Madam Speaker, I am so proud to stand in the House today to speak to Motion No. 147. I am very grateful to the member for Saskatoon West for putting this forward.
At the end of the day, we know that even with a national housing strategy, dealing with homelessness must be the ultimate goal. We heard very clearly that up to 50% of the people who were homeless right now or were at risk of homelessness would not even be dealt with through the national housing strategy.
It is imperative that we take very seriously the need to address the issues of homelessness. Bringing together a committee to talk about these issues, to create a plan around these issues is so important.
I fundamentally believe that the right to housing is a human right. I was devastated when I put forward a bill in the House and the government did not support it.
If we are to ensure that people have homes, we have to recognize the dehumanizing impacts on people when they have nowhere to live, when they have no safe space to put things that are precious to them, when they have no place to be safe, to be warm, to know they have somewhere to sleep. It is shameful that we do not recognize that human right. I certainly hope that in this process the government reconsiders that and ensures we move forward in that direction.
In my riding of North Island—Powell River, homelessness in small rural ridings still has a huge impact. Some people think this is really an urban issue. Unfortunately, and sadly, it is not. I think about the community of Campbell River and an organization called Grassroots Kind Hearts Society. It has no physical place to be. People are cooking food and preparing food outside for those who are homeless.
I know people may think Vancouver Island is always warm, but our winters are definitely not warm. We have a lot of rain and coldness. These people come out every day to help, and I want to recognize all of those amazing volunteers.
I also want to recognize the Powell River Community Resource Centre. It does so much in our communities to support homeless people and tries to find them homes. So many volunteers are doing the hard work. It is imperative that the government support them. The way to do that is to have a committee in which we recognize these issues.