Madam Speaker, I see the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke is applauding that idea, but I do not like those policies. I do not think they are effective; nor do they genuinely improve the affordable housing situation in Canada.
We can highlight what was going on back then. When I was on that affordable housing development committee, a fraction of the money came from the federal government. The vast majority of it came from the provincial government in Ontario. As has been referenced here several times, the previous Conservative government was only giving $250 million per year for affordable housing throughout the entire country.
Let us say we used one of the models I previously referenced, and we encouraged a developer to build affordable units in a building that it is currently building. Let us say we gave $40,000 per unit. That would equate to only just over 6,000 affordable housing units in the entire country. That is the entire program, never mind all the other parts of the affordable housing strategy that I previously mentioned about affordable mortgages and rent geared to income. All of these components are part of it.
That is why I am extremely proud to be part of a government that has taken seriously the challenge of affordable housing since day one. We have looked at the challenge not just as an individual problem like the NDP does, primarily with people who need their rent to be geared to their income, but also from an incentive perspective to get people into home ownership.
Certainly we are having struggles now. The situation has indeed changed over the last year or so, and in particular when it comes to properties that are purchased and stay vacant, which are a place for people to park their money. Quite often it is foreign investors who are parking their money in properties and keeping the properties vacant. That is a real issue, and I can see the absolute need to address it. That is why it was great to see the Minister of Finance propose, in the budget, a tax on vacant land, which will start in 2022. It will be interesting to see if the Conservatives are going to support that, as they certainly have not supported the budget to this point.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of trying to control and address the issue. The national housing strategy, on its own, is worth $70 billion over 10 years. It started in 2017. We have been working in collaboration with CMHC to deliver funds to specific projects throughout the entire country to make sure that resources are there. There is the rapid housing initiative, or the strategy intended for incentives for construction. I think there is $300 million to incentivize construction to turn over vacant commercial properties, and various other properties that could be turned over in a very quick manner, to utilize the space for affordable housing.
I have no doubt that there will always be more we can do. This is not a very easy issue. It is not an issue that one particular action is going to completely resolve. This is something that is going to take a lot of time. However, I am very proud of the work that has been done by this government over the last six years. I lived through, as I previously indicated, the previous government's programs.
I will leave it there. I look forward to questions from my colleagues.