Madam Speaker, I am happy to acknowledge that it is a real talking point of the Liberal Party, as was the national housing strategy, which continues to be a dream of the NDP. However, we found that when the time came to deliver the money and actually get the work done, the government was not able to deliver.
I had also asked for an ambitious program, and by that I mean one that gets the work done. When I start hearing in my community that people are amazed at how many homes are getting done in their neighbourhoods and that people are upgrading their homes and changing the way they heat them, then we will have arrived, not just when we are hearing in the House of Commons that 700,000 applicants are expected in a country with 40 million people. I noticed the member used the term “applicants”, and there are a lot of weasel words in this place, so I wonder how many of those “applicants” are going to see a successful delivery of the program. I will believe it when I see it.
I recognize that the Liberals are talking that way, just as they have talked about pharmacare for decades now. When people in my communities start telling me how happy they are that they, their friends and their relatives are able to retrofit their homes, that is when I will know we have arrived.