Human Resources Committee on Nov. 17th, 2020

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Is there a cost for this?

[Romy Bowers]

I think I've addressed the answer to that question in my previous remarks.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I'll take it that you'll send it to us, but to me this is saying you're giving everybody who crosses the border legally or illegally a house that meets their needs and that they can afford. If they're illegal, they can't work; therefore, they don't have income, which means they would get a house whether they have two kids, 10 kids or coming alone. Can you please clarify that, and if this is wrong, why is this on your website?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Bowers, please give just a short answer. We're out of time.

[Romy Bowers]

Our 2030 goal is an aspiration. We will address your specific questions regarding illegal immigrants in our written response, so thank you very much.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Chair, on a point of order, with all due respect to my colleague, the purpose of these meetings is to study urban, indigenous and rural housing, certainly not to make inflammatory assumptions about illegal people entering the country.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

There was nothing inflammatory. I was asking about what's on their website.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

If he considers people illegal, I just think—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Gazan, you have the floor.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Yes.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I went on their website.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Schmale, please mute your microphone until Ms. Gazan has finished. You can use the “raise hand” function if you wish to speak on the point of order. If you wish to engage in debate, you're out of order.

Go ahead, Ms. Gazan.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

If we want to call for meetings on refugees and housing, or immigration and housing, that would be appropriate. I think it's pretty uncalled for in this meeting, and certainly in terms of the comments, I would hope my respected colleague would do some research on that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I appreciate the concern from my friend from the NDP. I have worked with her on the Crown-indigenous relations portfolio and I do appreciate her comments.

It's my understanding that in committee you can ask whatever you want when the microphone is yours. I only asked the line of questioning that was brought up in actual testimony in her witness statements. I then went on the CMHC website, which she was talking about and referencing, and I found that. I was asking a simple question that I just wanted an answer to. I had a series of questions and I did not feel that I was given the proper answer.

I know my friend from the NDP might not like that, but I was curious and I did not feel that I was given an answer. Therefore, until I'm censored on what I can say, I thought and I feel now that I was asking a valid question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Okay. Thank you, Ms. Gazan; and thank you, Mr. Schmale.

The questions certainly tested the boundaries of relevance in terms of the study, but as Mr. Schmale has pointed out, there is generally a wide latitude given.

Ms. Gazan, you've made your point.

We're going to move on now to Ms. Young, please, for six minutes.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all our guests tonight for being here for this very important study on urban, rural and indigenous housing.

It is a very important issue in my riding of London West, where the majority of people facing homelessness in my community are indigenous people. I'm speaking from the traditional territory of the Anishinabe, Attawandaron and the Chippewas of the Thames.

I want to ask about Reaching Home.

Ms. Goulding, I understand that the Reaching Home program is being used to help indigenous people living in urban areas. They're overrepresented in our emergency shelters, but do you get a sense that you really have a handle on the problem? A lot of people who are indigenous wouldn't actually go to shelters to seek support.

[Janet Goulding]

What we can say is that the data available to us.... We use several sources of data, and one is the shelter data that you refer to, but we also use PiT Count data. PiT Count represents point-in-time counts that happen across our designated communities, usually every other year. It provides us with a valuable source of information. It counts more than just those individuals experiencing homelessness in shelters, but also those sleeping rough in the street, or in other institutional settings where they're perhaps released from those settings and not having a place to go.

It's safe to say that the data we have provides a strong indication of homelessness across the country and indigenous homelessness, but it's hard to get a full picture, and it's likely somewhat unrepresented. We can be certain, though, that our indigenous population is still overrepresented in the population we count, and that supports are definitely needed to support this part of our community.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Would you say that, with the homelessness issue across this country, the program will be able to clearly find ways to help these people who are living homeless?

[Janet Goulding]

We've recognized a couple of things with Reaching Home.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, the federal government has significantly increased its support to the homeless-serving sector across the country, but solving the homelessness problem is a problem that we share with the provinces, territories and municipalities.

In many communities, the federal government is not the biggest funder of these services. Much of this falls squarely into provincial and territorial jurisdiction, but we do think that the funds we provide are important supports that are allowing communities to develop important elements like coordinated access and community plans.

We very much encourage, through the program, coordination between our community entities. Even though the designated community stream is the largest, where we do have indigenous community entities, we encourage strong collaboration, so that all homeless individuals are served in those communities regardless of their ethnicity or their cultural background.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

Is there engagement with indigenous groups for the shelter home program?

[Janet Goulding]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say “the shelter home program”, but what I can say is that we have funding in 30 communities across the country and seven regions that specifically have indigenous community entities targeting culturally appropriate services for indigenous individuals. In the other communities where we provide funding, there is strong collaboration between all the partners there to ensure that all homeless individuals are served.

[Kate Young, Liberal, London West, ON]

You mentioned that some of the programs are provincial and some are federal. Is there a problem with jurisdictional disputes that are hindering progress in this area?

[Janet Goulding]

I don't think there's a problem with jurisdictional disputes. The split in responsibilities is quite clear, so the provinces and territories are responsible for social services and health services, for example.

The federal funding supplements the kinds of services required to provide coordination in case management for housing. Particularly, in the COVID context, there has been additional support provided to ensure that shelters and the homeless-serving sector can meet the new public health measures around self-isolation and quarantine, and those kinds of things. I wouldn't say that there is a jurisdictional problem there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Ms. Young.

Ms. Chabot, you may go ahead for six minutes.