Mr. Speaker, first I would like to commend the efforts by the hon. member for Vancouver East in readdressing social housing.
The presentation of her bill will once again afford me an opportunity to speak to this issue, but this time in a far more optimistic tone. As we know, since last November, a number of bilateral agreements between the Government of Canada and the governments of the provinces and territories, including the Government of Quebec, have been signed with a view to stimulating the creation of affordable housing.
The federal government's withdrawal from social housing has had catastrophic results. Some provinces have been experiencing a housing crisis for a long time, and it is already some years since the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, for which the federal Minister of Public Works and Government Services has responsibility, first informed the minister of the scope of the crisis.
As a result, some provinces experienced a huge jump in the number of households in desperate need of accommodation. These past ten years, because of the federal government's stubborn insistence on keeping a high profile, we in Quebec have been deprived of more than 50,000 social housing units. On numerous occasions the Bloc Quebecois has called upon the federal government to reinvest in housing. Although we feel that a bill like that of the hon. member for Vancouver East is a good thing, unfortunately we also feel it contains some problematic elements.
First , last year in 2001 the federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for housing met on two occasions in order to fine tune the affordable housing initiative so that it would meet the needs and priorities of each province and territory. At Quebec City in November last year, they established a definitive frame of reference that was unanimously accepted by all of the ministers.
This frame of reference includes the following important elements. First, provinces and territories have the primary responsibility for the design and delivery of housing programs within their jurisdiction. Second, provinces and territories require flexible programs to address their affordable housing needs and priorities. Third, this initiative needs to create affordable housing for low to moderate income households.Fourth, units funded will remain affordable for a minimum of ten years. Fifth, provinces and territories will be required to match federal contributions overall. Provincial and territorial contributions may be capital or non-capital in nature, and may be in cash or in kind. These contributions may be made by the province or territory or by a third party. I will explain why.
The reason this agreement was approved was because it met the requirements of provinces which, like British Columbia and Quebec, had already taken steps to meet their housing needs, in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia, where the population is decreasing and where it can be said that there is no housing crisis, in Newfoundland, a province which prefers to spend its money on renovating housing, and in the Northwest Territories, which are short of money and prefer to invest in other ways.
Therefore, in response to the outcry from the provinces, the federal government finally accepted that its financial contribution to this cost shared program be given to the provinces, and that they would decide how to spend it based on their needs.
This makes the third element of the bill, the development of a national housing strategy, unnecessary. Based on what I described earlier, the provincial governments are responsible for their budgets in addition to their dealings with their municipalities.
As a result, I do not see how the federal government could require the provinces to reserve 1% of their budget for national housing programs. Furthermore, we know that, in Quebec, there are mechanisms to ensure the fair distribution of funding through the Société d'habitation du Québec and the protection of renters through the Régie du logement. In Quebec, we are organized.
Also, a few years ago, Quebec developed a policy to fight poverty. It is therefore important that the administration of any federal-provincial agreement in this area be left to the province. In Quebec, it is the government of Quebec that consults with municipalities and assesses projects.
For all of the reasons I have mentioned, the bill put forward by the hon. member for Vancouver East cannot be retained, and the Bloc Quebecois will oppose it.