Madam Speaker, I know the member is passionate. He is the king of rooming houses. He is interested in developing a nation of rooming houses. That is not the direction of the government.
If the hon. member does not know where that skimpy money of $753 million went, he should talk to the people in the city of Toronto or here in the city of Ottawa. He does not have to go far. Of course shelters are not the solution. However for the meantime, until we can get a full continuum of housing that will not only deal with shelters but also with single units and affordable housing for families, it must be delivered by the local community. The member knows that.
Our job as a national government is to put in place a national strategy. There is about a billion dollars for shelters for the homeless and a billion federal dollars for affordable housing, matched by the provinces and the municipalities, which translates into $2 billion. The hon. member can look at the numbers himself.
We have the renovation program. If we add up all the numbers we exceed $4 billion in a national housing strategy that I will admit has been slow to hit the ground. I alluded to the reasons why it is slow. The provinces have to ensure the money flows. The federal dollars are on the table. They are there to build housing. It is time the provinces and the municipalities got busy and did it.