Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to my hon. friend telling us his points of view on housing. I have some personal interest in this area as I used to be the president of a housing co-op that was seeking allocations of units so we could build social housing within the inner city of Winnipeg.
The Liberal member of parliament who I defeated in that riding joined my housing co-op to show that he was interested in social housing. That is the only reason he would pay $10 to join our co-op. At the only meeting I saw him attend he said that Canada was the only country in the world which did not have a national housing strategy. He made that comment because prior to 1993—this is what I was leading into and I would like the member to comment on—it was Mulroney who started to tear down any kind of a national housing strategy.
Members opposite were incredibly critical of that. I remember passionate debates and arguments that Mulroney was doing a terrible thing by tearing down the national housing program. There were campaign promises to the effect that the Liberals intended to reinstate some kind of national housing program.
In the inner city of Winnipeg none of the normal market controls or influences work. The value of the property is too low to interest landlords in investing in low income housing. In the absence of social housing, or some kind of subsidized housing, no new units will be built. We are facing a ghettoized situation where we have a donut shaped city.
The result has been epidemic arson. Landlords are turning in desperation to torching their houses. It looks like burn baby, burn in the late sixties in Watts. There were 80 or 90 arsons in a 12 block area in three months. That is five or six a night sometimes, places being burnt out of desperation. I would argue this is because of the complete absence of any commitment to a national housing strategy.
In the member's personal experience in the communities in which he has lived, has he seen a similar deterioration of housing stock without new housing being built through social housing programs?