Human Resources Committee on May 27th, 2021

[Romy Bowers]

As I mentioned previously, we have been working very assiduously with our proponents to reduce the administrative burden. We have a fantastic group in B.C. that is working with proponents in Burnaby to make their applications a reality.

Burnaby has been successful in receiving seed funding for those projects. I've just received an update with respect to the co-investment projects in line. What's happening is that co-investment requires investment from other levels of government—

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I'm going to have to jump to one final question. I think I made my point there.

The government responses to my Order Paper questions on the rapid housing initiative have been distributed to all members of the committee. Unfortunately, very little useful data was actually provided. The majority of the information was redacted. I would ask that CMHC provide the unredacted version of these documents to the committee.

To that point, I will move the following motion: “That CMHC provide the committee with the complete and unredacted versions of Order Paper questions 244 and 420 within 10 business days.”

Thank you, Madam Chair. I bring that to the floor.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Mr. Vis, for your motion.

I would ask that you email it to the clerk as soon as you can, so that it can be distributed to everyone.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

I will do so right away.

Thank you, Ms. Bowers, for appearing today. I appreciated the discussion.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Madam Clerk, may I ask for your feedback? Would you mind letting us know if we have to debate the motion now, or are we just putting it on the floor?

I want to confirm, to make sure we're following procedure.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Vis didn't move the motion, so it is on the floor right now.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Okay, so we can move forward.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I would just request, if possible, that we have the motion in both official languages.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Yes, I believe we've been doing that.

Mr. Vis, I'll empower you to provide that or work with the clerk to do so.

Ms. Falk.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] translate it right now.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you.

Ms. Falk.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I'm just wondering if we are debating the motion right now. Is that the step we're at, or are we just waiting until everybody receives the motion?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

We just confirmed with the clerk that Mr. Vis did not move the motion. He just put it forward. It's put forward now, but we're not debating it.

Is that correct, Madam Clerk? Yes. I see you nodding.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Actually, you have answered the question. I was going to say that we don't think the motion needs to be debated now. We understand that it has just been put forward. So let's give the witness the floor and continue our work.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Madam Chabot.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I think I left my hand up from before, but I do have an additional comment.

I noticed that my colleague, Mr. Vis, said that he was just undertaking the translation.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Sorry, it was already sent. My apologies, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay, thanks. I just wanted to make sure, because I think the Standing Orders require the translation bureau to do the translation. I just wanted to make sure that we were following that.

Thanks.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

I want to ensure that, moving forward, all the motions put forward are done.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Chair, when I submitted the motion, I forgot that I did it earlier. I did the motion automatically in both official languages, so that was sent.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Great. So, you speak French. Thank you, Mr. Vis.

I think we can move on now to questions again.

We are going to go to the Liberals for five minutes.

Ms. Young.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bowers, for appearing today. I was thinking that I'm sure taking over the CMHC during a pandemic can't be easy, but you're obviously the right person for the job, so thank you very much for appearing today.

I want to pick up on what MP Vis questioned you on. You were just starting to talk about how optimistic you are about the future. I want to give you an opportunity to express what your thoughts are about where we're going and the optimism that you see.

[Romy Bowers]

First of all, I think there are two aspects to my optimism. One is that CMHC is a great Canadian institution. I'm very blessed to be surrounded by employees who are committed to doing their best to serve Canadians. We have employees who are distributed across the country, and their jobs are to help proponents gain access to very important federal funding that supports the development of affordable housing across the country. It's a privilege for me to be leading such a dedicated workforce. That is one source of optimism.

Another source of optimism is when I think about the national housing strategy. The $70-billion commitment is a significant commitment. CMHC, as an organization, is focused on delivering on that. There were some hiccups in the early years in terms of delivery, but I feel we have the great ability to deliver on the government programs. I have great confidence. We received over $3 billion in funding through the most recent budget, and I feel confident that we can deliver that quickly. That investment will have a very meaningful impact on the lives of many Canadians, especially those who are most vulnerable.

I mentioned the top-up to the rapid housing initiative, which is fantastic. We also have an opportunity to bring forward funding for the co-investment program, which will be great. In addition to that, there was a theme about helping women and children. I'm particularly pleased that there was $300 million of additional funding for the Canada housing benefit, particularly targeting women and children who are fleeing family violence. I think there's a lot of good we can do with the program.

In addition to that, the biggest funding aspect of the most recent budget is $4.4 billion in energy retrofits for home owners. We at CMHC are very committed to climate change, and we recognize that housing stock is a very big emitter of greenhouse gas emissions. We feel blessed that the government has entrusted us to deliver on this very important program to address greenhouse gas emissions in the housing sector. We're very pleased to deliver on that as well.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much for that. There's a lot there to unpack and I am particularly pleased to hear about the 25% through the rapid housing going to women and children. That is obviously most needed.

I want to mention also that this committee just finished a study on indigenous housing, urban, rural and northern housing, and the recommendation is for a stand-alone organization run by indigenous for indigenous.

I just want to get your thoughts on the recommendations we put forward, if you've had a chance to see them at this point.

[Romy Bowers]

I haven't had a chance to look at the recommendations in great detail, but I have taken a high-level overview of them. Obviously we wait for the response by the government in terms of how we would respond to the recommendations.

In the event that CMHC is responsible for any of these responses or the action plans, we're ready to support any type of implementation. As I mentioned, reconciliation is a key aspect of our strategy and mandate. We have employees who are very committed to the concept of housing by the indigenous for the indigenous, and we believe some of the values that we espouse as a Crown corporation are very aligned with some of the principles that I saw in just the very high-level aspects of your recommendations.

Therefore, we're very happy to support what comes out of that.