Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, witnesses, for joining us to discuss the important issue of housing. This issue is a concern for many municipalities in the Shefford riding.
I want to acknowledge the will of the municipality of Granby, which had one of the lowest vacancy rates. The city had to tackle the housing issue head-on and is still fighting to increase the number of housing units available.
Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Irwin, Ms. Whitzman, thank you for joining us. You're shedding some light on this bill that creates Build Canada Homes, a new structure.
Elected officials in my riding still have a lot of questions about this. There are 20 municipalities in my riding, and they all have very different realities. Granby is one of the 20 largest cities in Quebec. The other cities in the riding are more rural, but they also have housing needs.
We need to see how Build Canada Homes meets both the needs of larger municipalities, such as Granby, and those of smaller municipalities, such as Racine, whose mayor contacted me yesterday. He's eager to see how this will roll out and how we'll be able to use this new structure. He still has a lot of questions.
Before I go any further on Build Canada Homes, I have a question for Ms. Whitzman.
You raised an issue we've been raising for a long time at the Bloc Québécois. What does affordability actually mean? We've always said the expression “affordable housing” comes from English Canada. The Bloc Québécois keeps insisting on the importance of having a definition of social housing, community housing and co‑operative housing for Quebec that better represents the housing needs of the various clienteles.
Ms. Whitzman, what does the vague expression “affordable housing” mean? What impact does it have on citizens and their difficulty in finding housing?