Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 29th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Excuse me for interrupting you, Mr. Trudel. I just have a little question for you.

Do you want me to warn you when your minute and 15 seconds is up, or do you want to time yourself?

I ask because members sometimes go past their speaking time.

So it's up to you to choose.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It's preferable if you interrupt me, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Right. Thank you.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I am going to try to be brief.

Ms. Bowers, you undoubtedly know that many housing projects in Quebec financed by the Rapid Housing Initiative, the RHI, are unable to get started at present because of the labour shortage and rising labour costs. That is a very important issue.

I have had an opportunity to discuss this with Mr. Hussen, who told me there were a lot of similar cases throughout Canada.

Have representations been made to the government for these projects to be adequately financed?

We are talking about good projects that have already been accepted, particularly in the case of the RHI projects, which are intended to help the most vulnerable people.

Has this been brought to your attention? Is the government considering investing to finance these projects so they can get started?

[Romy Bowers]

Thank you for that question, Mr. Chair.

CMHC believes that increasing the supply of housing is absolutely important to increasing the affordability of housing. One of the barriers to bringing supply online is the lack of skilled trades in many regions across Canada. There are many programs at the provincial or territorial level to increase the number of students going into the skilled trades. We think that's a great thing. There are also initiatives, under immigration programs, to attract immigrants in the skilled trades to Canada. Those are very positive developments to increase the supply of housing.

In addition to that—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm going to stop you right there.

Mr. Trudel, you will have another turn to speak, so you can come back to this subject.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We'll turn now to Mr. Morrice.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Trudel.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have the floor for about a minute and 13 seconds, so I was pretty good on the time there.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I also want to thank Mr. Trudel.

I'm disappointed in the report. It mentions that Infrastructure Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation didn't know if their efforts were improving housing outcomes for people experiencing homelessness.

I want to share with you data from my community. In the time since the national housing strategy was launched, the number of people experiencing homelessness has tripled. It's up from 333 people to 1,085 people experiencing homelessness in my community. This is what the crisis looks like on the ground.

With 30 seconds left, I have a question for CMHC. Ms. Bowers, if there's one change you feel needs to be made to CMHC in order to reduce the number of people experiencing homelessness, as opposed to having it triple, what is it?

[Romy Bowers]

The national housing strategy started as a $40-billion program. It's grown to a $70-billion program. It's a very ambitious initiative, and I would encourage the government to expand its scope. We at CMHC are committed to making sure that the funds are directed to those most in need.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is the time. Thank you very much.

We'll turn now to Mr. Desjarlais.

You have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to quickly turn to paragraph 5.76 in relation to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation not knowing whether it not it was improving housing outcomes for vulnerable Canadians and contributing to the prevention and reduction of chronic homelessness. In addition, that same section says:

The corporation did not know who was benefiting from its initiatives or whether housing outcomes were improving for priority vulnerable populations, including people experiencing chronic homelessness. We also concluded that rental housing considered affordable and approved under the National Housing Co‑Investment Fund was often unaffordable for low‑income households, many of whom belong to vulnerable groups.

When I hear that figure, you must understand—particularly members of the CMHC—how concerning that is when we're talking about massive-scale investments not getting the results or being able to demonstrate those results, simultaneous to seeing the reality on the ground in my communities and on Boyle Street. These are real places that have real impacts. Two hundred and twenty-two people...almost 460 people died in the last two years. This is happening in our backyards, and we need to find some ways to get some accountability.

My question is clear: How can we have any faith in CMHC's ability to deliver on affordable housing when we don't know how to measure affordability, and when the OAG found that your definition of affordable housing was out of reach for low-income households?

That's for the CMHC.

[Romy Bowers]

The national housing strategy is composed of a number of different programs. The level of affordability that is targeted is different depending on the program. There are a number of programs that are very targeted and directed toward vulnerable populations.

