Sheri Benson

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's advocacy on this issue. I believe it is a tough job for the minister at the cabinet table to make sure that housing and homelessness stays a priority. I want to encourage him to continue that. Through my comments, I am asking him to step it up. Although we have started, I feel that we need more, sooner.

I would like to reiterate to the minister what I mentioned in my comments, which is that the Saskatchewan Party government has ended the rental supplement in Saskatchewan in anticipation of a federal Canada housing benefit. That is very concerning to me, and I imagine it is concerning to the minister. Could the minister follow up or comment on that? I think he would agree with me that it is not helping people and is not in the spirit of a provincial-federal agreement on housing and homelessness.

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the opportunity to comment on how foundational housing is and how it is interrelated with many other issues we face in our communities.

When I was a social worker, we talked about the impact of homelessness on people's mental health. That was a long time ago, 30 or 40 years ago. What has happened is that when we pulled out the support for affordable housing, those who were most vulnerable were impacted first and we developed a very expensive system of picking up people's lives, almost literally, on the streets, bringing them to hospitals, helping them and putting them back out on the streets.

When we talk about making housing and homelessness a priority, we start to prioritize the people in our communities who are most vulnerable now. Not having stable, safe, affordable places to live has a big impact on people's mental health and prevents them from moving forward in their lives, to become healthier or to deal with mental health issues.

It is a key foundational piece. We could make a huge difference in this country to so many people if we made housing and homelessness prevention a priority.

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his questions, comments and acknowledging my work in the House and in the community.

We are asking the government to face the issue of the crisis in housing with an actual plan that matches that crisis. Making housing a priority around the cabinet table I understand means making difficult decisions, having to do some things and not others. I do believe the minister and the parliamentary secretary understand there is a housing crisis and that they are making that case around the cabinet table. I am asking them to make a better case and to bring their colleagues along.

I think the money is there, that we have to make decisions, that we have to ask everyone to pay their fair share of taxes because it is a crisis and that is where I believe the money will come from. However, the first place it comes from is a government that makes it a priority and makes decisions to do that instead of other things.

[Business of Supply, January 31st, 2019]

moved:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government is failing to adequately address Canada’s housing crisis and that, therefore, the House call on the government to create 500,000 units of quality, affordable housing within ten years, and to commit in Budget 2019 to completing 250,000 of those units within five years.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Hochelaga.

It has been over three years since the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development was mandated by our Prime Minister to develop a national housing strategy, and just a little over 14 months since the release of that strategy. Many of us, me included, after a year-long buildup to the final reveal, thought we would see a strategy that would be transformational. What we got instead were underwhelming targets for reducing homelessness and most of the funding coming after the next election, well into the future. However, what we needed was a national housing strategy that would be big and transformational, because our country is in a housing and homelessness crisis.

The homelessness and housing crisis of today is the direct result of the withdrawal of both Liberal and Conservative federal governments from affordable housing over the years. In 1993, the then federal Liberal government ended new funding for affordable housing, and thanks to this ill-conceived leadership, many provinces followed suit. Therefore, we managed the problem of homelessness due to a lack of affordable housing with emergency services, shelters and hospitals. It is a very expensive housing system, both in human costs and financially for governments and communities. This is the legacy of Liberal and Conservative federal governments: an expensive and ineffective emergency housing system.

Today's motion is about ending the federal government's rhetoric and its pats on the back when it comes to housing and homelessness and demanding that we face the reality of this national crisis with real federal leadership, real action and real and immediate investment.

There are 1.7 million Canadians who are living in what policy people call “core housing need”. That means a population of Canadians almost twice the population of Saskatchewan are paying more than one-third of their income for housing that is substandard, not in good repair, unsafe and overcrowded. Of those 1.7 million, 400,000 Canadians are paying more than 50% of their income for poor-quality housing. I call that a crisis in need of bold and immediate action.

The national housing strategy so far has overwhelmed us with a lot of fanfare but underwhelmed me, in particular, with actual results. Very little housing has been built. Operating agreements and rental subsidies have been temporarily extended, but many non-profit housing providers, especially those providing tenants with rent geared to income subsidies, remain in precarious financial situations. Unable to fix and repair their affordable units and provide the needed rent subsidies, these affordable homes are at risk of being lost.

