Actually, Mr. Speaker, I do know that quite well because I remember opposing the amendments to the National Housing Act in 1998 that were put through by the former prime minister. Why did I oppose them? I opposed them because they concerned the commercialization of CMHC.
On the cover ratio, CMHC has $5 billion in its reserve fund. Surely it does not need $5 billion in the coverage ratio. The surplus has grown tremendously. Even if we take one-fifth of it, or 20% of it, we could use those funds to start creating some affordable housing.
The amendments that were put through in 1998 in the National Housing Act limited the role of CMHC in working with municipalities and community based housing providers, which prevented them from developing innovative new ways to create desperately needed affordable housing. At the same time, the amendments opened CMHC's mortgage insurance business to the private sector, which is what it is doing now.
What was started with the former prime minister is now being continued, and both of those trends are very bad trends.
In other countries around the world, their equivalent of CMHC provides that kind of bases. Every time mortgage interest rates go down, they take the money that is gained from that lower interest rate and reinvest it into building new affordable housing.
It has been done in Hong Kong, in Britain and in many parts of the world. It is only in Canada that we have a very reactive and negative way of dealing with CMHC. As a result, very few affordable houses were built after 1994-95 when the national housing program was cancelled.
I lament the complete walking away of the government from its responsibility of building affordable housing. It started with the former prime minister, Mr. Mulroney, and later on the former Liberal prime minister continued that trend and continued to cancel the national housing program.