Madam Speaker, I am returning to the subject of a question that I first raised in this place on June 14. That was a while ago, so I am going to read what I wrote at the time. I said:
Madam Speaker, I will ask the housing minister something this time.
Carleton Place, in my riding, has been Canada's fastest-growing municipality for the past four years. When the town was given zero dollars from the housing accelerator fund, I wondered why.
Then I investigated.
I went on:
It turns out there is a pattern here. Of the $1.5 billion awarded to Ontario under the fund, 97% went to cities and towns in which Liberals hold seats.
There are some non-Liberal seats in those cities and towns, but even when this is taken into account, there is a clear pattern. Liberal-held areas received several times more funding per capita than areas held by MPs from other parties.
Why is this so?
I was not the only person who felt concerned about this. A number of my colleagues wrote about it, expressing concern that their communities were being left out of this funding. They said that if other communities were getting funding, they, too, should get funding. However, their communication was misused by the housing minister to give the false impression that there is widespread support for the housing accelerator program, as opposed to alternative ways of ensuring that housing starts are increased. On October 29, the minister stated, “A number of [MPs] are writing me personally, asking that their communities be picked for funding”. What he did not say is that he has been unfairly excluding rural communities, communities that are not held by Liberals and so on.
It was a great talking point, a great line, the misuse of these letters, so the Prime Minister got in on the act. On November 6, the Prime Minister said that funding “will provide much needed housing”, which is a very selective part of a sentence, to leave the impression that the Conservative MP the Prime Minister was quoting favours this kind of funding.
Fast-forward to November 13 of this year when I got a letter from the housing minister saying, “I am looking for your guidance on whether you would support a $3,315,593 investment from the Housing Accelerator Fund in the Municipality of Mississippi Mills.” He gives me seven days to respond to it and adds, “I am keen to advance [on this funding] in the absence of any local factors you may believe are relevant in the circumstances.... If you are interested in sharing your views, please be sure to do so before [November 20].”
The point was to pressure me into giving him a letter that would be used to give the impression that I think this is a good program, on the pain, apparently, that if I do not participate and send it in, this funding may not go through to the township of Mississippi Mills. Seven days later, I got another letter from the minister, but about Carleton Place this time. The number of dollars is different and the deadline was pushed back seven days, but it has the identical auto signature. I held both letters up to the light.
It is most inappropriate that the minister is trying to create the false impression that there is support for his terrible program, at the apparent risk of denying MPs funding. Is he not ashamed of what he is doing?