Evidence of meeting #41 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cmhc.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
Thank you.
I have a quick question for Ms. Bowers.
How many employees are there at the CMHC, roughly?
4:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
There are roughly 2,400 employees.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
How many of those employees would be responsible for delivering on the six main national programs of the national housing strategy?
4:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
I don't have the precise number, but I would guess about 40%.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Scott Aitchison Conservative Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON
When the national housing co-investment fund has spent only about 50% of its budget, the rental construction financing initiative has spent only about 53% of its budget, and the Auditor General is telling us that we don't really know how many people have been helped or if it's really working, I'm wondering if you can explain to us, number one, why only half the budget has been spent.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'm afraid we're going to have to wait for an answer on that. I apologize about that. Your time is completely gone.
I'm now going to turn to Mr. Dong.
You have the floor for five minutes.
November 29th, 2022 / 4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thanks to all the witnesses for coming to today's meeting. This is a very important discussion here.
My first question is for the Auditor General.
Auditor, have you done any audit of the government's performance dealing with homelessness in the recent past, let's say in the last five years?
4:40 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
No, we have not in the last five years.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
Reaching Home just started in 2019.
First I want to go to Ms. Gillis.
My understanding is that Infrastructure Canada is the ministry that is responsible for delivering Reaching Home. Is that correct?
4:40 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
That's correct. It was transferred to us in the fall of 2021.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
It was transferred to you in 2021, okay. Who was responsible for it before it was transferred to your department?
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
To your knowledge, has ESDC had a chance to carry out what was contained in the strategy in 2019, given that the pandemic also started very early on, in March? Were they able to roll out some parts of the strategy?
4:40 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
I will begin and then see if Mr. Tremblay or Nisa Tummon would like to add anything.
During the COVID period of time, it was less than one year that the new Reaching Home program had been launched, and it was a transformational program. The homeless-serving sector did need to transition their own services to just keep people safe.
That said, as the Auditor General noted in her report, nine community entities across the country did implement coordinated access, even though they were managing during a COVID period of time. Since then, we do know that, as of right now, about half of our communities have implemented coordinated access [Technical difficulty—Editor] and, as I noted in my opening remarks, we're seeing results for those community entities that have implemented that new program. We're seeing reductions—
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
I'm sorry; could you repeat your last sentence? The connection wasn't very good, and I couldn't hear you.
4:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
Certainly. What we are seeing, as of right now, November 25, is that about half the community entities we fund—approximately 60 of them, across the country—have implemented the program. It's what we call “coordinated access”.
This is an international best practice—an information system wherein all the service sectors use the same information to know who is homeless in their community and what their housing and support needs are. It can be done in a very efficient and effective way, where people in a community can coordinate efforts to provide the right services to a particular individual. Half of our community entities, across the country, have now implemented that particular.... It's quite a transition and transformational change in how the non-profit and homeless-serving sectors operate. We provide an information system free of charge to help them do that.
We've also worked with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness to help them provide technical assistance to make that transition. Now, we are seeing, in some communities—Medicine Hat, Alberta, for example, or even Ottawa—reductions in chronic homelessness, because they have implemented coordinated access.
That said, we know we need to do more. That's why, in budget 2022, they gave us a bit of additional funding to work with communities across the country, in order to understand what's working, what we've learned from it after implementing coordinated access, and what more we have to do. This is on top of doubling the funding of Reaching Home to the end of 2025-26, so we can provide more support to communities in implementing this important transformation.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Han Dong Liberal Don Valley North, ON
That's very good.
You said half the communities have implemented it. How many are left? What's the plan to complete the project?
4:45 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Infrastructure Canada
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the question.
Outside Quebec, there are 27 community entities that have to implement coordinated access. By the end of December this year, we will have a detailed plan to help the community entities implement that particular new transformational system.
We have, as I mentioned, engaged with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness, which will be providing technical assistance to those 27 community entities. As well, we're going to be doing workshops in the summertime, and we will continue to do so. We'll issue additional guidance to communities to help them make that particular transition. We will be doing very customized support to help those communities reach the program requirements, because we know it's going to make a difference in those communities.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That is your time, Mr. Dong.
Could I ask, Ms. Gillis, that you modify the location of your microphone a bit? There's a bit of feedback right now, and it's not clear enough for the interpreters. If you could just move it up—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
That seems to be better. I'll wait for the clerk to signal—looking at translation—but that's much clearer. I can even tell based on that.
Thank you very much.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
Bloc
Denis Trudel Bloc Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If I may, since I'm not sure I'll have another two and a half minutes, I'm going to split my time with Mr. Morrice of the Green Party.
I am going to speak for a minute and 15 seconds. I am going to try to be brief.
Ms. Bowers...