Madam Speaker, as my colleague says, that requires a little work. Well, obviously, they are not working on the other side. The number of recipients that are benefiting through the housing accelerator fund is truly amazing. It is a very long list. Let us remember, the Conservative government would cut it. Conservatives have made that very clear. They actually mock it.
In fairness, not all of the Conservative members of Parliament oppose it, even though they have been told that they are supposed to oppose it, and they have kind of held back on their comments on it. At the end of the day, the Grand Poobah, the leader of the Conservative Party says, “accelerator fund, bad. We are going to vote against it, and if we are ever in government, we are going to get rid of it.”
I have done a little homework. There is a long list, and I am going to run out of time, but the number of first nations is fairly significant. Let me give a couple of examples where these are Conservative-held ridings, where the accelerator fund is there to support indigenous communities: Skowkale First Nation in Chilliwack—Hope and the Sioux Valley Dakota Nation in Manitoba. There is a very lengthy list of individuals, cities and indigenous groups that are receiving significant amounts of money through the housing accelerator fund.
The Conservatives will say that it is not building homes. It is not simply here is a plot of land, build a house. There are all forms of things that need to be done, like infrastructure. There is some red tape out there. We have a federal government that has recognized that we can play a role in providing supports through the accelerator fund to get more homes built.
If the Conservatives did their homework on this file, they would find that indigenous housing would benefit from this program, the very same program that they are saying they are going to cut. On the other hand, today, they are saying that we are not doing enough. I will get back into some more comments on the accelerator fund shortly.
This is the first time that I have seen an opposition party introduce a concurrence motion on its very own opposition day. I have been trying to think why the Conservative Party would do that, and I think I might have figured it out. Apparently, last week, the leader of the Conservative Party was embarrassed because he was all primed and pumped, and ready to deliver a speech here on the floor of the House of Commons, and the NDP outmaneuvered him by moving concurrence on a committee report. That was an embarrassing moment for the leader of the Conservative Party.
The Conservatives played a game on Friday. They are trying to pay back, but I guess they learned something from that and they wanted to be able to talk about housing today. After all, that is what their opposition motion is on. They dug up a report on housing to move concurrence on, so they could prevent the NDP from potentially bringing in a concurrence motion. That would spoil the Conservatives' day because they did not like the concurrence motion the NDP brought in last week.
That is the only thing I can think of, in regard to why the Conservatives raised this particular report, because it is a game to the Conservative Party. What surprises me is that the Conservatives have an opposition day and I would have thought, as a Conservative Party, that they would have been following issues like trade, given what has taken place with the new president-elect, that trade would have been a hot discussion within the Conservative Party. It would have been a very productive day to have a discussion on trade. The Conservatives could have drawn some sort of a motion that would actually be voted on, which would have told Canadians exactly what they would be dealing with on that issue.
It is important. In fact, just this last five or six days, I participated in a trade mission in the Philippines with our Minister of International Trade. It was an incredible experience. We had arguably one of the largest delegations in Manila; even President Marcos made reference to it. It was like speed dating among businesses between Canada and the Philippines, trying to make connections, and we had some wonderful announcements. An exploratory discussion is taking place soon on coming up with a trade agreement between Canada and the Philippines. Air Canada came forward and talked about increasing the number of direct flights between Vancouver and Manila: four coming up in April.
Trade matters. As a government, we recognize that. As an opposition party, the Conservatives are found wanting. Today would have been a good opportunity to have that discussion because the last time, outside of an emergency debate, was when the Conservatives actually voted against the first-ever trade agreement, the Ukraine trade agreement. I would have thought the Conservative Party would deal with something of that nature, and that is not to take anything away from housing. Yes, they are the official opposition. They get to choose the issue, so they have chosen housing.
On the housing file, no government in generations has done more for Canadians than the current Prime Minister and government, in terms of dollars and real, tangible results. We recognize the federal government has a role to play. I contrast that to the leader of the Conservative Party, who, when he was the minister responsible for housing, did absolutely nothing, nothing at all. I should not say that; he actually managed to build six houses, I am told. I have no idea where those houses are, but I am told he built a half-dozen homes, but nothing else, and now he wants us to listen to what the Conservatives have to say about housing. We have heard that story before.
The Leader of the Opposition had an opportunity, and had he done his job when he was the minister of housing, maybe we would not have the shortages we have today. It is not like a house appears out of nowhere. There is a planning component to it. Has anyone ever heard the leader of the Conservative Party stand in this place and talk about what he did as minister of housing for indigenous people, or for Canadians as a whole, beyond those six hidden houses? Who knows where they are.
There is a lot of room for improvement. Our government is the first in generations to put forward a housing strategy for Canadians. It is more than just words. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, going into billions of dollars. It is a housing strategy that deals with affordable housing and ensures someone could have ongoing income supports, where rent is based on a percentage of one's income in non-profit housing units. The government has invested in different ways.
Ironically, the Liberals made a commitment for purpose-built rentals. Members will recall that from a couple of years back. That was actually taking away GST on new builds. The Conservatives voted against it: GST forgiveness for purpose-built rentals and the Conservatives did not support that. For every housing initiative by the government, the Conservatives have avoided any accountability on housing, and they vote against it. Does anyone wonder why? I would suggest we know the reason.
I wanted to get what I find to be an absolutely delightful quote. At the end of the day, everything is driven through the leader of the official opposition's office. When we think of the quotes the leader of the Conservative Party uses, and we have already witnessed it today, he likes to reward Conservatives who say the slogans or the bumper sticker words. If they do that, they get rewarded with gold stars. I figure they have individuals in the back who keep track and say, “Oh, so-and-so said it three times: three stars for the day.”
There are some Conservatives who get offside, like the 15 or 17 members of Parliament who wrote to the Minister of Housing to say how wonderful the housing accelerator fund was. Obviously, it was because they were asking for support in their communities. That was offside. They were not supposed to do that, so they might have lost some stars. If a Conservative member does not do what they are being told to do, they lose stars. It is frowned upon.
It is amazing. I cannot give an exact quote, but later I can table a document if the Conservatives will let me. If they want to come and talk to a Liberal MP, that is considered a bad thing. They are not supposed to fraternize with—