National Defence Committee on Nov. 30th, 2023

[Serge Tremblay]

Over the past year or two, in 2022 we closed 20 residential housing units, RHUs, across the country; this year, if all goes well, we are expecting to close out at 18.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Is that 18 in total?

Are we talking about barracks, PMQs, or—

[Serge Tremblay]

I'm talking about RHUs, residential housing units.

The capital funding that we do get goes towards both recapitalizing the existing portfolio of 11,600 units across the country as well as trying to increase our portfolio.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You're saying that fewer than 40 new homes have been built in the past two years.

[Serge Tremblay]

That is correct.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Based upon the numbers that we've received from questions on the Order Paper, the total as of May of this year was that the Canadian Forces housing agency managed 11,543 homes. Does that sound correct?

[Serge Tremblay]

It is close.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

You've only added 40 new homes. We do have the minister saying that we're 7,000 homes short. General Tattersall said in a news report in the Ottawa Citizen back in October that we were short around 5,000 housing units at that time.

You're only adding 40. Based upon the numbers, in 2017, we had 1,569 homes that were rated in poor condition. In 2022, that number had increased to 2,148. That in itself is almost a 37% increase in the number of homes that are in poor condition and probably not habitable.

Out of the total number of homes, we have just under 20% that are in poor condition. You're building 20 homes a year when we have over 2,000 in inventory that are already in poor condition. Are there plans to replace them, renovate them, or are we just going to put everybody up in hotels?

[Serge Tremblay]

Mr. Chair, this question comes up regularly, so I would use an analogy. I'm a big fan of analogies to try to assist in understanding. If I were to use a high school class...if there were a few students in the class....

Perhaps, first, I'll correct some of the language that was used before I get into this. The member mentioned "poor". We've actually qualified this housing as "below average". There is a distinct difference there for us.

Going back to my analogy of a classroom, if a certain number of students have a grade that is below average, it does not necessarily mean they are failing. On the some 2,000-odd units that you mentioned, they are habitable, they are safe and they can be occupied.

We have eight units across the country that are currently deemed to be non-occupiable. We're currently studying them to determine whether or not we're going to decontaminate them or dispose of them. That is our normal process.

We have made sure that any house that we have that is in a below-average state is habitable. If we're faced with a problem that is great, and we have to worry about either the safety of the asset or the occupants, I have the ability to turn off programming within the agency and reprogram some funding to deal with those assets directly.

We do not have any houses that are not habitable.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

We already have 4,500 troops who are waiting for a home. We have somewhere between 5,000 or 7,000 homes required, according to General Tattersall, the press and Minister Blair.

Does that number reflect just the current situation or are we planning ahead to when we can hopefully hit our target and fill all the empty positions in the Canadian Armed Forces?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Answer very briefly, please.

[Serge Tremblay]

I would simply state that the waiting list of 1,389 people are the ones who are actually looking for homes. The full 4,500, as I mentioned—those who are priority two—already have a housing solution. It's just not what they would prefer. As far as people waiting to find a home, for those on our waiting list, it does not necessarily mean that these people don't have a home.

Oftentimes, people will put their name on our list when they get their posting message in early April and then they will not move into their new location until between May and October. While their name is on our list, they're looking for additional solutions for housing to house their families. Once they find that solution, they don't necessarily tell us whether they found that, so I would argue that number is a little high from a reality perspective. It is not indicative of the number of people who are waiting—

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Okay, we're going to have to leave that answer there. We're well over time.

Madam Lambropoulos, you have five minutes, please.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

I appreciate the witnesses being here to answer our questions today.

I have limited knowledge of housing in the Canadian Armed Forces, so excuse me if some of the questions may not seem too advanced. They may be a bit basic, but I'm hoping you can answer some of them.

Given the fact there is a shortage of about 7,000 units, I imagine that means sometimes members have to go outside of the reserve of homes that may exist within your department.

How often would you say that happens?

[BGen Virginia Tattersall]

Mr. Chair, I'll jump in to provide at least the first part of the answer to that.

