Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech and to comment on Bill C-43, which of course we acknowledge that we do support, but there was one notable absence in Bill C-43. It was the absence of funding for affordable housing and there were reasons for it.
I want to refer my colleague to another promise made and promise broken. It was a Liberal red book promise in the year 2000. That red book promise was for $680 million which was to create up to 120,000 units of affordable housing by the year 2005. Budget 2003 added another $320 million. That $1 billion should have proportionately created, according to the Liberals' figures, possibly up to 200,000 units, but guess how many units it created. It was not 200,000 units, not 120,000 units, but less than 25,000 units out of the $1 billion that was allocated across Canada. Those are the numbers.
Small wonder that there was no new money in Bill C-43, because even the Liberals recognized that it was a wasteful expenditure, but guess where it did show up. It is in the NDP bill, Bill C-48. Here comes another promise for building more affordable housing, only this time the minister will not tell people how many houses they expect to build, because quite frankly, he does not know and past history certainly indicates that it is correct that he does not know.
By putting another $1.6 billion into an already unworkable plan on top of a broken promise that was made on committed money before, another promise made another promise broken, is there not a pattern here? I would like my colleague to comment on promises made, promises broken.