Debates of Jan. 31st, 2019

Opposition Motion—Affordable Housing

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I know the member opposite is sensitive about this double counting issue. Personally, I do not care whether it is double counting or not. I just want the government to step up. I appreciate the fact that federal monies have come into my riding, and we thank the government for that, but we have to do a lot more. As I said, this is not only affecting individual people. It is hard for them, but it is also hitting our economy.

There are huge numbers of businesses in my riding that would like to expand and could expand, but they cannot find people because people cannot afford housing. That is the economic impact of this problem. There is the human impact as well. We have to step up.

This is the number one priority of everybody across this country, and the government should be spending money in an equivalent manner. We should be investing huge amounts of money in this problem, because it is holding our country back.

[Wayne Stetski, NDP, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Madam Speaker, my riding is adjacent to South Okanagan—West Kootenay, and my communities are experiencing the same kinds of issues and challenges. We have been members of Parliament now for three years, and in my riding of Kootenay—Columbia the situation continues to get worse. The number one issue for businesses is affordable housing to support new employees and new staff. It is just not there.

I would be interested in the member's perspective in terms of the last three years. Have things become better or worse in his riding? In my riding they continue to get worse.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Madam Speaker, I agree. When we talk to business owners and to people on the streets, they are often very despondent that things seem to be getting worse. However, I think there are enough examples of success stories. I just mentioned some of them, like the situation with the homeless in Penticton. When we get people to come together and get community groups to stop fighting for grants and come at it with a collaborative approach, things can get done very quickly that make things better for the homeless and for people who need non-market housing.

There are enough of these examples. When I talked to the mayor of Montrose, I told him about what was going on in the Slocan Valley. He had been in touch with that group. These groups need more supports. In my area it is often small groups that are doing this hard work. In general, though, the market forces that drive housing prices up to the half million dollar mark are causing a huge problem that is affecting a lot of people in my riding. These are hard-working people who really cannot find a good home.

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Don Valley East.

It is an honour to have this opportunity to talk about the progress our government is making to put more safe, affordable housing within the reach of Canadians, especially our most vulnerable populations. I have said in the House time and again that it is difficult, if not impossible, to build a life if one does not have a home. Housing allows people a sense of dignity, a sense of purpose and a place where they can build their lives. However, too many Canadians are unable to access affordable housing, shackling their ability to improve their circumstances. Seniors, people with disabilities, vulnerable women, indigenous Canadians, people dealing with mental health and addiction issues, and veterans are all disproportionately affected by this issue.

Colleagues opposite call for the creation of more new affordable units, but it is clear that boosting the supply of affordable housing is a key part of the national housing strategy, the federal government's 10-year, $40-billion plan to give more Canadians a place to call home. Through several innovative initiatives, the plan will create 100,000 new units in Canada over the next decade.

This is already having an impact on the ground in my home city of Calgary. Four projects have already received funding under our national housing strategy, bringing almost 500 affordable housing units to Calgary.

The first project funded under this strategy was Glamorgan Place in southwest Calgary, in partnership with Horizon Housing. It offers 161 affordable units for families, individuals and seniors, with 10% of the units being wheelchair accessible. Also in the Glamorgan project is a unique place called the Cub House, where children who were previously living in the hospital with disabilities now get a place in the community to call home and build their lives. These children were living in hospital and trying to build a life there, and we know that is almost impossible to do. Their parents will also have access to live in and visit on site, and will be able to help them grow and take part in the supportive and loving community that Horizon Housing is providing at the Glamorgan project. This is truly groundbreaking.

The next project was the YW Calgary Hub in Inglewood, which offers supportive transitional shelter for 100 women fleeing domestic violence. We partnered, again with the YW Calgary, to build The Maple, a brand new, safe and accessible housing project with 26 private suites, where vulnerable women can rebuild their lives. Most recently, the Kanas building announced by the Prime Minister and located near Glenmore Park will offer over 120 new affordable and accessible apartments for families in Calgary city centre.