The reality is that those who live on base are approximately only 20% of the overall Canadian Armed Forces population. Most Canadian Armed Forces members live off the base and rent from the economy or actually buy a house, just like any other Canadian would.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

It's actually a smaller number who are using the units that you have available. When we say 7,000, what does that include exactly? Can you maybe elaborate a little?

[Serge Tremblay]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

To start off, I would point out that the Canadian Forces housing agency housing stock is an option that is made available to the Canadian Forces members. It is not mandatory for them to occupy those houses. It's a personal choice in each individual's personal case.

The 7,000 basically covers off.... Sorry, I will back up a little. The Auditor General conducted an audit in 2015 of the Department of National Defence's housing program. As a result of that, DND identified that its housing requirements should be respecting seven principles. The principles are what we use to derive that number of the 7,000 extra houses.

I would point out it was never the intent of the department—and I believe it still is not—that we would be owning 7,000 houses. The intent was the requirement and not the departmental ownership. To make it a little clearer, we know how many roofs we need to put over heads, from our perspective. We don't have to own that, so we are looking to try to partner with local developers and with industry to see if there are any opportunities for us to get into some form of a partnership to get those roofs that we want to have available in a faster way.

I would remind everybody that we are operating in the same environment as the rest of the Canadians who are also looking for houses. It is proving to be a bit challenging.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

I imagine that all the announcements we have made recently in housing really have nothing to do with what you would have access to. Is that correct?

[Serge Tremblay]

I believe all of the announcements that would have been made would be.... Yes, they would be related to our housing because the program would be flowing through CFHA, but I would have to look at the time frame over which that money we have been discussing has been provided. We have been operating [Technical difficulty—Editor] 20-year program, depending on which way we've been answering the questions.

[Emmanuella Lambropoulos, Liberal, Saint-Laurent, QC]

Thank you.

The witnesses also mentioned that there are many things being done to help members find housing, but, given the market right now, it's been very difficult. All Canadians are in the same boat of having a difficult time finding housing. You mentioned that you are looking into potential alternative solutions and that you are open to them.

Can you share with us anything that is in the docket or anything that has been considered that isn't already being done?

[Serge Tremblay]

We recently concluded a call to industry in our five priority locations where we have the largest requirement, which is the gap between our existing portfolio and the requirement. We recently received those requests for information, and we haven't analyzed the final details of those.

As I mentioned earlier, we're in an environment where housing is a challenge for everyone. For people looking at partnerships with the Crown, when they're still looking at ways to address municipal requirements for housing, has been a challenge.

I will be more than happy to respond at a future date, once we've had a chance to look at the data. Legitimately, this study finished a couple of weeks ago, and we haven't had time to crunch the data.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madame Lambropoulos.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to come back to something we talked about earlier, the amount granted when someone sells their house at a loss—for example, at the time of a transfer. I understand that the maximum amount is $30,000. If I'm not mistaken, that amount was set two and a half or three years ago. Before that, it was a little higher.

Does this amount really represent the reality of many military members? I'll give you a concrete example: A military member based in Cold Lake in 2014, during the oil boom, had to sell his house four years later, and he sold it at a loss of $80,000. Let's remember that, when military members are transferred, they have to sell their house quickly.

Is the $30,000 still representative of military members' needs?

[BGen Virginia Tattersall]

Is $30,000 enough? Honestly, that depends on everyone's individual situation. For example, did the person buy a house that, because of the location, will be easy to resell?

There are a number of factors in what individuals choose to do, and what they may choose to do to sell, but the $30,000 was the amount, in conjunction with the RCMP and the remainder of the public service, that was deemed to be equitable to try to address this.

I'm very familiar with the situation in Cold Lake. We're working on a solution to compensate people who sold their homes at a loss for the difficulties they encountered.

I can't provide further details than that, because it is something for which we don't yet have authority. Believe me, I am very aware of that file, and we hope to be able to announce something within the next six to eight months.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Relocations involve a lot of expenses, including legal expenses. Should we be trying to minimize forced relocations to avoid making the Department of National Defence pay those expenses? Maybe, instead of forcing people to relocate, there should be financial incentives to get people to relocate to less desirable places.