Mr. Speaker, we know that CMHC is supposed to be offering affordable housing for Canadians. After all, that is one of its mandates.
To keep a homeless person in a hospital bed costs at least $10,000. It costs $4,333 to keep that same person in a jail cell. It costs $1,932 for a bed in a homeless shelter. To provide a social housing unit it costs only $200 a month.
Does the member think the former Liberal government was, and now the Conservative government is being fiscally irresponsible in not spending the billions of dollars of profit of CMHC to build affordable housing, given that last year there was a record 30,000 tenants in Toronto alone facing eviction which is 10% higher than in 2004 and which we know is a sign of more trouble to come? Is it fiscally irresponsible for the government not to spend those billions of dollars in affordable housing through the provinces?