Madam Speaker, that poor hon. member does not seem to be able to take yes for an answer. Every year the Government of Canada commits $1.9 billion to support 640,000 families living in existing social housing units across the country. In addition, last week the government committed a further $1.6 billion over the next two years, a commitment that fulfills the campaign promise of last year.
This is nothing new. The government has been active on this file for the last number of years.
In 2001, the affordable housing initiative was $680 million over five years to help increase the supply of affordable housing. Budget 2003 built on this initiative by providing an additional $320 million over five years. I know the hon. member opposite might be bored with a few facts, but I hope he is paying attention to this.
This brings the Government of Canada's investment in affordable rental housing to $1 billion by the year 2007-08. Funding is being made available to provinces and territories that are prepared to match federal contributions.
There was a recognition last week that some provinces have more difficulty than others in meeting the requirements of matching funding, so the government introduced additional flexibilities to the program, including allowing provincial funding on other affordable housing programs to count as cost-matching for the purposes of calculating the fifty-fifty contribution on an overall rather than unit by unit basis over the next two years.
Further, in recognition of the need to preserve the existing stock of affordable housing, budget 2003 extended CMHC's housing renovations program for a further three years at an annual cost of $128 million.
In December 1999, the Government of Canada announced $753 million as a contribution to help Canada's homeless persons.
The $305 million for SCPI, otherwise known as the supporting communities partnership initiative, provides capital costs and funding for homeless people. Budget 2003 provided a three year extension for the SCPI partnership initiative at $135 million per year in order to help sustain efforts to address homelessness.
I know, Madam Speaker, that you and I share communities that are very interested in making sure that our communities can access the SCPI funding. You, like I, Madam Speaker, support homelessness initiatives in the city of Toronto. We have quite a number of homeless people that reside in our ridings on a nightly basis.
In budget 2000, the goods and services tax rebate program for new residential rental accommodation was introduced. The GST rebate now provides for a 36% GST rebate, which is similar to the rebate provided to new homebuyers. The program is estimated to refund $55 million annually to landlords for new residential rental properties.
These programs are in addition to the $1.9 billion that is the base funding for 640,000 households.
To sum up, the Government of Canada has made new funding commitments of almost $3 billion since the year 2000 to help ease affordability challenges for low income Canadians. As stated in the budget, it was our clear intention to renew and extend these programs as their funding came due over the next few years, so I am somewhat perplexed by the hon. member's feigned indignation.