Mr. Speaker, certainly there is great insecurity in my community in Essex in southwestern Ontario. Across manufacturing as a whole, there is great insecurity.
I was an auto worker of 20 years, and I was laid off in 2008 when the economic downturn came. I saw many of my very dear friends handing in keys, saying that they could not afford their homes. They were priced completely out of having homes.
There is an idea that people who are working can afford a home, and that is not true. Certainly across manufacturing, wages have been driven down because of poor trade agreements and because of decisions that have been made by governments in the past. Wages have not increased with the cost of living.
We have an entire group of people who are the working poor in Canada who are working every single day, some of them at two and three jobs, doing their utmost to put food on the table and to have a roof over their families' heads. It is becoming increasingly difficult. Ninety per cent of the announced funding from the Liberal government for the national housing strategy will only flow after the next election. That is unacceptable.