This country has an annual capital repair deficit in excess of $1.3 billion annually. This affordable housing is a lifeline for seniors, newcomers, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and other vulnerable Canadians. Most of what we have seen so far is a rearranging of current dollars with nominal new investment, more of a tinkering around the edges of the crisis. Many of the repackaged programs need cost matching from provincial governments. However, after 14 months, only three provinces and one territory have signed the bilateral agreements.

With 10 years of austerity from the Harper Conservatives, the federal government deficit and debt cutting just simply moved that debt to the provinces. Provinces were left scrambling to fund higher health care and social service costs as the federal government cut important support programs. The ability of many provincial governments to match federal investment will be limited and, therefore, the big dreams of the national housing strategy may be greatly hampered.

The national housing strategy is not legislation but a government program. Therefore, it has been very difficult to scrutinize the government's claims about the level of investment and actual outcomes, such as the number of affordable housing units built, repaired or maintained. The government has made it extremely difficult to get a handle on what is being done and what the level of investment has been into housing and homelessness. We have had a lot of marketing-type communications but very little real information provided in such a way that elected officials are able to hold this government to account for the promises they made.

However, there are real life consequences for people for this lack of transparency. What I mean by this is that there are consequences to the government's never-ending announcements with little actual concrete action.

We have heard about the Canada housing benefit, but we have not been provided any detail as to who it will help and how it will work. Unfortunately that did not stop the Saskatchewan Party government in Saskatchewan from quickly ending the provincial rental supplement last summer, citing the federal government's new Canada housing benefit, a benefit that will not come on stream until after the next federal election.

The median income in my riding is just shy of $40,000 a year. I have many constituents who depended on the provincial rental supplement to have a home, to make their housing affordable. With the end of the provincial rental supplement and no replacement any time soon vis-a-vis the federal government, I have many constituents who are remaining in unsuitable, unsafe housing and putting up with slum landlords for fear that if they move, their rental supplement will be reassessed, they will be considered a new applicant and, therefore, will not be eligible for a benefit that no longer exists.

Governing is about priorities. Today's motion is asking the Liberals to make affordable housing for Canadians the priority of the current government, a government that has rearranged and renamed funding programs, a government that has put minimal new dollars into building housing in comparison to what is needed, a government that has underwhelmed us with unambitious targets for homelessness reduction, and a government that has not made affordable housing and ending homelessness a priority.

It is hard not to think about what if. What if our past Liberal and Conservative federal governments had made affordable housing a priority every year? One could imagine if only investment and leadership by past federal governments had been maintained. Instead of ending affordable housing, we would have had an additional 650,000 affordable housing units in this country, perhaps even more.

We can bemoan the past, but what I would rather do is have a government that is seized with this issue and getting down to the hard work and making the tough decisions it will take to pull our country out of this national crisis. The government still has time to step up. Today's motion is not about postponing investment and action but about immediately ramping up our response.

Safe, affordable housing is such a foundational piece for the quality of life for families and individuals, for our chidren's welfare, for healthy and thriving communities and for businesses to grow. When housing is unavailable and unaffordable, businesses cannot recruit employees. When families struggle with housing, we know from research that the state of a family's housing is a factor in one in five cases when children are admitted to care.

I would like to end my comments on a more personal note.

I am here today as an elected member of Parliament in large part because my family benefited from accessible, affordable housing. When my parents were first starting out in Brandon, Manitoba, with a young family, we lived in subsidized housing. That leg-up early in my parent's life together meant my mother was able to finish her post-graduate psychiatric nursing program while my dad began his career. They were able to save a bit of money, even in those early days, which allowed us as a family to weather the inevitable financial ups and downs of life. It meant I never questioned if I would be able to afford university to become a social worker, the education that brought me here today as an elected member of Parliament.

It is for that reason and the many other reasons I have mentioned that affordable housing and ending homelessness must be the priority for the Liberal government. It can start today by supporting the motion, and once again showing federal leadership on the number one priority for Canadians: a safe, affordable place to call home.