It has only been one and a half years since the release of the national housing strategy, and we have already rolled out four projects in Calgary alone, with more to come.

Let me take a moment to explain why the strategy's focus on accessibility is of particular importance to me. In 1991 I suffered a spinal cord injury and became a C5 quadriplegic. As a result of the lack of accessible supportive housing in the community, I ended up staying in hospital for many more months than necessary. Those were months that my life was on hold. Further, the costs to the health care system were much higher than that of actually getting me a place to live in the community.

In fact, things are not that much different in Calgary today from in 1991. Right now in Calgary there are only 400 wheelchair-accessible units for rent in the entire city. There is clearly a need for action, and our national housing strategy is addressing this shortfall in accessible housing units, not only in Calgary but across the nation.

However, creating new units is only one part of the solution. Keeping up with maintenance and repair needs on existing units is also a critical piece, and we are doing that as well. In communities across the country, community housing stocks are aging, in disrepair and needing significant modernization. Some have been overlooked for decades. As a result, too many individuals and families are living in homes that are drafty in the winter, too hot in the summer and do not meet codes for energy efficiency. Too many people live with poor air quality and suffer problems relating to mould. Too many seniors are forced to make do in homes that are in fact inaccessible and unsuitable for tenants as they age.

The national housing strategy is a comprehensive approach. As a result, the strategy provides funding for the repair and renewal of some 300,000 units over the next 10 years. It will do this primarily through an innovative federal program called the national housing co-investment fund. Along with creating some 60,000 new units, this $13.2 billion fund will use a mix of contributions and low-interest loans to replace and update 240,000 existing homes. With this fund, we want to encourage renovation projects so that our affordable housing stock not only meets but exceeds standards for energy efficiency and accessibility for seniors and people with disabilities.

Beyond the co-investment fund, we know that each of the provinces and territories has unique needs in terms of modernizing their affordable housing. The joint funding, made possible through the housing partnership agreements we have reached with the provinces and territories, will give them the flexibility to invest in new housing and modernization, depending on their needs. We already have several agreements in place and plan to reach agreements with all provinces and territories by the spring. By funding repair and renewal projects, we are safely keeping Canadians in their homes. At the same time, we are ensuring that they are homes they can be proud of, homes that are a refuge at the end of a long day and homes that are energy efficient and are keeping our communities inclusive.

In closing, I invite my colleagues in the House to ruminate on what a home provides. It is more than just a roof over one's head. For too many Canadians, a decent home, or any home at all, is simply not within reach. In the worst cases, it forces impossible choices that no family or individual should have to make. That is why I am proud of the national housing strategy, a plan that will reduce chronic homelessness by 50% over the next decade and ensure that people in vulnerable situations, people with disabilities, women fleeing domestic violence, seniors and others, have a place to call home in which to build their lives. After years of past inaction, it is finally time to do something big for affordable housing in Canada, and that is exactly what our national housing strategy is doing.

I would also like to applaud the Resolve campaign in Calgary, which banded together nine non-profit organizations to raise money and collectively organize to get big projects built. They were Accessible Housing, Bishop O'Byrne Housing, Calgary Alpha House, the Calgary Homeless Foundation, the Calgary John Howard Society, Horizon Housing, Silvera for Seniors, The Mustard Seed and Trinity Place Foundation. All of these organizations do tremendous work in helping people find affordable housing and in helping them build their lives. We are glad to be partnering with all of them.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member could comment on the CMHC November report that was an assessment of the $5.7 billion spent by the Government of Canada on affordable housing showing that it built only 15,000 affordable housing units and renovated 150,000 units. I wonder if the member thinks that is good value for money in terms of units built for the amount of money spent.

I have a second part to the question. I wonder if the member is aware of George Chahal, a city councillor in Calgary, who has tabled a motion that will be debated next week on Monday at city council, calling on the Liberal government to abandon the stress test, because between now and 2021, there will be 200,000 construction jobs that will not exist because of this government policy. The councillor also raises in his motion the fact that it is making housing unaffordable for young people in Calgary.

