Madam Speaker, I was bothered by something in my colleague's speech, in which he admits that rents in his riding have doubled and people are having a hard time finding housing. That is a widespread problem throughout Quebec and Canada.
Then again, my colleague believes that the solution is to build more houses. However, we do not need houses. At present, 500,000 households in Quebec have an urgent need for housing because they spend 30% or more of their income on housing or because their home is often unhealthy, too large or too small. That is the current problem.
Building more houses is not in itself a bad idea. In the last Parliament, we worked on improving certain Liberal programs that were inadequate. However, there is still more to do. For example, there is a first-time homebuyer program that, while not a bad program, is too restrictive and has seen no uptake from buyers.
What is missing is the massive investment required to house the poor, the most vulnerable, women who are victims of domestic violence, people with mental health and addiction problems and those who are homeless. The Bloc Québécois is proposing that the government immediately invest 1% of its budget to house people. There are 40,000 households—