Evidence of meeting #22 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was benefit.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Yes. I'm just shocked that you would be blindly following one province with national child care without knowing some of the pitfalls. Do you not see some of the pitfalls? Are you not aware of any?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Every single jurisdiction in the world that has invested in high-quality and accessible child care has seen two benefits. One is a closing of the gap between men and women participating in the labour market. The second is better outcomes for children as a result of being exposed to high-quality, accessible and affordable early learning and child care.
This is not just a smart social policy—
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Do you disagree with the research that has shown that there are questionable outcomes for children who have been cared for?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
I'm happy to look at any research that you want me to look at, but I think we seem to have a disagreement philosophically about the benefits of early learning and child care for children.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Tochor.
We're going to go now to Mr. Vaughan, please, for five minutes.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Thank you.
I almost felt like getting Madame Chabot to answer that question instead of the minister, to defend Quebec's system, but I'll ask a couple of other questions.
On the rental housing construction financing that Mr. Vis talked about, part of the goal of that is to get affordable housing in place so that the Canada housing benefit can then move in to make it deeply affordable.
The other component is having a portable benefit achieve that, as opposed to a higher capital investment in rental housing. Say you get a job working on the Site C dam that the New Democrats approved in B.C., and then you get a job working at Fort St. John. If you get a rent subsidy that's portable, you can move from Vancouver to Fort St. John and keep your benefit while you establish a new career on that project. That's part of the way our housing strategy is aimed at working.
Is that not why we have the rental housing construction financing and the subsidy, to create the deeply affordable and mobile benefit to help people?
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Absolutely. In addition to that, the developer must maintain a portion of the units as deeply affordable for a minimum of 20 years.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
So the next person coming along also gets the benefit of the investment.
Liberal
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
An example is the recent RCFI announcement in Winnipeg. It's for 87 units, and 29 of those units are deeply affordable—meaning 30% or less of the average household income in Winnipeg—and the remaining ones are 80% of the average market rent.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
If the Conservative government in Manitoba, which has received our federal dollars for the housing benefit, would start spending those dollars on the housing benefit, we could help low-income households access those apartments as a way of deepening the affordability and extending the range of affordability for people in Winnipeg, but it takes a willing provincial government in Manitoba to do that.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Absolutely, of course. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, the federal government will always bring the capital dollars and the Canada housing benefit dollars, as well as the investments in rapid housing and co-investment funds, but we do need the provinces to also step up, both to provide the wraparound supports but also to meet us halfway in terms of the housing benefit and make sure that the housing benefit goes to priority populations.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
On the rapid housing, if the provincial governments across the country—in Saskatchewan, in particular, we had some trouble—would add the Canada housing benefit to rapid housing initiative proposals, you would have more success, because that long-term support through the Canada housing benefit is what makes rapid housing on a long-term basis a much more successful program, not for the governments involved, but for the people it's trying to serve.
Liberal
Ahmed Hussen Liberal York South—Weston, ON
Yes, and it would actually leverage the federal investments to create even more affordable housing units through the provision of supportive services and other incentives like land and—
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
But you need governments to contribute.
Mr. Siddall, in terms of the rapid housing, I know you've asked for a lot of information. [Technical difficulty—Editor] as we execute the agreements and get the dollars out the door very quickly. I know the announcements are coming shortly. The projects that are on hold, though, create a catalogue of real estate assets across the country that could be scooped up by anybody if we sent the list out publicly right now, because they're effectively distressed assets.
Is that one of the reasons we have to be careful about disclosure and making sure that, while we can list maybe applicants' names, we can't list the addresses, because that would trigger a run on the market that would take them away from the affordable sector?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
We're also looking at the national housing co-investment fund and the availability of those dollars to help support additional projects. To the extent that we can help them with that pile of money, we actually expand the effectiveness of that RHI process.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
In terms of Quebec, the issue is just executing agreements [Technical difficulty—Editor] projects. We are, in fact, in conversation with everybody who's been approved in Quebec, to get those contracts executed within a matter of days.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
As far as Quebec is concerned, we have committed $178 million out of the Canada-Quebec RHI agreement. That's $57 million for the City of Montreal, $7 million for Quebec City, and $115 million allocated under the project stream that's being administered by the Société d'habitation du Québec.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Because we work directly with the cities, those dollars were actually forwarded to the cities in December, ahead of the project stream.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Correct.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Working directly with cities, as a federal government, allowed us to get more dollars into Quebec faster and, more importantly, get to more Quebeckers faster.