I want to hear from the member on those two issues.

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's intervention regarding the need for housing in Calgary. I think that is what our national housing strategy is hitting on.

We know that in Calgary right now, there are over 18,000 people on a wait list at Calgary Housing alone for people who are in need of affordable housing, people who right now are in vulnerable situations, people who do not have a place to live. That is 18,000 people whose lives are on hold that we know about. That is why our investments in the Calgary community and under the national housing strategy so far are making those inroads. I mentioned projects done by Horizon Housing, such as the Glamorgan project, making the ability to find a place to build one's life and community a reality. That will help the economy and help people build their lives and move forward.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Madam Speaker, I want to say just a little bit about the situation in my riding, where a third of people are tenants and over 40% of those tenants spend more than a third of their income on rent each month. In the last year, we saw an average of an 8% increase in rent in the community. While the published vacancy rate is 1%, in fact for affordable housing, it is 0%. What are these people supposed to do? That is my real question. For those people who cannot even afford to rent, certainly buying is beyond a possibility. The average person in my riding just cannot afford to buy a place at all.

The government says that it has a housing strategy, housing partnerships and is doing all these things. However, we can look at the investment resulting from the Liberals being in government over the last three years. When we ask neutral authorities, such as the parliamentary library or anyone else, to look at spending in my riding, the amount spent on affordable housing, or housing of any kind, by the government is zero.

How does the hon. member explain all the good things the government has said, but the result in affordable housing is none?

[Kent Hehr, Liberal, Calgary Centre, AB]

Madam Speaker, as the hon. member is well aware, the federal government has been absent from this field of being supportive of affordable housing for 25 years. For 25 years, the federal government was absent from leadership on providing affordable housing and moving the nation forward in this regard. There is no doubt that a backlog occurred, that people were falling through the cracks and that there were more and more people in vulnerable situations, whether they were in homeless shelters, couch surfing or the like.

I appreciate his concern. That is why our government ran on this policy. That is why we are implementing this policy. It is to ensure that Canadians from coast to coast to coast have a place to build their lives. To have a real and fair chance at success, a person needs a place to live. Our government understands that. We will keep on working toward this.

I know that much more work needs to be done, but we are hitting the ground running. In Calgary, four projects have been started already. I know that many more across this nation will be happening soon.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Madam Speaker, my NDP colleagues question our policies to fight poverty and lament that in their opinion, our government is not addressing Canada's housing crisis, nor is it tackling the issue of poverty adequately.

Here are some facts. Since taking office in 2015, our government has invested more than $5.7 billion in housing, more than any government in history and more than what the NDP was proposing to spend over four years in its 2015 platform.

Canada's first-ever national housing strategy is a 10-year, $40-billion plan to give more Canadians a safe, affordable, accessible place to call home. We are implementing this long-term strategy because our housing partners across Canada have told us that they need stable, long-term funding that allows them to plan, manage and repair housing. Building houses is a long-term strategy. We need money for both capital and operating expenses. Hence, we have a three-pronged, logical approach to addressing the housing crisis. Our approach not only provides stable funding but will help with the repair of housing stock and in some instances provide support to help Canadians pay their rent or mortgages.

Our investments to date have helped nearly one million households get access to safe and affordable housing. We recognize that there is more work to be done. That is why our government continues to work with our partners in provinces, territories and municipalities, with our indigenous partners, and with private not-for-profit sector organizations to build stronger, more inclusive communities across Canada.

The practical impact of our strategy in my riding of Don Valley East has been unprecedented repairs to 68 townhouse buildings managed by Toronto Community Housing as well as repairs to seniors buildings. This allows individuals to live in dignity.

We have also created the national housing co-investment fund in the amount of $13.2 billion. The national housing co-investment fund is expected to create up to 60,000 new homes and repair up to 240,000 units of existing affordable and community housing.

