Mr. Speaker, I am glad that this motion has come forward to inspire the conversation around the veterans in our country.
First, I will highlight that clearly everyone in the House, and all Canadians, agree that no veteran should be living on the streets of this country. Any man or woman who served this country should be prioritized when it comes to housing. They should not be left out on the streets.
However, we do have concerns around this motion. We know that this is a real problem. Veterans are overrepresented when it comes to homelessness and homeless people on the streets of our great nation, but so are indigenous peoples. We have been flagging this. I have raised this in the House many times: Any government buildings or any government lands that are to be used for housing, something that we have supported and we do support, should be prioritized for Canada's military veterans, RCMP veterans and, of course, indigenous peoples, who, again, are overrepresented in terms of homelessness in this country, the first peoples of these lands.
We have seen the breakdown many times when veterans groups, organizations or legions try to access funds to build veterans housing. Constantly, what we find out, and we can see where it has happened in Ontario, is that when a group wants to get housing going, even when a municipality comes forward saying it has land, the provincial government says that veterans are a responsibility of the federal Government of Canada. Often the federal government does not provide the funding that is needed, so they fall between the cracks.
Even when local governments or local organizations want to spearhead a project to make sure there are no veterans in their community or anywhere in Canada without a place to live, often the gaps collide. There is an opportunity right now for the federal government to show leadership.
One thing about this motion is that it is non-binding. What we heard from my Conservative colleague, which I wholly support, is that we are talking about doing a study in six months' time on a non-binding motion. This could be in the fall economic statement. In fact, the Prime Minister could announce a policy this week that could absolutely cement that all government lands and buildings to be used for housing are to prioritize Canada's men and women who have served in the military or the RCMP and indigenous peoples, on whose lands they are.
However, the Liberals will not do this. Instead, we have a motion that is going to drag this out. Honestly, it is a motion that, as much as we are frustrated with, we will support at second reading to get the conversation going. However, it is absolutely unnecessary. In fact, this should be an urgent priority of the government. It should be looking at ways to support those groups and organizations and fast-tracking shovel-ready projects, those that are ready right now to be implemented. We have cities, provinces and territories that want to support Canada's military and RCMP veterans and indigenous peoples on federal lands, but they require the federal government to come to the table and actually be the leader when it comes to pulling it together.
Again, we recognize this is a real problem, and we need a pan-Canadian approach to this. However, we do not need to wait for a study when we know there are government lands and buildings that could be used immediately. We have non-profits with shovel-ready projects. We need data, as my colleague talked about earlier. There is no credible data to identify how many of Canada's military and RCMP veterans are homeless. We need to ensure that there are strong transition supports for those who are in an absolute crisis. We need this to be coordinated across the government. All levels of government should be working collectively to address this problem. We need housing-first supports.
It is critical that we get to a place of prevention. When a military or RCMP veteran is homeless, we cannot wait for them to be in crisis. This should be a priority of government. If someone who is serving, right through to their release, is in trouble, if they do not have housing lined up or if they do not have safe, secure supports when they are released, we need to ensure that at least they have, as a bare minimum, a place to live.
The government has had a decade to address this problem, and the Liberals bring forward a motion to talk about it and do a study in six months, which it does not require. This can be enacted now. We would expect a lot more from the leadership of the government. All parliamentarians would expect more.
I hope that the mover of this motion actually goes to the Prime Minister and the cabinet and says that the least we could do for Canada's veterans is make sure that none of them are homeless. This could be done expediently, and it has to be done expediently, because we cannot lose veterans. When a veteran is homeless and they are not getting the adequate supports they need, we know what can happen.
This is disrespectful to Canada's veterans, the people who put their lives on the line for our safety and our security and have served our country. To the mover, I hope that this is in the fall economic statement, or even better, that the government fast-tracks this process and gets moving on making sure that no veteran is left homeless in this country.