Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just have to come back to the situation in this country. We've talked about the housing continuum and the spectrum of housing. From all reports, I think it's safe to say it's in crisis in everything from shelter beds to people trying to buy their first home. Home prices have doubled in this country. The housing affordability gap—that's the average price of a house versus the borrowing capacity of the average household in Canada—is now a whopping 67%. Canadians are spending 64% of their income on their housing. Just before this government took office, that gap was 2%.
The crisis is real. This all seems very bureaucratic. It seems like they're saying that everything is going to be fine and not to worry because they're going to have someone take the lead here shortly and they're going to get this done in another year. All the while, the proof of the failure is not in the reports from the housing advocate. The proof is in the growing tent cities in this country. The proof is in the growing number of homeless people in all our cities. The proof is in the number of people turned away from those shelter beds. The proof is in the number of people literally dying in our streets.
We seem pretty calm and pretty casual about this. It's failing. We've heard it. We can see the results. We simply are not doing enough.
My question, quite simply, to Ms. Bowers would be this: If you're not spending the money that's been allocated, why would you want more? There's a request. You said to Mike Morrice that the solution was—