The co-investment fund is helping some in my riding of Don Valley East retrofit and make their buildings more efficient. This fund was accessed by residents of two of my buildings who were left holding the bag when the Conservatives cut the green Ontario fund. Schools and apartment buildings in my riding were being climate smart and retrofitting their buildings to be more energy efficient. However, through the cancellation of the green Ontario fund by the Conservative government in Ontario, they were left high and dry. The co-investment fund has helped them complete their retrofitting.

Mayors of municipalities have told us that the co-investment fund is an excellent way to help them, as the previous conservative government downloaded social housing to them without adequate funding. I am shocked that the NDP believes that repaired and renewed housing does not count as housing. Mayors such as Vancouver's Kennedy Stewart and Toronto's John Tory, not to mention city councillors from across the country, have told us that reinvesting in renewing and repairing housing is an essential part of meeting the housing needs of Canadians.

With an aging population, there is a high demand for affordable housing for seniors. Seniors in my riding have told me that they would like to stay at home. Helping seniors stay at home and contribute to their communities is a top priority for this government. The co-investment fund will create 7,000 new affordable housing units for seniors. It will provide much-needed support for renovations to allow seniors to age in their places of residence.

As part of the co-investment fund, we have invested $3.75 billion in rental construction financing and $208.3 million affordable housing innovation fund. These collective initiatives have given municipalities $17.2 billion to help build more affordable housing.

Our government believes that every Canadian has a right to access adequate housing. Therefore, it will introduce legislation that promotes a human rights-based approach to housing and will ensure that the strategy is here to stay and grow.

A federal housing advocate will be appointed to enable Canadians to raise issues or barriers they may face in accessing adequate housing.

These new initiatives will help Canadians find an affordable, secure and stable place to call home.

We have heard the debate about homelessness. Homelessness is a reality for too many Canadians and a challenge for every Canadian community. When someone is forced to live on the streets, we are all diminished.

Through reaching home, which is our redesigned homelessness strategy, we are working with other levels of government, NGOs, indigenous partners and communities across Canada to provide more stable housing to people living in homelessness. As well, we are increasing support for vulnerable groups. Together with our ambitious investments in the national housing strategy, we are committed to reducing chronic homelessness by 50% across Canada.

We understand that many Canadians are having a hard time finding affordable housing in places with high real estate prices. Strong economic and population growth, together with low mortgage rates, have been important drivers of higher house prices in Canada, but the supply response has been weak. Our government, through the national housing strategy, is also taking steps to improve supply and affordability in high-priced housing markets to ensure that the goal of home ownership continues.

Unlike the previous government, which focused on 1% of the population, our strategy has been to focus on all Canadians. With a booming economy, we need to ensure that everyone benefits from prosperity.

Our government understands that we have a lot of work to do to eradicate poverty. Every measure counts. Hence our measures like the national housing strategy, which has benefited many residence building in my riding, the Canada child benefit, which has lifted 17,000 children in my riding out of poverty, the enhancements to CPP and OAS, which has helped 16,000 seniors in my riding, as well as our cuts to taxes for the middle class, which has helped nine out of 10 Canadians, is a logical approach to eliminating poverty.

Poverty will not go away on its own. We need to act and create economic opportunities to really effect change. In other words, we need to act, and that is what this government is doing and will keep doing.

Canada's first-ever poverty reduction strategy is built on the vision that all Canadians should be able to live in dignity and represents a whole-of-society approach to tackling poverty.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague with great interest. She said that all Canadians should have the ability to enjoy housing.

I realize we have to tackle this issue in a multi-pronged way, but I am looking at one segment of our population, and that is young people who are trying to get into the housing market for the first time and usually need CMHC insured montages. The Liberal government has done two things. First, it has created a stress test that makes it almost impossible for these young people to qualify. Second, it is massively overcharging them with respect to their CMHC mortgages, siphoning that money into general revenue.

