Mr. Speaker, it is a particular honour to rise to speak in the House today.
Tonight in Toronto a memorial will be held as the names of close to 800 people who have died on city streets are read aloud and projected onto the side of a church—a church that is just literally a heartbeat away from Toronto City Hall.
Reviewing the names on the list is painful. These names represent a tragic loss that we all have to recognize. Too many of these names are on other lists, other lists that are just as shameful: the list of missing and murdered indigenous women, the list of residential school survivors, the list of close to 97,000 households in Toronto that are waiting for affordable housing. None of these are lists that any person should be on.
Housing can no longer be seen as a problem that needs to be solved; housing is the solution to so many of the challenges we face in this country.
As the names are read aloud tonight in Toronto, let us stand here united as a Parliament and as a country to make sure that these lists stop growing. Let us do it by building safe, affordable, and, most importantly, supportive housing in Canada.