I must have hit some kind of chord. They all agree that they should be here listening to this point.
The government does not have a national housing policy. There is a little bit here and a little bit there. There is a little bit in CMHC and a little bit in some other kind of program. There is no consistent national housing policy.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has been set up under the National Housing Act to implement the government's housing policy when in fact there is not one. There is a whole bunch of hodgepodge itsy-bitsy pieces coming together. Sometimes they work and sometimes they do not. It is essential that we have one.
I would like to ask whether the government believes that a hodgepodge is the best way to meet the housing problem in Canada today. I submit that it is not. The way to look after housing and to develop a solution to the housing problem in Canada would be to give the jurisdiction of this matter to those people who are closest to the situation and to the problem. That would be the provinces and the municipal governments.
There is no doubt that is precisely what was addressed by my hon. colleague who just spoke. It is also a question that has been raised by the other opposition parties. Huge sums of money are involved in the business of providing housing. There is also a huge social problem which needs to be addressed. We need to ask ourselves what is the best way to resolve this problem.
I commend the city of Toronto that commissioned a major study, the Golden report which was published in January of this year. It comes to grips with many of the issues we are dealing with today.
It is not only the city of Toronto that has done good work. The magazine put out by the Canadian Housing Corporation made some very interesting points. It indicated that the municipal governments throughout Canada that are closest to this problem have probably done a better job of coming to grips with it than any other level of government.
Surprise, surprise. Of course they have because the problem is before them virtually every day. It deals with Vancouver and Van City Place, a 50 unit development for street involved youth. There is a new development of 40 singles in Toronto in addition to the Golden report. The city of Montreal is an equal partner with the province of Quebec on a 50% cost sharing program designed to improve the quality of housing in central areas.
On a small scale, the city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, was a key player in establishing a new affordable home ownership initiative. The city of Kamloops provides another example. Working in partnership with the Canadian Legion and a local developer, the city has provided land on a lease basis for a seniors condominium.
The city of Edmonton is an active partner in the Edmonton coalition of the homeless initiative to establish a housing trust fund. The city of Saskatoon is similarly assisting the development of a trust fund. The city of Toronto just established an $11 million capital revolving fund, using money collected from private developers in return for density bonuses over the past dozen years.
A variety of cities large and small have shown not only that they can deal with the issue but that they actually are dealing with the issue. It is significant that we can demonstrate the housing issue can be dealt with at the local level and that these governments are competent, able and willing to deal with the issue.
The government through Canada Mortgage and Housing has vacated a large number of these areas. It is confusing. On the one hand it devolved the problems to the provinces but not with all provinces. There is another confusion and that is the federal co-op development that has been happening in Canada. In Ontario there is a real division. Roughly 50% of the housing co-operatives are owned by the provincial government, or under the jurisdiction of the provincial government, and about 50% are under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
On the one hand the government says it wants to divest itself and give it all to the provinces. Lo and behold a lobby group is formed and is successful in saying that the federal co-ops should stay with the federal government. That is exactly what happened.
The concept of housing co-operatives is a good one. I like it a lot because it comes to grips with one of the fundamental principles of housing, the pride of ownership that goes along with owning a home.
The National Housing Act has given many people the right, privilege and opportunity to own their own homes. It has been a benefit to all of them. They have expressed their own individualism through housing. People who are not as capable or not as able financially to do that have joined together with others and have formed a co-operative venture so that they can own their domicile co-operatively.
There are different kinds of co-operatives. We have mentioned federal and provincial co-operatives, but there is also those that are equity co-operatives and those that are non-equity sharing. People who do not have the resources can get into a co-op, develop their equity and actually feel they are part of a co-operative, have an ownership and a direct interest, an equity interest in the particular place where they live. It makes them accountable. It makes them responsible. It gives them a sense of pride as individuals to be able to express themselves in this way, which is highly desirable.
A better solution to the whole business of social housing might be to allow these people to own some of it themselves and be able to share in the management and operation of a particular unit on a co-operative basis, rather than on a handout basis where it is given to them virtually without any strings attached and without any responsibility connected to it.
My colleague was commenting on my speech. I am so happy that he was impressed with it. I just wish hon. members opposite would be as impressed as he was. It is good to hear that common sense is recognized by both sides of the House.
I want to come back to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. We need to have accountability. We need to recognize that accountability is best found if the decisions are transparent and if the powers of the corporation are somewhat restricted. The provisions of the bill give almost carte blanche to the management of Canada Mortgage and Housing to do whatever it wishes to do, whether it is to get involved as a intermediary in the financial marketplace or whether it is to have agents and branches in other countries.
One of the amendments concerns the ability of Canada Mortgage and Housing to establish branches and agents. It is not restricted to Canada. They could be established anywhere in the world. That is not what Canada Mortgage and Housing should be doing. If the purpose is to establish Canada's national housing policy, it should not be allowed to establish agents and branches in a foreign nation somewhere. The loophole is not closed in this legislation. It is important for the members opposite to recognize that this is Canada's mortgage and housing corporation, to implement Canada's national housing policy, and not some other national policy.