Could my colleague explain how she can possibly say her government supports all people having access to housing when the Liberals are clearly trying to destroy a section of the population's ability to access housing?

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Madam Speaker, what the hon. member has stated is non-factual. Our government has invested more than two times in the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. When we talk about housing affordability, budget 2018 focused on ensuring that people who were living in high-priced real estate markets were able to access housing. These are the young people living there.

The previous government moved away from housing. For 10 years, it did nothing. From what I know, the last housing project in my riding was done in 2006 under the Liberal government.

We are doing what we have to do. We are not complaining. We are saying that there is work to be done.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Madam Speaker, in my riding of Windsor—Tecumseh, home ownership is a dream that is not achievable. We do not have a program for helping young people attain home ownership. We also have issues with a variety of housing options for seniors. We know it is important for people to live in the neighbourhoods where they have developed the informal supports they need in their senior years.

We have young people who want to establish families. We have young people who understand the importance of home equity. However, rent is so high that they cannot even save for mortgages.

We had a promise from the Liberals that it would help encourage the building of new rental units. That promise was broken in 2015. Does the member have any insights about how we will tackle the issue of high rental rates so we can tackle the issue of home affordability.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Madam Speaker, stress on housing is a very critical issue. That is why, through our national housing strategy, we have invested a total of $17.2 billion in the rental construction financing initiative and in the affordable housing innovation fund. This is a first step in ensuring people have access to affordable housing, that we are able to build more affordable housing and retrofit housing. Retrofitting housing is a critical component to finding dignity in housing.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Courtenay—Alberni.

This opposition day motion of my New Democratic colleague, the member of Parliament for Saskatoon West, is coming at a critical time in Canada as we face the worst housing crisis we have ever experienced: Exploding housing prices, increasing rents, shortage of rental housing, long wait lists for non-market housing and more homelessness. The portion of household expenses that Canadians are dedicating to housing has been rising while their incomes are not. I thank the member for her work on this issue.

This focus shows the heart of who we are as New Democrats, that we are here for Canadians to raise their issues when the governments of the Liberals and the Conservatives have failed to hear their cries across our country on such a critical issue.

People across our country are working harder than ever. The Liberals will simply tell us that everyone is doing fine, that their policy is amazing and that it is helping everyone. There are days when I cannot understand the level of distain they show to Canadian people when they cite this. So many people across our country are not doing fine, are not doing well.

When 46% of Canadians is $200 away from financial trouble, do Liberals honestly think that means people are doing well? The next time they pat themselves on the back for political points, I want them to think of that number, 46% is $200 away from trouble. That is not fine.

I cannot help but think these are the same Canadians who are struggling to maintain or get a roof to put over their heads. We cannot find one for them in our broken system. In fairness, some Canadians watching this debate today may be wondering what affordable housing is. People have a lot of different thoughts when we talk about affordable housing. We are talking about spending 30% or more of take-home pay on housing costs. If people spend 30% or more of their take-home pay on housing costs, they are not in an affordable housing situation.

Housing is a spectrum. It has to include homelessness, precarious housing, market rentals, social housing, co-op housing, all the way to home ownership, and no one on this scale is immune from this crisis. Anyone on this scale can be experiencing difficulties in their housing situation today.

Measures taken by the government are not addressing the urgency of the situation and 90% of the funds earmarked by the Liberals for the national housing strategy will not even be spent until after the next election, even though 1.7 million families are living in inadequate, unaffordable or unsuitable homes right now today.

Safe, affordable housing should be a right, but for too many, it is increasingly out of reach thanks to skyrocketing rents and ballooning home prices that have reached rural communities like the one I represent in Essex.

In Essex today, housing affordability and availability is reaching a critical level for people who would like to stay in their rural towns. I grew up in a small rural town. I live in a small rural town. In fact where I live, Puce is not even called the town, it is so incredibly tiny. In these communities, housing is even more significant an issue because it simply does not exist. When one does come on to the market, it is gone very quickly. Social housing is non-existent.

