Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for bringing this motion forward. It is never a bad day in the House of Commons when we are talking about housing, the housing needs of Canadians, and in particular, the issue that she has raised around indigenous housing both on and off reserve, in cities and in rural and remote areas.
I also would like to thank the member opposite for a sustained focus on the need to do better and the need to accelerate. We all share those goals. We all share the commitment to reverse 25 years of federal absence on this policy.
There were attempts to get back into the federal housing field. There was a budget that clearly put the homeless partnership strategy in place. Former minister Claudette Bradshaw was one of the heroes of the housing activists across this country when she brought the federal government back to that file.
I also would remind the member opposite that a national accord was signed in 2004 under former minister Joe Fontana which set 10 years of funding, until the last government let that wind down and put thousands of Canadians at risk.
The member has said she wants to bring money forward. Every housing expert we have talked to in this country has said a housing program should be built progressively year after year. If a program is front-end loaded, inflation and need and sustained subsidies disappear in the back-end and people are de-housed with a policy that is designed that way. Not a single expert in the country has advised us to front-end load a program.
Why do members of the NDP think front-end loading the program would be the right way to go when no expert would agree with them?