Mr. Speaker, it is nice to stand in the House to talk about the budget implementation act, but before I do, I would like to briefly remember a good person, a great Canadian, a champion and a fine friend. Yesterday, athletes at the 2025 Canadian Olympic curling trials in Halifax took a moment away from their competition to honour Colleen Jones and reflect on her legacy. The world champion curler and trail-blazing journalist from Halifax passed away at the age of 65 on Tuesday following her battle with cancer.
Brad Gushue, Canada's 2006 Olympic gold medallist in curling, said, “I remember being a young curler and watching her and looking up to her and she was always so helpful to me.” In 2014 and 2018, I had the opportunity to work with the great Colleen Jones a bit as a broadcaster with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Sochi and at the Pyeongchang Olympics. She was so kind. She was so nice. She was so welcoming and encouraging. I was an athlete who wanted to spread my wings a bit and do something different from my sport, and she said she was doing the same thing. She was still a curling competitor and an athlete, and such a kind person.
Canada will miss Colleen Jones. She was a world champion, a Scotties champion and a hall-of-famer. Everybody in Nova Scotia will miss Colleen Jones being on television across Canada. I would like to send a special note of condolences to everybody who works at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as her colleagues, her friends and her teammates remember the great Colleen Jones.
Now I would like to talk about budget 2025. Budget 2025 truly has something for every single Canadian. It is the largest-ever investment in non-market housing. This is close to my heart.
As a proud co-op kid, I have stood in this House to talk about my experiences growing up in non-market housing and my mother's contributions to the sector as a builder in the sector for over 35 years. She used to work at Homestarts, ran Briarview co-op and provided so many Canadian families with a safe and affordable place to live. I went to her retirement party last year, and I am proud to say that a number of young families came to me to say they currently reside at Briarview co-op and that my mom made it possible for them to thrive in the economy.
For hard-working families who may be new to Canada or not, non-market housing fills a much-needed gap in the housing sector. It does not take an economist to recognize that when we provide families with affordable rents, it also provides them with the opportunity to engage in the economy. When the federal government steps up to build non-market housing, it should be recognized by every member of this House as a great investment in the prosperity of our nation.
I grew up at Chautauqua co-op, and I can say that I had access to guitar lessons, the canoe club, after-school activities and even a Nintendo growing up because we had affordable rents. Families still do. However, back in the mid-nineties, governments gave up on building non-market housing.
Just recently, I was at the groundbreaking for a new co-op in Toronto, the first of its kind in 20 years. I want to thank Options for Homes and CMHC for this really big step forward in non-market housing and co-op housing in our country. I am thrilled that the federal government is back in the business of building co-operative and non-market housing across our country.
Build Canada Homes is going to change the game. I want to thank the Prime Minister for his leadership and the Minister of Housing for his leadership in championing non-market housing. This is a solution for the affordability crisis. This is a solution for affordable housing. It is a solution for young families and students. The vast majority of people who move into co-op housing will only move out when they are ready to purchase a home. While they are staying in and living in community housing like Chautauqua co-op, they are more capable of engaging in the economy and providing the basics for their families. I am thrilled with the largest-ever investment in non-market housing. It is truly a good reason for everybody to vote for budget 2025.
Something that has been spoken about in the last couple of minutes here in this House, but also over the last few weeks, is the national school food program. I was a huge advocate for it. That is because as a kid, I had access to healthy snacks in school because I went to a school with a school food program. Not every school has one, and not every province is providing that, but the federal government has stepped up and provided transfer payments to the provinces to ensure that every province can implement healthy snacks in schools for kids.
Every single study that has been done on school food programs indicates that these programs, when well managed, provide young people with opportunity. Grades go up. Young people are more likely to attend class. It is just a win-win-win for society. There is also the edible education course, and when food is on the curriculum, grades go up.
It is a really great investment in the quality of education across this country. I am very proud of it. I want to give all the teachers who came to the House of Commons to advocate for it a big high-five, and I thank the Coalition for Healthy School Food for its advocacy. It is astonishing that some members of this House are so staunchly against healthy snacks in schools for kids. They need to pick their battles. It is really strange that people are so against healthy snacks in schools for kids.
We have also seen, in budget 2025, the most generational investment ever in sport and community infrastructure facilities, something that members of the Conservative Party are in my inbox asking me about right now. It is an interesting thing to watch a Conservative member criticize budget 2025 and then reach out to ministers to identify where they can receive funding for their own communities. It is great that they are champions for their communities. It is great that they are looking to have community sports facilities built in their ridings. However, it is astonishing to see the Conservatives criticize the budget, vote against the budget and then ask for some of the money in the budget.
Thankfully, our government is going to invest across the country in facilities, in infrastructure and in community sport. This is the largest investment ever in community sport infrastructure, with a $51-billion contribution over the next 10 years, with different streams for provinces and territories and community sport organizations.
I often say that sport, physical activity, recreation and play are preventative medicine. They are a great way to knit our communities together and to bring folks together who might not meet at school, work, church or a mosque. It is a really great way to ensure that our communities are well connected. Studies also show that when there is good, high-quality, low-cost and no-cost sport programs in communities, we see safer communities. It is a solution for public safety.
As I was somebody who was probably getting into a bit of trouble after school in grades 7 and 8, my mom found the canoe club. She sent me down to the canoe club because I was too young to take care of myself and too old for a babysitter, and the canoe club was the perfect place for me. It kept me out of trouble in my teenage years. It got me to the Olympics in my twenties. I could not be more grateful for the awesome community sport programs right across the country, but certainly in Oakville at the Burloak Canoe Club. It served me well.
I know that building more community sport facilities is a solution for affordability, for ending anti-social behaviour, for public safety, for health and for mental health. Every pediatrician I talk to says that sport is a great solution for a lot of those things. Once again, the Conservatives can keep emailing me to ask about sport infrastructure in their communities, even though they voted against the budget and are vocal opponents of these investments when they are in the House of Commons. Certainly, when they are in their communities, they welcome the investments.
The last issue that I will highlight in budget 2025 is the transformational investment in the Canadian military. It is well deserved and a long time coming. There is a well-deserved salary increase for the Canadian Armed Forces, and I am proud of that. As every MP from every party did in this House, I recently attended Remembrance Day ceremonies in my riding and laid a wreath at the base of a cenotaph that commemorates the profound sacrifices that brave men and women made and continue to make for this country.
It goes without saying that these days, the world is more uncertain and potentially even more dangerous than in previous generations. Having a strong military is a necessity. Making our NATO commitments is an obligation. It is also important for our economy, to ensure that we are self-sufficient and reliant. We are moving away from reliance on the United States and other partners for these types of investments. We are also fortifying our own economy and our own reliance. Moving away from reliance and more to resilience is a priority for budget 2025.
Budget 2025 will build Canada strong. Whether we are talking about important programs like the national school food program; the generational investments in non-market housing; the investments in sport, community, physical activity infrastructure and facilities; or the well-deserved increase in salary for the Canadian Armed Forces, I am proud of budget 2025. I am proud of the Prime Minister and all the ministers engaged on these files, and I am proud to take some questions too.