Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss a question I first raised not too long ago, on January 30, in which I talked about the wait list in Toronto—92,000 families and close to 200,000 people—and the fact that the government has recently signed agreements with provinces. However, in the case of Ontario, the Government of Ontario does not provide housing anymore. That was downloaded to municipalities. So, when the minister responded by saying that the provincial minister for housing was happy, yes, he was happy that the agreement was renewed, but the housing providers in Ontario were furious. They are the ones who receive this money, and they are saying that the status quo is not good enough. The status quo is sustaining a waiting list in Toronto of close to 1,500 years. This money would only deliver to the City of Toronto, the largest housing provider in the country, the ability to add 60 new units per year, for the next five years.
I remind the House that there is a waiting list of 92,000 families looking for affordable housing in Toronto, and the government has put no new money on the table.
The other response we have been hearing lately from the government is that it has unveiled $150 billion in the new budget process and that this process of allowing housing providers to renegotiate their mortgages is suddenly going to provide them with no new mortgage.
The reality is that they still have a mortgage, because they are renewing a mortgage, and this money does not actually deliver the capacity to do anything other than the refinance. The refinancing is there so that they can reinvest in the state of good repair but, at the end of the day, there is no new money for the subsidies. What we have heard from the minister is that when they renegotiate, they lose their subsidies.
What the current government claims to be doing is investing in housing, but it is not. It is maintaining the status quo, and the status quo is failing, and when it made changes, it was a bait-and-switch. The provisions it put into the budget actually hurt affordable housing providers, which would make the waiting list even longer and push more people onto the waiting list because affordability would disappear with the refinance scheme.
This is appalling. We have a situation in Toronto that is intolerable, requires a national program to step back up, for a federal government to reinvest in housing, to re-mandate CMHC, and to ensure that housing providers do three things: build new housing; repair existing housing; and sustain subsidies so that those people living in housing do not lose their affordability.
Please, could someone on the government side say that their status quo is not good enough and please stop telling us it is good enough when it is failing people? It is not unique to Toronto. I have yet to find a city without a wait list, and I have yet to find a city without a wait list that is growing.
If the renewal of the agreement is meant to solve a problem, why is the problem getting worse; and if the budget provisions are meant to help providers, why is it that they get punished for participating? Why is it that providers actually end up losing money if they take advantage of a government program, and why would the government seek to put seniors and people with disabilities in harm's way, under some sort of a claim that refinancing would make one mortgage free when it won't, and not tell people that when they do it they lose their subsidies?
How is that a housing program that anybody in this country can support?