According to the rental housing index in our riding of Essex, 46% of households are spending over 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Shockingly, 19% are spending more than 50% of their take-home pay on their housing costs. Almost one in five people in Essex is spending half of what he or she earns to pay for housing costs alone. That is not sustainable for people.

For those who own their homes, according to Statistics Canada, 11.8% are paying more than 30% of their income for their home costs. That was in 2016. I think it is safe to assume, given the housing bubble that has reached us in southwestern Ontario, that this number has increased over the last three years. I certainly am hearing that in my office and people in our community are talking about it.

I also know that wages have stagnated and the incomes of people in my region have not been growing. People are struggling to make ends meet and income inequality continues to grow.

In rural communities like ours, employers are not able to find workers because of a lack of housing. We need a strategy that addresses the unique needs of rural employers in communities like mine in Essex. I have many employers who come into my office who are trying to attract people from all over the country, certainly from Windsor, to come out to the county to work, but there is no place for them to live and driving back and forth every day is not an option for people. We have no public transportation out in rural ridings either. People are left to find their own way, to try to find employment and to find housing in communities where there is employment, and we know there is a severe shortage.

Human rights organizations in Canada and around the world have repeatedly drawn attention to the effects of gender inequality and discrimination in women's access to suitable housing. Senior women living alone are much more likely to live in poverty. These are serious issues that impact people across my riding.

Down in Essex, we were once a booming area of manufacturing with good-paying jobs and pensions. I see widows whose husbands who passed away had those good pensions, but they are now in homes they cannot afford to stay in or have had to sell them. They have pennies to live on, because, of course, companies have gone bankrupt and left pennies on pension dollars for widows and widowers in my area. It is really difficult for these people, these senior women, to afford the home they once built, loved and raised their family in. However, when they sell that home and look for an alternative, it just simply does not exist.

In December, I visited the Welcome Centre Shelter in Windsor. This is a homeless shelter for women. There were several women from the county from my riding there and this one woman was in tears. She was telling me how she lived in Amherstburg, one of the towns in my riding. She had her family, friends and support system there. She was forced to come into the city because she was experiencing homelessness and could not find an affordable or available rental unit in the town she had lived in her entire life. It was heartbreaking to listen to this woman's story. She has experienced so much of the spectrum of having a home, not having a home, and she cannot find a solution. She desperately wants to get back to the town to be close to her support system, but she does not see that within her reach, and that is heartbreaking.

It is important to talk about how we came to this point. The roots of the issue we are facing and discussing today are political decisions that have been made by Liberal and Conservative governments.

In 1993, Paul Martin in the Liberal government cancelled the national affordable housing strategy and we lost 500,000 units of affordable housing. Then the Conservatives came to power and did nothing to address the shortage over their 10 years in power. Now, the Liberals are trying to clean up a crisis that they created, and they have been doing an incredibly poor job of it over the past three years. There are only two provinces that have continued to fund housing on their own, and that is B.C. and Quebec.

We can do this, but again, it takes investment in people instead of corporate giveaways. After World War II, we built 300,000 units in 36 months—

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

I am sorry. I will have to interrupt my speech because I cannot hear over the member for Spadina—Fort York across the aisle. If he could please be respectful, I would appreciate it.

Again, after World War II, we built 300,000 units in 36 months. This is the kind of commitment that is required to help get us back to being a country where people are cared for and not left behind.

I will end by talking about three people in my riding who I know are experiencing difficulty with housing.

First is Crystal who came to us because her brother Darell was living in a tent as he could not find affordable housing. We helped to work with him to find a subsidy, but this story is not unique. I hear my colleagues talk about tent cities from coast to coast to coast, because people simply have no other option to have a roof over their heads.

Fred, a former co-worker of mine, met with me about his daughter. His daughter, Tracey, is a single mother with five kids, living with her father. He told us that the kids sleep in his living room because she cannot find affordable housing.

These are the stories that we are facing in our ridings. This is why the New Democrats will never stop talking about housing and the issues that matter to Canadians.

