Public Accounts Committee on May 18th, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. McCauley.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'll ask just one quick question, and then you can provide it. You mentioned 46,000. Can you provide to us, please, to this committee, where you're getting these numbers? Obviously, the Auditor General is saying your departments aren't able to say whom you're helping or if you're helping. Maybe you can say how you're coming to those numbers.

[Kelly Gillis, Deputy Minister, Office of Infrastructure of Canada]

Certainly.

Just to bring in some context, the Auditor General did this particular audit during the time of COVID. At that particular time, we had asked community entities, because they had asked during the emergency situation, not to report on data. Since then, the community entities that we fund have begun reporting on data. We've put a system in place for them to automate this.

So we have the data for the first three years of the program. The minister quoted some of the results from that, but I can actually give more than that: 5,900 people got job training from that program; 8,900 got new paid employment—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is that up or down since 2019?

[Kelly Gillis]

Pardon me?

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is homelessness up or down across the country?

[Kelly Gillis]

We've done point-in-time counts in 55 communities, working with our community entities, and overall within the country homelessness has increased. What we've published recently is 12%. We do know that, and that's not unusual coming out of a time of crisis.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

With all the work you're doing, why is homelessness continuing? Are we just not getting the right results?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I think the philosophical problem here is that we're actually trying to do something about the problem and you don't even acknowledge that it exists. Your housing plan doesn't have the word “homelessness” in it. How can you sit there and—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Sir, this is about your failures in your role, not me as an opposition member—

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

No, no, but I'm trying to answer your question, and I'm giving you our results. You won't let me.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Homelessness is up 12%. We would like results for the money.

I appreciate what you're trying to do, and I think you would like the same results. I think we all would.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Absolutely—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

You're saying that you're spending all of this money. Homelessness is up 12%, and you're trying to blame me, a backbench opposition member. This is on you.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

No, I'm trying to provide the results of the work that we've been doing over the years—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But we're not getting results—

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

—and I gave you the numbers. One is 87,000 people prevented from joining homelessness, and 46,000 people diverted away from homelessness into permanent housing. That's results—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Where's the problem coming from if we're up by 12%, then?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. McCauley, that is your time.

We're turning now to the next member.

Mr. Sidhu, you have the floor for six minutes, please.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the minister for taking the time to be with us here today.

I know that when I'm speaking to residents in my riding of Brampton East, there are concerns around housing for the most vulnerable—affordable housing. I know that the minister was in Brampton East just recently to announce affordable housing units in my riding. I know that the Prime Minister was recently in Brampton to announce over $100 million for 300 units for those in Brampton who are the most vulnerable.

When we speak to women who are victims of domestic abuse, we need to be there for them, and I see that we are making progress on this. The progress we're making is in our relationship with local municipalities and the provincial governments, because we know we alone, at the federal government level, cannot tackle this.

Minister, I'm hoping you can share some of your views on what your insights might be and how the federal government is working with other levels of government to help tackle this problem.

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, I want to thank the honourable member for pointing out the success of our efforts, which are based on really trusting the communities. When you look at the over 5,000 projects delivered by over 1,000 community organizations across the country, we provide them the support, but they're the ones who are on the front lines providing these services, and these services are making a difference.

I think what the Auditor General highlighted was that we need to do more work to enable those organizations to build the capacity to collect more granular data on the impact they're having on the ground, but make no mistake: These programs are making a difference. Particularly, they performed even better than expected during COVID. They saved a lot of lives by introducing health measures, procuring more space, procuring PPE and health professionals and enabling people to actually stay safe during that really difficult time.

We will continue working with those grassroots organizations. As I said, they deliver 5,000 projects across the country, but we also have to have permanent housing solutions. Through programs like the rapid housing initiative, we've been able to provide 100% capital funding to build deeply affordable homes for the most vulnerable: people who are either experiencing homelessness or are at risk of experiencing homelessness. We've been able to provide funding for the rapid construction of units that are then supported through wraparound supports by other orders of government or other partners.

That model really works, and it has resulted in a lot of people being able to find deeply affordable homes and being taken off the streets.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

You spoke about rapid deployment of housing. I see your advocacy efforts and your time in meeting with local municipalities, with mayors of different cities across the country. Can you speak to how we're using innovation or how local municipalities are using innovation with builders and contractors on prefabricated homes to get homes up faster?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

That's a very good question.

I think a lot of this will be encouraged even further with the housing accelerator fund. This is the first program in the national housing strategy that will directly invest in the system changes that are necessary to unlock additional housing supply. We will be investing directly in efforts to improve and speed up the permitting and delivery of housing of all types, including affordable housing, but also more rental housing and more home ownership options.

We will do that by partnering with municipalities and other orders of government that are responsible for the permitting and delivery of housing to help them get there, because we need more supply. We need a healthier mix of housing and we need more affordable housing. To get there, we recognize that we're not the only partner in this, but we are ready and able to invest in the ability and the capacity of local governments to do more.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Mr. Chair, do I have time for one more question?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You do. You have a minute and 30 seconds.