Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby, who is an incredible advocate for not only his community but all Canadians in the fight for housing for all.
I want to speak to the imagination of many Canadians, including me. If these programs had not been gutted, we can imagine, for example, that the nearly 800,000 units that were sold off under the Harper government would still be here. They would have families in them. They would have people who can contribute to our economy rather than being on the streets.
Let us go back even further. If in 1993 Paul Martin had not cancelled the national housing strategy, largely getting Canada out of the business of supporting those who do not have homes, we would have nearly $2 billion in revenue today, maybe even more, to put toward social housing, co-op housing and transition housing. We would not have seen the problem get worse, and we could have eliminated the problem by now. What an incredible feat that would have been.
However, there is still hope. There is still a chance to get Canada back on track, to utilize the memory of many Canadians toward the great investments we have made for those who do not have homes. We can reinvigorate our economy. We can reinvigorate the imaginations of Canadians. We can rebuild optimism in our country if we just act, if we have a government that takes seriously the housing situation, not just off-loading the problem to rich developers, as the Conservatives would do, and not ignoring programs, as the Liberals do. A New Democratic government would truly build affordable homes by ensuring we build affordable units, co-op units and non-market homes, and we would end this crisis.