Madam Speaker, as usual, my colleague's delight over his government's budget is patently obvious.
However, on one topic he was silent, and I know why. Of the budget's 250 pages, only one page addresses the housing crisis. That in itself is completely unacceptable.
In the week after the budget was tabled, the National Housing Council, the body created by the federal government to oversee its grand national housing strategy, brought up a very interesting point. Between 2011 and 2021, Canada lost 550,000 affordable housing units. Not only has the government failed to create new housing, but we lost 550,000 units in the span of 10 years.
The National Housing Council has suggested a highly practical solution, which is to create an acquisition fund to enable non-profit housing organizations to purchase private housing stock, take it off the private market and make it permanently affordable. It is a solution that everyone is talking about. Does my colleague think it is a good solution?