Mr. Speaker, it is almost comical to think that my colleague would suggest that children are buying houses. To infer that somehow I am keeping children out of housing by suggesting they get a job is ridiculous. We know we are talking about the parents of those children who need a job. Children do not go out and purchase homes.
What good does it do to promise hundreds of millions of dollars to be invested in housing 10 years down the road when, in the meantime, we create an economy that is leading to the loss of thousands upon thousands of jobs thereby putting people out of the housing in which they are currently living? That makes no sense.
When it comes to the housing first, Tim Richter from the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness said:
The Housing First philosophy and Housing First programs are essential to preventing and reducing chronic homelessness, in fact, we won’t prevent and reduce chronic homelessness in Canada without it.
That is pretty high praise for a program that the Conservative government initiated and was doing a great job. In my own area of the Waterloo region, I have countless examples of how housing first helped dozens of people.