Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised the member is upset because he did contact the office to say that he protested the building of a new facility and would rather have seen the money go to the building that had been condemned. The government said, no, that it would do that regardless of the interest of a member opposite to somehow support the owner, builder or developer of that particular project.
The government believes in supporting the non-profit community. We believe in co-ops. We have been very supportive in working with co-ops to establish a national agency that would allow them to manage their federally owned and operated co-ops. That is in the works. I recognize that stuff gets bogged down in red tape but it will definitely be established.
We are in touch with co-op organizations and literally working with them on a daily basis. The Deputy Prime Minister has asked me, as his parliamentary secretary, to roll up my sleeves a little and take charge of some of these issues to see if we can get them moving and get some of the agreements solved.
I am pleased to say that we are making progress. However let me be clear. This is not a unilateral solution. There is a saying that for every major problem in government there is a simple solution and it is usually the wrong one. That could clearly be stated as the case here. We need the provinces at the table.
It has been suggested that we should bypass the provinces and go directly to the municipal sector but we know what happens then. We would not only be bypassing what is a traditional relationship in the country but frankly we would be letting provincial governments off the hook, letting them walk away from what is partly their responsibility. The federal government has recognized that it has a role. It may not be the days of AHOP when we had assisted home ownership programs. Those days were pretty wonderful in terms of national housing. It also may not be the days when there was a trilateral agreement between federal, provincial and municipal sectors to build non-profit housing, to fund them and to provide subsidy money but, believe me, the government has made a substantial commitment: $680 million leveraged with the involvement of the provincial governments and the municipal governments in certain areas. That translates into $1.32 billion for housing. That is a substantial housing program.
Anyone who says that is not part and parcel of a national strategy on housing is playing a bit loose with the facts. Clearly we are saying that we recognize the need. Everybody, federally and provincially, backed out of housing when the deficits were piling high. This government had a $42 billion deficit. Provincial governments were facing deficits. It was a mistake and I am prepared to admit that all levels backed out.
When I left provincial office, the new Mike Harris government in Ontario came in and the first announcement it made was to cancel all housing projects in the province of Ontario, even some of them retroactively after they had been approved, had architectural drawings and had agreements. All the money yanked out of the system. It was catastrophic. There were lawsuits involved and all kinds of problems. The bottom line was that the housing flow ceased in that particular province as a result of the actions of one government.
What we need is a comprehensive partnership, a partnership with leadership from the federal government. That is on the table with $25,000 per unit of federal dollars in subsidy to be matched by a further $25,000 from provincial, municipal, private non-profit, co-ops, private builders and anybody else who wants to get involved in providing housing for people who need it.
I will close by saying that the solution to our problem is sure as heck not to build a bunch of rooming houses. It is to build homes for Canadians who need affordable and good quality homes for their families.