Thank you very much.
I want to touch on a couple of points.
The idea that in not supporting this motion we'll somehow give the government a pass was the insinuation here. I want to be very clear that I have zero intention whatsoever of giving the Minister of Immigration and the Minister of Housing a pass. I intend to move a motion that does call for both of them to come to this committee to talk about the issues that I raised previously.
On the issue around housing, there were some offhand comments about the private sector. I want to be very clear about this. I'm not saying that the private sector has no role to play. However, over the last 30 years, the Conservatives cancelled the national co-op housing program. Then the Liberals cancelled the national affordable housing program. They walked away from providing support and helping provinces and territories to develop community housing, which is critically needed. Community housing versus private sector housing is very different, because community housing has an affordability component. That is not there, necessarily, for the private sector.
Private sector development in housing has not met the needs of Canadians because it is not affordable. Much of the conversation, even today, on the housing crisis centres around supply and not affordability. While supply is needed—I will grant that—building housing that is not affordable for Canadians will not address the housing crisis for many people. You have to have both elements in place.
I know the Conservatives think—and their leader, Pierre Poilievre, has already said—that co-op housing is “a Soviet-style takeover of housing.” I absolutely disagree with that. We need co-op housing. We need social housing. We need non-profit housing.
Prior to being elected to this place, I worked for a non-profit. Like my colleague Mr. Redekopp, who developed housing for profit, I developed housing, but I was part of a non-profit that developed housing for non-profit purposes. It developed housing to house the people who were most in need and who needed social housing so that they could be housed.
The project I worked on particularly targeted youth at risk, as an example. The organization that I worked for, with the late Jim Green, was among the largest non-profit developers in Vancouver.
I have to say that yes, everybody has a role to play, but from my perspective, what is very critical is developing housing that people can actually afford. That is lacking.
With the motion that I intend to move, we'll talk about a housing plan that you need to actually plan and develop. The federal government needs to provide leadership in that regard, which sadly, I have to say, has been missing for far too long.
If we want to address these issues in a way that addresses the problem and holds the government to account, I'm all in. We have to hold the government to account. We need to find the solution and then we need to act on it and not just talk about it, Mr. Chair.
For those reasons, as I indicated already, I will not be supporting this motion.
I will have my own motion to move, Mr. Chair. When it's the appropriate time, I would like to do that.