to the provinces and territories for housing and homelessness programs. Federal transfers also contribute to the capacity of provinces and territories to provide housing support to indigenous households. These categories of support, when combined, amount to $838 million in federal support for indigenous housing and homelessness. Despite these amounts, a gap remains.