Status of Women Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

Evidence of meeting #3 for Status of Women in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Supplementary Estimates (B), 2019-20: Vote 5b under Department for Women and Gender Equality

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Nancy Gardiner Assistant Deputy Minister, Department for Women and Gender Equality

Suzanne Cooper Director, Strategic Policy, Policy and External Relations Directorate, Department for Women and Gender Equality

Lisa Smylie Director General, Communications and Public Affairs Branch, Research, Results and Delivery Branch, Department for Women and Gender Equality

Noon

NDP

Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON

Thank you for that. You talked about housing and the importance of housing. I'm glad to hear that the government believes it is a human right. I agree with that, for sure.

In my community, in London, Ontario, indigenous people suffer about 30% to 40% of homelessness, which is very, very high. For example, there are three indigenous housing places that are actually at the end of their 25-year agreements. They are now selling off properties because they can't afford to continue to provide that housing as needed. These are all coming together as a huge crisis that a lot of communities are facing.

The PBO did a report in 2019 that said that with all of these initiatives the government was bringing forward, it wasn't actually clear that any of those were doing any good to help reduce the prevalence of and need for housing. It wasn't increasing the actual number of housing units. It wasn't fulfilling the need that was required by Canadians in need of affordable housing.

If you'd like to address that issue, I'd appreciate it, especially as it relates to indigenous housing.

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

There's one minute left.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON

The most recent numbers we have are that over a million Canadians have been lifted out of poverty over the past four years or so, and over a million families have access to safe and affordable roof, which they didn't before 2015.

12:05 p.m.

NDP

Lindsay Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON

How do you explain, then, the PBO's numbers, and how it's actually not helping?

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

Maryam Monsef Liberal Peterborough—Kawartha, ON

The national housing strategy is a 10-year plan with very concrete goals around eliminating homelessness, adding to the stock of affordable housing and repairing existing housing, and also renewing agreements around co-operatives to make sure that what's been affordable stays affordable.

One addition to the housing strategy, which will come into effect this April, is the portable housing benefit that gives up to $2,400 a month for Ontarians. It's a subsidy that goes to the individual as opposed to the housing provider itself. You can choose to live in any community and you will pay about $200 or so less every month on the cost of housing.

I'd love to have a conversation offline with you about how we can help your community to access funding through the national housing strategy if it is interested.

12:05 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Karen Vecchio

I'm looking at the time.

On behalf of the committee, I'd very much like to thank Minister Monsef as well as Guylaine Roy for joining us.

We welcome to the table Lisa Smylie, Danielle Bélanger and Suzanne Cooper.

We are going to continue with this round of questioning.

There was a bit of an error on the chair's part. I would like to move the floor back over to Salma.

Salma, you have your time to ask questions, and then we'll go back to the Conservatives, back and forth. From the second round, you did not have an opportunity to ask your questions. That was my mistake. I overlooked you.