Mr. Speaker, I understand the need for housing now. It is why I left city council in Toronto and ran for a seat in Parliament. It was to get the federal government back into a leadership position on the issue of housing.
The $40 billion program over the next 10 years is the re-profiling of the national housing strategy from a federal perspective, changing definitions, changing accessibility, funding cities directly. We have provinces that do not want to participate in a housing program, but it would be a mistake to suggest that spending on housing is contained within that $40 billion program. The reality is that the day we took office, we started improving definitions and spending requirements to ensure things like co-ops had their operating units renewed.
The investments we made in the first budget over the first three years of our government have injected an additional $5.6 billion into the housing sector. Those dollars are the dollars that are being spent now, opening housing projects right across the country. On top of that, there is an indigenous housing program, which has had significant increases in expenditures and there is more on the way.
We did not start a $40 billion program last year with the budget announcement and the $40 billion over the next 10 years is not new money that has not been spent yet. That money is being spent now and those dollars will be invested over the next 10 years. We are going to build a strong housing system to ensure we never have to deal with the tragedies that are spoken to sometimes from across the way.