Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
On clause 33, the NDP is proposing some amendments. Noting that, while Bill C-20 includes a statutory reporting requirement to Parliament, the NDP amendment proposes an annual report to Parliament concerning the Build Canada Homes' tangible progress and success towards its statutory purposes. The proposed reporting would require that Parliament receive yearly targets for the upcoming year, as well as progress outcomes measured against the previous year's targets.
The metrics for these targets and progress reports would include the number of new units built with Build Canada Homes financing, the municipality and province in which they are built, their affordability level—meaning, the dollar amount the federal government's contributing—the number of units created leveraging federal lands and their affordability level.
The amendment proposes that the report to Parliament define affordable housing as “housing is considered to be affordable if a household's total housing costs do not exceed 30% of its gross income”, without prescribing what it should be in the legislation itself.
Part 2(a) of the amendment would require reporting on the type of housing created by population served, i.e., transitional, single-family, seniors, students, etc. Part 2(b) would add reporting on the use of the federal lands. Part 2(c) would require that the report use and establish baselines and criteria to measure the outcomes. Part 2(d) would require that the report indicate the proportion of public and non-market housing in Canada's total housing supply, broken down by province, territory and municipality.
Part 3 requires that the report include national aggregate point-in-time homelessness counts, including regional breakdowns of point-in-time counts, including northern and remote communities; an appendix benchmarking current data against the prior 10 years; an appendix using all the longitudinal data on the point-in-time counts to establish a forecast of counts five years into the future; and disaggregated data on the point-in-time counts, insofar as possible, by age, gender identity, indigenous identity, veteran status and disability status.
It would also determine the national demographics of need, based on a definition of core housing need that includes considering affordability, adequacy and suitability, including overcrowding and security of tenure.
Lastly, the report would provide a housing insecurity index that tracks overcrowded housing in the territories, using a defined threshold and appropriate metrics, broken down by territory and including remote communities.
Mr. Chair, I will simply say that I think it's really important as this new entity is established that there's transparency and for the Canadian public to know what the targets are and how it is reaching those targets, under those various different metrics that I've outlined. It's also important that they have a baseline of measurement.
I note, also, that this amendment was crafted in collaboration with the member for Nunavut before she crossed over to the Liberals. Presumably she would have brought this up with the Liberal caucus, and I hope to see support on this amendment.
