Candice Bergen

[Social Development, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, currently there are two vacancies, and we expect those to be filled very soon. The Social Security Tribunal is an independent administrative tribunal that operates at arm's length from the department. It is committed to providing fair, credible, and impartial appeal processes in a timely manner, and that is what we expect it to do.

[Social Development, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the Social Security Tribunal started its operations on April 1, 2013, just over a year ago. It received higher than anticipated caseloads from the legacy tribunal.

That said, this tribunal is ready now to look at all these cases, and we expect it to get caught up. It is an arm's-length tribunal, but we do expect it to catch up with these cases.

[Employment, June 16th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, to begin with, we will not take any lessons from the Liberals when it comes the temporary foreign worker program, which it used to bring in strippers. We will not take any lessons from the Liberals when it comes to the labour market or skills training, because they did nothing on that.

What we will do is follow the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Employment and Social Development, who are making necessary reforms to the temporary foreign worker program, who have introduced the Canada job grant, getting Canadians back to work with the jobs that are available.

[The Budget, June 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, there have been no cuts to our homelessness partnering strategy. In fact, we have renewed our funding over five years. We have refocused on an evidence-based model to fight homelessness called Housing First. The NDP does not like evidence-based, results-orientated policy because it is politically driven and wants to spread misinformation.

We are proud of what we have done. Louise Bradley, president and CEO of the Mental Health Commission, said that bold solutions like Housing First are the hallmark of our mandate and that the Government of Canada is right to feel incredibly proud of its investment.

We do.

[Housing, June 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the real question is this. Why do the New Democrats and the Liberals vote against every one of our initiatives that set out to help Canadians with housing? For example, they voted against our providing $300 million to British Columbia for housing. In P.E.I., we signed an agreement of $15 million; in New Brunswick, $78 million; in Alberta, $202 million. Across the country, we are signing these agreements, and the New Democrats have voted against it every time.

While they want to talk about helping those people who need housing, they do nothing to actually create that.

[Housing, June 6th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we are listening, and we are providing common-sense solutions that actually produce results.

The director of CHF, Nicholas Gazzard, said about the changes that we have made to help housing co-ops, “We are very encouraged that housing co-ops will be able to use these funds to continue to provide support for vulnerable households”.

While the agreements have ended because the mortgages are paid off, we have renewed our investment in affordable housing. The money goes to the provinces. We have also made common-sense changes for co-ops. All around, we are getting the job done.

[Housing, June 5th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as I stated yesterday, we actually are providing funding to the provinces. The provinces in turn are giving that funding to, for example, co-operative housing projects, or in some cases rent subsidies and in other cases seniors housing. Right across this country, provinces are making decisions on where to invest this money.

I did meet with some of the opposition members recently to talk about Housing First. They were not all there at the meeting with me. I am wondering if some of them were working on that office scheme that they arranged in order to take taxpayers' dollars.

[Housing, June 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, here is what our government has done for those who are the most vulnerable and those who need housing solutions. We have invested over $2 billion in previous budgets to fix and renovate. We renewed our investment in affordable housing with the provinces so that if they want to use that funding to provide assistance for these agreements that have ended, they can do that. As we have said, we support the provinces and want them to have a say in how these solutions are determined.

[Housing, June 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, let me tell the House what the executive director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, Nicholas Gazzard, said with respect to what I just mentioned, allowing it to keep the subsidies:

This additional flexibility allows co-ops to use federal funds to provide rent-geared-to-income assistance for vulnerable low-income households, even after their funding agreements have expired.

The mortgage is paid off. The agreements have ended. However, we are providing other solutions. Maybe the member could take yes for an answer.

[Housing, June 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I recently met with the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada. I met with so many housing groups.

It was thanking us for some of the common sense changes that our government has made. It was appreciative, first of all, of the changes made in 2013 so that it could refinance in order to do repairs. As well, we are letting it keep its surplus subsidy fund, something that never happened under previous governments.

We are working together; we are meeting regularly. It is pleased with the things our government is doing and our common sense approach.