Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed with the parliamentary secretary's speech, but not because I do not admire his passion for the topic. He said in his speech that it did not matter what words he used. We are in Parliament. It is about speaking the truth and accuracy. I agree with the member: in the GTA, in Vancouver and in indigenous communities, affordable housing is an issue. However, we cannot let passion turn us into misleading Canadians, and that is what the member has been doing.
Let me review this year. Last week, The Canadian Press had to do a story calling his attack on the NDP's plan on housing “baloney”. They assessed it on their “baloney meter” last week.
This week, his comment and the Prime Minister's comment saying they built one million units caused a furor in the papers in his own community. The Toronto Star did an article to say that, no, it did not. The member's speech was about justifying. He used the words “partially true” and “absolutely true”.
We demand more, even if one is passionate. Even today, he said “a million” again. CMHC used “almost a million”, to clarify the remark, when it is actually 770,000. There are subsidies and a whole range of things, but he is still misleading the House. Will he take this opportunity to tell us the real numbers and commit in this Parliament to say that words and claims do matter?