Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise in the House today.
I am also happy to hear my colleague in the Liberal Party say he will support the bill and is concerned about social housing. That is not really what we remember of the Liberal government, especially under Paul Martin, when it made deep cuts to the transfer payments for social housing. This seems to confirm what people always say about the Liberal Party: it is more progressive in the opposition than in power. If it ever does get back into power, the Bloc Québécois will make sure it forms a minority government and there are as many Bloc members on hand as possible to ensure that its alleged concerns about social housing actually result in some concrete action.
What we are talking about here is safe, affordable housing. I started talking spontaneously about social housing, although that is not the only issue here. It is a major concern, though, of the Bloc Québécois and there is a lot of it in my riding. Jeanne-Le Ber is a riding in southwest Montreal that is crossed by the Lachine canal, and which, as hon. members may recall, was Canada’s industrial birthplace. It was here in my riding that industrial Canada was born.
There are still many people in my riding who are part of what is called the working class. They have very modest incomes, and all too often, they even live in poverty. In some cases, their families have been living for generations in such working-class areas as Saint-Henri or Pointe-Saint-Charles. They are therefore very rooted in the community.
There are some new people as well, including me. They come to live here and are more affluent. Often they are professionals or retired baby boomers who want to move closer to the centre of Montreal after having raised their children in the suburbs. They buy splendid condos with views over the Lachine canal or convert apartments, duplexes or triplexes into single-family homes. It is fantastic. It is a great place. This influx causes a problem, though, because it results in a clash or confrontation, even though I do not like the word. There are two conflicting uses for the land. Every time a triplex, for example, is converted into a single-family dwelling, two apartments disappear where people of more modest means could have lived.
We have to find a way to reconcile these uses because I think that kind of diversity is good. It is good to have neighbourhoods that include people of all social classes, people with higher incomes and those of more modest means. That is a social ideal I can envision, and I think it is much better than a society with poor neighbourhoods, ghettos in one part of town and rich neighbourhoods with big fancy houses in another.
However, we have to understand that the people who have been living there for generations, people who have relatively low incomes, are finding it harder and more expensive to keep living in south-western Montreal because newcomers to the area, those who have moved to Verdun, are improving their properties, which causes rent to go up and makes it nearly impossible to find affordable housing.
What should we do to encourage diversity in these neighbourhoods? We have to find a way to create a more balanced market. Demand is high, and that kind of pressure increases rental rates, so we have to intervene to create downward pressure that will result in a more balanced market.
There are ways to do that. One way is to build social housing, affordable housing and housing co-ops. People in my riding are working very hard to make that happen, and they need government support. The question is, which government should be providing that support?
The Bloc Québécois believes that this issue falls under the Government of Quebec's jurisdiction. These are social programs that provide direct assistance to individuals. We believe, as does the Government of Quebec—unanimously, I might add—that it should have full control over the implementation of social housing, community housing and affordable housing policies in Quebec.
However, we also believe that the federal government should contribute financially. Among other things, we believe that 1% of the budget for federal government programs—some $2 billion per year—should be transferred to Quebec and the provinces so that they can implement their own housing policies.
Furthermore, in the last session we introduced a bill that proposed using the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation surpluses, which are funded in part by revenues generated through premiums paid by wealthier citizens when they purchase homes. Thus, it would be a meaningful gesture to distribute this wealth and use these billions of dollars sitting idle at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to provide affordable housing to those most in need.
Having said that, I am pleased to see that, at least on this matter, the NDP has broached the issue of respect for Quebec's jurisdictions. The clause giving Quebec the right to opt out of any national program with full compensation—that goes without saying—is necessary in order for us to support the bill. We will support it and send it to committee. Needless to say, if it returns to this chamber without that clause, we will no longer be able to support it.
We are hopeful that this clause will be introduced and debated in committee. We are talking about the right to opt out with full compensation. It goes without saying that if Quebec is not given compensation and is simply told to take it or leave it, this will not work. The Government of Quebec already invests in affordable housing programs and it must continue to be the one and only authority in this matter.
In this regard, I would like to read an excerpt found on page 21 of a study on the cost of federalism for Quebec in the housing sector prepared by the Société d'habitation du Québec in September 1995.
Federal housing measures represent interference in a provincial jurisdiction. The federal government has imposed very rigid rules for housing measures. It has also made its financial participation contingent upon a multitude of administrative rules as well as pan-Canadian objectives and criteria, making it difficult to plan interventions in a Quebec context. The presence of the federal government in this sector of activity has resulted in much administrative duplication engendering additional costs that undermine the coherence of interventions.
This was obviously written before the deep cuts by the Liberals. Now that it is time to reinvest in affordable housing, we believe that the government must continue to respect the authority of the Government of Quebec in this matter.