Mr. Speaker, I rise in this adjournment debate as a consequence of the response given to me by the Minister of National Defence to my question on November 15, 2004 regarding the deplorable condition of military housing.
The decision to allow military housing to deteriorate is not the decision of the men and women who occupy these homes. The Canadian Forces Housing Agency says it is broke and cannot afford to address all the health and safety concerns.
I asked the minister why his government was making the rank and file who live in the housing pay for cuts to the defence budget with huge rent increases. While the minister chose to deny the veracity of my question, let us examine the facts to determine who is being accurate and who is being inaccurate as the minister tried to suggest in his less than complete response.
When the Liberal government separated housing from direct DND supervision to the newly created Canadian Forces Housing Agency in 1997, it did so with the intention of the agency operating on a break even basis; that is, the rents collected from the rental units were now to cover the cost of maintenance and repairs. This represented a change from the past practice of just pocketing the rents since the soldiers who occupied the housing sure could not see any maintenance in relation to the rent that had been paid over the years to DND.
The Liberal government transferred the base housing to this new agency knowing full well that years of defence budget cuts had resulted in the majority of base housing being substandard; that is, a majority of base housing had been allowed to deteriorate far below respectable community housing standards. Had the necessary maintenance and repairs been completed on a timely basis, the housing crisis in the Canadian military would not exist.
If the Liberal Party were operating in an open, honest, transparent manner, the necessary repairs to bring the base housing up to community standards would have been completed before the new agency was created. It is a cruel trick of the government to announce a pay increase in the front door while at the same time implementing huge rent increases, 30% over two years in some markets, through the back door.
When we take the rent increases, the increase in the cost of rations on base and the Ontario health tax premium that is being illegally collected from members of the Canadian military residing in Ontario, members of the forces are falling further and further behind in the cost of living. It is clear that the catch-up of 6.6% from April 2004 and the increase of 2.4% for the non-commissioned ranks and the 3.28% catch-up and 2.5% increase for officers that is expected to be announced in the budget will not even come close to bridging the gap between costs and soldiers' pay.
I believe it would be informative to quote the April 5, 2001 Hansard . The member had this to say:
The government also has very sly methods of taking money away from individuals. I draw the attention of the House to one very important point. The government is giving money to our soldiers on the one hand and on the other hand it is yanking the money away with increased rents on their private married quarters and forcing them to pay for things they did not pay for before. It is giving money with one hand but taking money with two hands.
--It is disgusting. These people put their lives on the line for us and the government is shafting them.
That quote is from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence. Nothing has changed for our military personnel. What has changed is that the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca now sits on the wrong side of the House as an apologist for the government that he was always quick to criticize for obvious reasons.
In fact, the parliamentary secretary had this to say to a newspaper in his home province: “It is one thing for the federal Liberals to have neglected and underfunded the Canadian Forces since they were elected 10 years ago, but entirely another when they penalize our military personnel and their families”.
I further note that the same member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca begged the defence minister to freeze rents on private married quarters and to halt any cut to the post living differential. As a measure of the member's new-found influence on the government benches, rents were subsequently raised and cuts were made.