For example, the rapid housing initiative was a program that was developed during the COVID crisis. We have delivered over 10,000 units in funding commitments for housing units serving those most in need. Many of these units are still in the process of being constructed. We can confirm who is using these units once the construction is complete.

There is a timing lag that's created in the provision of this data. CMHC is very committed to providing greater transparency and making sure that the gap between when we receive this information and when it's available to the public is closed.

We accept the recommendations of the Auditor General and we feel that we can work much more collaboratively with Infrastructure Canada to make sure that there is greater transparency and accountability about these outcomes.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. That is the time.

We'll turn now to Mr. Genuis.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Reading this audit reminded me of an episode of one my favourite TV shows, “Yes Minister”. It's an episode where there is a hospital that has been empty for months but is nonetheless employing administrative staff, and the public servants assure the minister that it's one of the most hygienic hospitals in Britain.

In all seriousness, though, this is really horrendous stuff.

I'll read from the audit:

As the lead for Reaching Home, a program within the National Housing Strategy, Infrastructure Canada spent about $1.36 billion between 2019 and 2021—about 40% of total funding committed to the program—on preventing and reducing homelessness. However, the department did not know whether chronic homelessness and homelessness had increased or decreased since 2019 as a result of this investment.

Essentially, what the Auditor General has concluded is that the government, despite spending billions of dollars on combatting homelessness, can't measure and can't track homelessness. In many cases, it can't track it overall and certainly can't effectively know the impact of the measures it's implementing as to whether the money it's spending is actually making a difference or not and how the overall picture is changing.

One conclusion for me from this is that the government doesn't actually have a national housing strategy in any meaningful sense. They have a document called that, with aspirational goals, but they are not measuring progress towards those goals in any meaningful way, which hardly merits the term “strategy”. I think it is important that the committee hear from the minister at some point to provide some explanation for this shameful balderdash.

I guess I just want to ask this of our public servants, though. It doesn't seem to me that it should have been necessary for the Auditor General to point this out. For ministers and for public servants who were working on the national housing strategy and have been for a number of years, and presumably noticed that there was a lack of measurement or benchmarks, why did it take the Auditor General's pointing this out for you to note that maybe something was wrong here?

I'll hear from all of the departments. We'll start with Ms. Gillis at Infrastructure Canada.

[Kelly Gillis]

Thank you, Chair, for the question.

What I can say is that during the audit period we were in during the COVID time, for community entities, we gave them a delay and an extension to report the results of their spending. What I can tell you now is that with the money that was spent, aside from the $708 million that I already talked about for emergency measures, we supported 3,378 projects. That supported almost 32,000 people—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'm sorry, but that's just not my question.

Did you think there was problem vis-à-vis measurement prior to the Auditor General's report coming out?

[Kelly Gillis]

During the audit period, during the COVID period of time, we gave an extension for the reporting of the results. Since that time, we do have the reporting of the results for the first two years of the program, which have made measurable impacts in placing 32,000 people in stable homes. A year later, 70% of them are still placed in those homes. It had 62,000 people who were prevented from becoming homeless. We put 8,100 emergency support measures in place. The community entities we funded across the country have provided the detailed information—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I'm sorry, but respectfully, the purpose.... What the Auditor General has concluded is that there is a lack of basic information about the overall picture and how we're progressing towards the overall picture. In many cases, just basic numbers are not being kept.

I don't have time to go through all of the officials at this point, but it would be nice if there were some acknowledgement that there is a grave problem here. Maybe I can bring in one of the other officials. Let me put it this way: Is there anybody here who wants to acknowledge the grave problem we have?

Go ahead, Mr. Tremblay.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

If I can quickly answer your questions, I remember the hospital in “Yes Minister”, as you do, but in the hospital, there were no patients. This is not the case here. There has been funding. There have been programs. There has been progress. The issue—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

But we just don't know if it's working.

[Jean-François Tremblay]

Can you let me finish?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Please.