[Arif Virani, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Democratic Institutions, Lib.]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the hon. member for Saskatoon West for raising this important motion for debate today and for her advocacy on this file.

I thank the member for Essex for her advocacy in this chamber, not just on this issue but on other issues. I will be very candid. I share many of the concerns that she has articulated today. That is why I have been here listening to many of the speeches today.

I want to ask the member for Essex specifically about co-ops. I have five co-ops in my riding of Parkdale—High Park. It resonates with something that we heard earlier from a colleague in my party from Calgary who talked about co-ops and the fact that the issue is not just about a roof over one's head but about building a home. Co-ops take that home and build a community.

There was anxiety expressed to me at the time of the 2015 election by people who had rent subsidies. We ensured that they could maintain those rent subsidies at those federally subsidized co-ops. We have also put money on the table to ensure that co-ops cannot just survive but can actually thrive and potentially expand.

I want to ask the member for Essex this. Are co-ops a specific focus that she would like to see emphasized in terms of the work we are doing and the work that she would like this government to be doing, going forward in terms of the national housing strategy?

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, this has to be approached from the perspective of all of those people on the spectrum of housing, so co-ops are certainly a part of that. We are talking about subsidization. We are talking about homelessness. We are talking about shelters. We are talking about people who have home ownership but who simply cannot afford the home that they are in.

Absolutely co-ops are a part of what we need to be looking at as a comprehensive plan to make sure that we are addressing this issue. However, we cannot look only at one component of that. All of those things have to be addressed and all of those things have to see improvement. What we have seen under the Liberal government over the past three years has been a complete lack of movement on this.

If I could ask a question back, I would be curious to see whether people in the hon. member's riding feel that co-ops under the Liberal government have improved.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am happy to have a question for my hon. colleague from Essex.

Homelessness is one of the challenges facing my riding. Believe it or not, homelessness is a real problem in Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. In their 2015 platform, the New Democrats said nothing about how they would address homelessness. All they said was that they would boost funding by $10 million. We, the Liberals, have doubled the funding invested in the fight against homelessness.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I referenced in my speech that I visited a shelter for homeless women. The shelters across our country do not feel that the Liberal government is funding them properly. Funding was severely cut under the former Conservative government. They have a petition going on right now trying to get money back into shelters for women across our country.

While the Liberals and my colleague would like to only talk about what the Conservatives have done and, again, not really talk about what the Liberals have not done, this has been a consistent problem with both parties. This is not a partisan issue, although my colleague is trying to make a partisan argument about what the Conservatives did not do. This requires all of us to work together to adopt a strategy and move forward to ensure that people are not experiencing homelessness, particularly with the weather that we currently have right now with this polar vortex that is working its way across our country.

Homelessness and the reduction of homelessness is something that the Liberals could act on. They could refund the shelters. They could increase shelter spaces. This is a way to address homelessness.

I would encourage my colleague to go to her minister, have that conversation and get that funding flowing this year in the budget.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, in Timmins right now we have 1,000 homeless people in a city of 45,000. We have at least 200 who have no place to go. Living Space, the homeless shelter, is completely overrun. The city is working full out. We have the native friendship centre working full out. These are real people, yet Liberals, such as the member for Spadina—Fort York, have claimed that they have helped over a million people. He said that they made that claim for a “rhetorical advantage”.

What is the rhetorical advantage to people who right now in my community have no place to live because of the inaction of that government?

[Tracey Ramsey, NDP, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, Canadians are tired of politicians who are playing games and making up numbers in order to make themselves look good. This is why this article was published and why the attention is on this particular member, because he was not telling the truth. Canadians know this. Canadians are experiencing this. To be able to do this, in order to—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. We have a point of order from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Madam Speaker, the numbers are accurate. The numbers are accurate and to say that they are not—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Order. The information that the member is bringing forward is actually debate. Therefore, I will allow the member for Essex to wrap things up very quickly.