Madam Speaker, I am very honoured to speak on the issue of housing.
It certainly is a wake-up call for a lot of Canadians, especially a lot of people in my constituency, to see the effects of Bill C-66 on our communities. It will mean wholesale changes in the structure of housing in my communities.
A lot of the responsibilities have already devolved from federal to provincial authority. There is also concern about on reserve housing in aboriginal communities and contributions that the federal government has made for the development of communities and their infrastructures.
When one sees social housing coming to an end as a national program, Bill C-66 seems to punctuate it. In Canada we have such pristine land that gives us natural resources of timber, rock, minerals and properties that can provide for meaningful homes, that can be designed for a new generation of children to come, that can meet the environmental needs, the non-polluting needs and sustainable development housing needs of the future. For the federal government to abdicate and abandon its responsibility now is very untimely.
As a national vision we should be empowering our youth. When they leave high school are they trained to understand how to build a home, the basic need of a shelter? Can they renovate the property they will eventually own as students, workers or parents? What about the maintenance of the heating, cooling and electrical systems or the plumbing? All these are housing needs and basic skills that people need to take care of their homes and to make them sustainable.
In a high tech world everything has become a case of calling 911 when people are in trouble. People call the plumber when there is a leak, the electrician when there is a power outage, the computer specialist when viruses are coming down from the online system. We are making people dependent.
The social housing program has been utilized by many generations of families and individuals. In future they will have to try to find their way through the provincial and local community administrations.
As well, this bill will abdicate the corporate for profit social housing programs. That is a very dangerous venture for this country to go on.
I believe that our young people, our homeless people, our disadvantaged people require the state to look at these interests and to find the means to create opportunities to put before us. The state should make the challenges. It should make them local challenges.
My first career, coming out of high school, was as a carpenter. In 1976 there was a major infrastructure development in northern Saskatchewan which included housing. I learned to build a house. Today I am proud to be a carpenter who can still build a house, but if it was not for the social housing program that was in place in my community I would have not attained that skill or that trade.
Today, if for profit corporations build social housing in our communities, they hire local people at minimum wage for a very specific, short period and then they leave with the profits they have made. There is no advantages for trade development or skill development. I guess the bottom line is one of self-awareness and self-pride, self-esteem in housing.
If families can provide homes, if communities can provide for the well-being of their citizens and if the country can provide for the well-being of its citizens, then we will have self-esteem in the country. With Bill C-66 we seem to be going to the common marketplace to look at social housing delivery in the country.
In Canada we have a housing shortage in the middle of the boreal forest. That is a mindless situation. It is not a housing problem, it is a social problem. It is a sick society when we have a wealth of resources in the backwoods of our communities and we have a housing shortage. Young families are starting up. Some families have 15 to 20 members living in one dwelling. They have issues of health, discipline and economic plight.
Housing is also an industry. We have to create industries in our communities in all necks of the woods, so to speak.
We recently had the birth of Nunavut. We watched the celebrations take place in the capital of Nunavut, Iqaluit. This is a growing, young population, the majority of which is under 25 years old. They are going to need housing in the future, but there are no trees in Nunavut. There is an abundance of trees in northern Saskatchewan, northern Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia. We have to create an economic cycle within our own country. We have to trade among ourselves. We have to prepare ourselves, but we have to take care of our people first, before we trade worldwide.
Let us take care of Canadians in a responsible way. I call on the government to reconsider its support of Bill C-66 at this time. I call on the government to reconsider in the new millennium renovating and rejuvenating our pride, as well as renovating this House. Why not? This House has a housing problem of its own. We should reassess how we populate it, and redesign the House which came from the British form of government. Let us redesign something collectively for the new millennium.
The whole structure and foundation of the government, the foundation of the country, is compassion for everyone. We must have compassion for each other.
Those people who have been using the social housing program for years should be the people sitting on the CMHC board of directors. They should be the ones administering the bureaucratic structure of social housing. Why not consider these people for positions on the board of directors? Instead, the government, the minister or the prime minister will appoint whomever they want.
The government should look at the standards of housing in this country and consider our northern climate. The government should consider climate change and the effect that will have on our environment. It should consider the use of energy.
It is a major challenge for us to empower and to teach our children that in the future we should build our homes in a respectful and honourable way, but by no means should the federal government abandon its responsibilities to the citizens of this country.
I believe that a further review of the CMHC is needed for the new millennium, but consultations should take place at the community level, not at the federal level. I call on the Liberal government not to adopt any past government's ideas of making for profit corporations' interests a priority. The government should support the non-profit and co-operative movement that has taken place in social housing. These organizations should be financially and politically supported to make it possible for people in the future to have houses.