Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak in support of the bill. It is an excellent idea. It barely keeps up with inflation since the idea was first introduced. It is good to take this action. I agree with the hon. member that there will be little, if any, implications for government revenue. It is the kind of action that is very helpful for first-time home buyers, particularly where the member comes from in Vancouver with the huge housing inflation. Indeed, across Canada house inflation has been much greater than the amount of the increase since 1992. It is a good bill and I am very happy to support it.
As well, if we look at housing more generally, I am concerned about other Canadians in the housing market. I am particularly concerned about lower income Canadians. Three programs were introduced by the previous Liberal government for which I gather the funding comes to an end on March 31 of next year.
Those programs include the rehabilitation housing funding program, which involves a subsidy paid by the federal government to lower income individuals occupying co-ops. It happens that the co-op people came to see me this morning. They expressed great concern that the funding for these lower income Canadians might come to an end on March 31 of next year.
Second, is the whole homelessness file. I understand that funding may come to an end as well on March 31 of next year. There is great concern on the part of those who are homeless, or who advocate for the homeless, or who care about the homeless that this funding might also end.
Finally, in budget 2005, funding was provided to provinces to help in the provision of affordable housing. I understand that too comes to an end March 31, 2009.
Under the former Liberal government, Claudette Bradshaw, in particular, took a passionate lead in favour of homelessness programs, in favour of support for social housing. She and all of us on the Liberal side would also be very disappointed and critical of the government should these three important programs, addressing lower income Canadians in need of housing plus the homeless, come to an end.
We should be under no illusions. I refer members back to the “Advantage Canada” booklet, which came out with one of the government's previous budgets. It talked about federal-provincial jurisdictions. The government has a very narrow definition of federal and provincial jurisdictions. There were two examples given in the booklet of areas which were entirely provincial, according to the government. Perhaps not coincidentally the two areas mentioned were precisely housing and homelessness. According to the government's budget documents, these were considered provincial areas, not federal areas. The implication being that it would be just fine if the federal government washed its hands of any kind of support for social housing, or homeless, or low income Canadians in co-ops. I would not be terribly hopeful as to continuation of support for these programs on March 31, 2009.
On the Liberal side, we believe in these programs. We were the ones who initiated them. This is not to say that the federal government should necessarily be involved in the construction of new houses, but we think the federal government should be there to support cross-Canada initiatives, possibly led by the provinces, to deal with issues of homelessness, social housing and housing accommodation for lower income Canadians.
While I support the bill and I congratulate the member on bringing this forward, and it is very appropriate, as worthy as the bill is, there are far more pressing needs in our country by lower income Canadians, by desperate people who are homeless and by those agencies which have come to expect some funding from the federal government to support housing initiatives for low income Canadians.
Given the government's very narrow interpretation of the Constitution and its disdain or disregard for homeless or lower income Canadians, whom it does not see as its voting core, I think all of us in the House, at least on the opposition side, should be very concerned that these funds for these three important programs may be allowed to lapse on March 31 of next year.