Mr. Speaker, co-operative housing is the best form of social housing this country has ever produced. Previous governments walked away from the file, including a previous Liberal government and a Conservative government that allowed the subsidies to disappear, which caused people to be kicked to the curbside. In Alberta, seniors housing is almost entirely co-op housing. A lot of seniors lost their rent subsidies. We need to revisit parts of the national housing strategy to strengthen some of the capital blends and loan blends to get more co-op housing built.
The good news is the operating agreements have been restored and renewed and will not expire anymore. The better news is regarding access to dollars to fix and repair housing that is now in its 40th and 50th years. Those dollars are now open and accessible to co-op housing projects right across the country. Repairing housing is as critical as building it. In fact, we should be repairing as much as we build on a day-by-day and year-by-year basis.
Finally, we have to get the co-op sector into a build position. That includes indigenous co-op housing. We sent money to the Province of Ontario to subsidize co-op housing in the indigenous community and indigenous-led housing providers. Even though the Ford government took the money, it cut the subsidies and then told them to go back to Ottawa and try to double-dip and get a second cheque. This is unacceptable. It is particularly unacceptable to use indigenous housing providers as pawns in some sort of bizarre political game when we know the money has been delivered. We have to make sure that provinces honour the agreements they sign with us. That includes the provinces of Manitoba and Ontario.
We have to make sure that co-op housing is at the front of the line as we reach for success in the national housing strategy.