Madam Speaker, I want to start by commending the member for bringing forward this motion. It is a well-thought-out motion, and it is something that I know she has worked tirelessly on. It is an honour to stand and support the motion.
I also want to quickly talk about how her motion is being debated just a few days after the Liberals announced their big exciting housing strategy, which will not actually see money flow until 2020. This poor member has worked hard and tirelessly on this motion and has brought it forward, and now suddenly, it has been scooped by the government. Could the Liberals have waited perhaps a week, a few more days, to let the member debate this in the House? Unfortunately, this is what they have decided to do.
This is not the first time, though. They have done it before. There was the motion on abandoned vessels, also brought forward by the NDP. Again, it was scooped by the government. Unfortunately, we are standing here and debating a motion that could have made history for the member and her riding. However, because of the government, this is the process that is happening.
My opinion is that what the government is doing with the homelessness issue is actually inflaming the issue. We have a government that has raised taxes, cut jobs, and now left a lot of people jobless in my province of Alberta especially. The unemployment rate was 7.8% in July 2017. That means that 7.8% of our population is jobless. If we go back to 2014, prior to when the government came in, and prior to when the NDP government came in provincially in Alberta as well, it was 5.4%. It has essentially skyrocketed.
We can sit here and argue that we need more homelessness strategies. We need more strategies in general bureaucracy. However, what we need in Alberta are jobs. We need to put people back to work and allow them to use their skills and take the risks in entrepreneurship that they are so good at in Alberta. However, it is unfortunate that the government has killed a lot of that entrepreneurship. We are seeing higher rates of homelessness.
We had 14,000 jobs lost in July alone in Alberta. Liberals stand and say that we have the highest GDP in the world, but look at what is happening in Alberta. We cannot ignore what is happening in Alberta. I would be remiss if I did not highlight that.
In Edmonton, we have had some tremendous success over the last number of years, particularly with an organization called Homeward Trust. I will quickly read what it does and what the organization focuses on:
...coordinates the Homeless Count as part of our work supporting Edmonton's Ten-year Plan to End Homelessness. Approximately 300 volunteers and 40 organizations participate in counting at different locations across the city.
Edmonton's Homeless Count serves two important functions: it provides a current snapshot of our overall homeless population, and it shows us how this population changes over time. Ultimately, this informs solutions to support the goal of ending homelessness in our community.
This year in particular, the process of the homeless count was enhanced even more by doing three things that I think are worth highlighting. For the first time, most volunteers went through our city and collected survey data electronically using tablets or smart phones rather than by completing paper surveys. Edmonton was the only city in Alberta to use electronic data collection for the 2016 homeless count.
This was also Edmonton's first year conducting the street count at night, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. Unlike most Alberta cities, Edmonton continued to conduct a day count. Finally, this year's homeless count included a focus on parkland, with the help of approximately 25 park rangers, street outreach team members, and river operations employees.
We are also rather proud that Homeward Trust also runs an initiative at our Shaw Conference Centre where they bring in a number of homeless individuals and offer them haircuts and dental appointments. Goodwill Industries offers clothing as well. These are all services offered by the community.
We saw in the homeless count this year in Edmonton that 74% are male, 1,205 men; 408 female; and 11 transgender. Out of our indigenous communities, we saw 316 first nations, 140 Métis, 15 Inuit, 32 non-status, and 15 non-specified members. However, some of the most troubling numbers we see in homelessness particular to Edmonton are with our youth population. This year alone in the homeless count, we saw 148 individuals who were age 17 or under. The highest numbers are in the ages between 31 and 44. However, about half of that number fall under the age of 17.
The answer to a lot of this is to ensure we have policies and governments in place that are creating jobs and focusing on initiatives that will help support these youth and communities. Unfortunately, we are not seeing a lot of that from the government, other than a big announcement that has no money flowing until the year 2022.
I received a fantastic letter from one of my constituents, Ms. Jean Ashmore. She wrote about the need to look at homelessness and poverty within our communities. She even calls it a public health emergency. I will quote from her letter, which states:
The longer people are homeless, the worse their health becomes. Homelessness causes premature death, poor health and is a burden on our health-care system. A recent report from British Columbia suggested life expectancy for people experiencing homelessness in that province is half that of other British Columbians.
We are very supportive of the initiative that the member brought forward. We would love to see it come to fruition. However, it does not seem that it will because of some of the announcements made by the government across the way.
As a result of many of the government's policies, Canadians now pay more for a lot of things. They pay more for gas, home heating, hydro, housing, sports, arts programs for children, and personal savings. These are a number of things that could help to go toward assisting the homeless in our country, as the motion would have done. However, we see that this is something the Liberals choose to deserve credit for, instead of the hard-working member on this side of the House.