Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that all parliamentarians in this House will want to join me in saluting the relevance of your ruling, which allows us to fulfill our role. Of course, the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou deserves a lot of credit for putting this housing issue on the agenda of the House. This issue is of primary importance, nearly as important as life itself. Indeed, we cannot give meaning to our lives, be involved in our community and perform our civic duties if we do not have a roof over our heads.
I am very grateful to the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou for tabling a bill founded on common sense. Can we imagine being in the shoes of those who established the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation after the second world war? They wanted to ensure that there would be affordable housing, first for post-war citizens, but also, and more importantly, for those who had pressing housing needs.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation behaved like a bank, like a financial institution interested in accumulating surpluses. It has tried to hoard money and it has not done all it could to improve the housing situation.
As the MP for Hochelaga, I am extremely pleased to take part in this debate today. I am doing so thinking of the housing organizations in my riding, particularly Entraide logement and the BAIL committee with Mr. Laporte, who is now working under contract with FRAPRU for a few months. In Hochelaga, we are well aware of how effective housing is as a tool to combat poverty.
The hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou is proposing that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation set aside the equivalent of 5% of its portfolio of loans and maintain a reserve fund of up to $100 million for contingencies, and so on. That sounds like a common sense approach to me. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is not a financial institution. It is not there to accumulate surpluses. Who would have ever thought that the CMHC would have $4.2 billion in accumulated surpluses? If nothing is done, if we do not act on the bill introduced by the member for Beauport—Limoilou, we could see surpluses as high as $8.3 billion. That makes no sense.
How these surpluses came to be is in itself worrisome: overestimated borrowing costs, excessive rates charged to citizens for loan guarantees and, of course, the fact that the cost of managing social housing programs has been lower because interest rates were lower. This is, therefore, an extremely important bill. This bill calls for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, subject to the two conditions stated, namely setting aside 5% of its portfolio of loans and maintaining a reserve fund of up to $100 million for contingencies, to give a rebate, to distribute the rest of its surpluses to the provinces, which have primary responsibility, with the municipalities, for social housing. I understand that my hon. colleague's bill provides for this refund, this redistribution to be in proportion of the provinces' population.
That is absolutely unacceptable. We must not think that the housing crisis has subsided in our various communities. I was rereading the policy statement sent to us by my friend Cosmo Maciocia, who is responsible for social housing on the City of Montreal executive committee. I do not want to make any partisan remarks since Montreal is in the middle of a municipal election. However, I will point out that the Tremblay administration launched an operation called Solidarity 5000 Homes, in Montreal. This is not insignificant. Close to 4,800 housing units have already been delivered or will be delivered soon.
Obviously, we must not think that this operation, Solidarity 5000 Homes, which is worth mentioning, has solved all the housing problems in Montreal. It is true though that the situation has improved compared to what it was three years ago. Indeed, vacancy rates were lower then than anyone could imagine. But the needs are still there and they are significant.
I will talk about Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. In my part of town, thanks to Solidarity 5000 Homes, 170 housing units were built and 138 are yet to come. I will take this opportunity to thank Mrs. Édith Cyr, from my community's technical resource group or GRT, who has done an excellent job on this. As we know, it is the GRTs that deliver the housing units, help organizations with the planning and sign the contracts. GRTs play an important role between the time when the need is identified and the time when construction begins on a housing unit. If further proof is required that the need for social housing is still huge, here it is: in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve alone, it is estimated that an additional 455 units could be built if the funds were available, but they are not. There is not one cent left in Operation Solidarity 5000 Homes; all the funds have been allocated.
I want to give some examples of the needs in Hochelaga—Maisonneuve. The Chaussures Pitt property is on Nicolet street. Everyone has heard of this shoe store: it is part of the consortium owned by Yellow. This building will be retired. With funding, 35 housing units could be built on that site. The Résidence Maisonneuve could be converted into 10 housing units. The property on Bennett street behind the Propulsion agency could provide another 35 units. And 200 housing units could be built beside Saint-Clément park. The former Viau cookie factory that supplied us for years with Whippet cookies, which, Mr. Speaker, you have probably tried, is now available. Condo apartments could be built there, but since there is also a housing construction program, 200 units of social housing could also be built. The former École des métiers de l'Est, on Darling street next to the Hochelaga school, could also be converted into 71 housing units. I will not get into details as to whether it should be affordable housing or come under the Accès Logis program. This decision should be made by the developers in cooperation with the various municipalities. The message we are trying to send this morning is that there is a enormous need for housing.
Who can believe that, in a country as wealthy as Canada and Quebec, 150,000 people do not have a permanent place to call home? In Quebec alone, 393,000 households have been identified as being in dire need of housing. When over 30% of personal income is spent on housing, there is a problem. Imagine what happens when it is 50%. Yet, over 100,000 households spend more than 80% of their income on housing.
This is an extremely relevant bill that has been lauded and awaited by housing advocacy organizations. If I had time, I would no doubt talk about the SCPI program. But I do not. However, we do need to send a clear message that we, as parliamentarians who want to fight poverty, need to vote in favour of this bill, which would make funds available to communities so they could provide social housing to those who desperately need it.