Mr. Speaker, this housing program embraces just that kind of collaboration and co-operation.
There is a great co-housing movement that we are talking to as part of the process moving forward. It does that work of matching people together to create co-housing solutions when people need companionship as well as housing in order to thrive in their housing. The co-op housing sector does it as well, as do other organizations that provide support to tenant groups. That is also included in the complexity and all-encompassing reach this housing strategy has put in place.
The co-investment fund also brings together and rewards collaboration. We look for those partnerships in particular with municipal governments and service providers.
We have a great program for veterans coming out of Bala, where a Legion surrendered its parking lot to a housing program. It is building units of affordable housing for seniors, and also accessible housing for injured vets. The Legion is volunteering time for service, the city is waiving development fees, and we are providing financing and a grant to get that project going.
It is exactly the kind of collaboration that was unavailable to housing providers under the Conservatives, who did not like co-operation and collaboration. In fact, they would pull CMHC funding if there was veterans' funding on the site. That was their approach. We are rewarding that approach and making sure it happens.
I want to take this one opportunity to tell the leader of the Green Party that she failed to mention the environment. I am shocked.
One of the ways to making housing more affordable is to make it so that it reduces its greenhouse gas emissions and consumption of energy. We have a great program in Nanaimo that saw 36 units of passive housing built under the innovation fund by an indigenous friendship centre, outside the indigenous housing program but as part of our program. That particular housing program has supportive housing for youth and aging out of care. It has places for elders to live and families to live, with common rooms and supports, in a community setting. It is beautifully designed in the west plank tradition, but get this: Because it is passive housing, the heating and cooling costs are $20 a month. It is better housing, cheaper housing, and it is reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
When we embrace complexity, we get brilliant solutions. When we open up the housing policy to everybody, including indigenous partners, who have some brilliant ideas, we get the best housing this country has ever produced. That has come out of the national housing strategy.
If the member for Durham would like to come and visit some housing programs as opposed to talking about the language I used, I can show him projects from coast to coast to coast that would take his breath away and maybe even make him decide to reinvest in housing if he ever got back into government, which is not going to happen soon.