Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-304, the secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing bill. It was introduced by my colleague from Vancouver East, and I thank her for again keeping this issue of the need for a national housing program before the House and before Canadians. She has done great work on this issue, especially since she was first elected in 1997. One of the first things she undertook was a cross-country tour and survey. She had meetings with community groups and community leaders to determine the exact housing needs of Canadians, which were very serious back in 1997 and have not improved significantly since that time.
One of the things that came out of her work was her first housing bill of rights. That was a very detailed piece of legislation that had been debated in the House on other occasions. It was not successful, but we kept reintroducing it, hoping to convince members from all corners of the House of the importance of this kind of legislation.
The housing bill of rights would have established the right to safe, adequate, secure housing as a basic human right in Canada, in law in Canada. It was excellent legislation, and I hope the day comes when we have a government that is willing to implement a housing program, which ensures housing for all Canadians as a basic human right.
Sadly, that bill has had to undergo some readjustment, given the requirements of royal recommendations. I am glad, Mr. Speaker, that you ruled earlier that this latest version of the bill does not require a royal recommendation, that it does not require significant new spending and that it is merely a call to the government to implement and to develop a national housing program. It offers advice about how that can be accomplished.
It is not the bill that I know the member for Vancouver East had envisioned. It is in fact not the bill she prepared. It is not the bill that we in the NDP would ultimately like to see, but it is an important step, given the restrictions that apply to private members' legislation in our parliamentary system.
The bill would require the government to convene a national conference of provinces, aboriginal communities, municipalities and other interested parties to develop a national housing strategy that would provide secure, adequate, affordable, accessible and not-for-profit housing for Canadians, which is a very important step. It is a good process. It is a process that also recognizes the interests of Quebec. It also recognizes the interests of aboriginal and first nations communities and communities of the Inuit as well. It sets out a process that will help us develop the kind of program we need nationally in Canada.
When United Nations officials and officials from other countries come to Canada to look at the housing situation, they are absolutely appalled by what they see, and that is a great embarrassment. A couple of years ago the UN Special Rapporteur said that he saw our housing as a national crisis. He could not understand how a country as wealthy as Canada could have a housing situation as dismal as it was. It is not an appropriate situation and it does require our attention. We did not get that from the previous Liberal government and we do not have it from the Conservative government.
The previous Conservative speaker tried to make a case for what the Conservative government was doing. The reality is if the Conservatives had not come in to government when they did and been able to spend the money that the New Democrats fought for from the previous Liberal government, they would have precious little to show in terms of new acts and in terms of housing. The Conservatives take credit for housing money, money for a national housing program that the New Democrats fought for in the 38th Parliament. It was a one-off. It was not an ongoing program, but that was the money the Conservatives were able to spend and put into a housing program. Now they claim they have done something. I do not think it would have been their inclination to go down that road if the way had not already been established by the action of New Democrats in that previous Parliament.
The economic stimulus budget does have some money for housing projects, which is an important engine for economic development and would help us get out of the recession, but it is a one-off kind of thing. It is not an ongoing national housing program attached to a national housing strategy, and that is what we need. We are still falling short. We are still failing to meet the requirements of a national housing program.
If people were to come to my riding of Burnaby--Douglas and talk to people who work on the issue of homelessness and housing in my local community, they would hear that one of the things that is absolutely necessary to address the housing needs of Canadians is a national housing program and the involvement of the federal government in solving this crisis.
In fact, if people were to go into any community across Canada and talk to the people who work on this issue, who work with people who are under-housed, who live in deteriorating housing, who live in overcrowded conditions and who do not have homes, they would hear that one of the key things to solving the problem is the involvement of the federal government.
In the last Parliament, when I held the position of NDP spokesperson on housing for a short time, I accumulated a stack of new reports from every corner of this country. The initial recommendation in all of those reports was the need for a national housing program and the involvement of the Government of Canada to solve the housing and homelessness problems in Canada. Every report from every community from coast to coast to coast made clear the importance of that.
I know the people on the Burnaby task force on homelessness appreciate the importance of the federal government's involvement in solving the problem of housing and homelessness in Canada. They have been impressed with the work of the member for Vancouver East in putting forward solutions and tangible ways of going about ensuring that the program exists and goes some way to addressing the ongoing need for housing in Canada. As I mentioned earlier, report after report from international observers have said the same thing. The UN rapporteur called it a national crisis in Canada.
The other important feature of this bill is that not only would it require the federal government to produce a national housing strategy but it would require the federal government to do that in consultation with other levels of government in Canada.
The sad reality is that the Conservative government has refused to participate in any provincial housing meetings since it came to power. The federal government refused to attend the national housing summit with the provinces and territories just this last August. In fact, it has not attended a national housing summit since September 2005. That is unacceptable. We need to ensure our federal government is involved in those discussions and this legislation would make that a requirement.
The Wellesley Institute, which has done great work on housing and homelessness in Canada, is about to release its 2009 state of the nation's housing report. It will draw our attention yet again to the needs of Canadians for housing. That report will draw our attention to a number of statistical situations that exist here in Canada. It notes that Statistics Canada has shown that 705,000 households in Canada live in overcrowded conditions where too many people share a small space. It estimates that attached to that, two million women, men and children now live below the national occupancy standards.
We know that is an important factor in the H1N1 situation. Overcrowded housing makes it possible for the virus to flourish in those kinds of conditions. That is a good example of why we need to pay attention to housing.
More than three million Canadians are paying too much for housing and live in situations of needing housing, and that needs to be addressed as well.
The bottom line is that a national housing program in Canada needs to be ongoing and it needs to be a program that actually builds homes. That is the need and that is what has been missing. That was what was missing with the Liberal government and what is missing with the Conservative government. That is what New Democrats would do instead.
People across the country who work on this issue know that we need a long-term national housing program that would actually build homes for Canadians.