[Housing, January 28th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, across Canada people are struggling with extreme cold temperatures. For the 30,000 Canadians who are homeless, finding warm shelter can be a matter of life or death. Shelters are near capacity and people seeking refuge in tent cities are being served with eviction notices. Where are people to go? They cannot wait 10 years for a national housing strategy to ramp up.

Will the Liberal government step up and legislate, as promised, the right to housing for all Canadians—yes or no?

[Housing, December 11th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge that both the provincial NDP government and the federal government have invested in shelter spaces. My comments were aimed at continuing the conversation on the need for permanent, affordable housing. We need all of those options.

What I am asking the government to do is to step up sooner, rather than later, to create more permanent affordable housing, especially for women, children and families leaving violence.

I want the government to really provide true leadership and to step up sooner, rather than later, particularly around the portable housing benefit, which would allow families to access more affordable housing now, rather than later. I do not think it is too late to step up sooner, rather than later.

I would like to ask the government to understand that we need more investment and more of its leadership today, not tomorrow, and certainly not after the next federal election.

[Housing, December 11th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, back in September, I asked the government a question about the lack of shelter space for women fleeing violence. I pointed out that one of the reasons was the lack of affordable housing in communities right across Canada. I had cited my meeting with shelter providers from Alberta where I had learned how difficult a situation the lack of affordable housing presents for women fleeing violence in their communities.

My question was to point out to the government that we need to not only build shelters for women and children fleeing violence but to also ensure that once safe and supported in a shelter environment, women and children have community options for affordable housing. At present, this is not the reality for many communities where shelters are operating at capacity because there is no affordable housing, and women and their families cannot access the safety of a shelter when fleeing domestic violence. The government needs to step up and connect some dots. Many of us thought that the national housing strategy would do just that: make the connections between shelter and housing, especially when it comes to those most vulnerable, like women and children fleeing violence.

Women and children fleeing abuse are among the most vulnerable people in our community. When shelters are full, they are left with a choice that really is not a choice, which is trying to stay safe in an unsafe situation. An internal status of women report last year noted that the rates of violence against women have not diminished over time, and that gender-based violence remains pervasive in Canada. It found that indigenous women and those in the north are particularly vulnerable.

According to Lise Martin, the executive director of the Canadian Network of Women's Shelters and Transition Houses, which conducted the survey, “By the time a woman goes to a shelter, it’s often a last resort. It’s rare that a woman will show up on the doorstep of a shelter where it’s a first incident or she hasn’t tried different alternatives.”

According to the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, of the 35,000 Canadians who are homeless on any given night in Canada, 27% are women and 18% are young people. On any given day in Canada, more than 3,000 women are living in emergency shelters to escape domestic violence. On one typical day last year, 460 women and children across Canada sought shelter to escape violence. However, of that total, shelters were forced to turn away 73% of those in need due to a lack of resources and capacity. Yet, the national housing strategy only aims to reduce chronic homelessness by 50% over 10 years, and that is just not enough.

As far as connecting the dots is concerned, introducing a housing benefit now would have been a game-changer for women and children fleeing violence. It very well could be the difference between affording a safe place to live or having no choice but to remain in a shelter, or worse, to remain living in an unsafe situation.

We have a housing crisis in Canada now. We need more affordable housing now. We need our federal government to do a better job of connecting the dots when it comes to shelters for women and children, safe and affordable housing, and truly tackling domestic violence in Canada. Why is the government waiting?

[Criminal Code, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to follow up on my colleague's comments on the promises of the Liberals during the election on the substantive changes they were going to make. In particular, in my province of Saskatchewan, many people were swayed by the Liberal promise that it would get rid of mandatory minimum sentences. We will not all agree on that issue, I know, but in my province, the rates of incarceration for indigenous people are horrendous. It is a human rights issue by any stretch of the imagination. We have been waiting a very long time for the government to do something substantive on justice issues that will make a difference to people's everyday lives and bring justice and honour their human rights.

I would share with my hon. colleague how very disappointed I am at this point in the Liberals' mandate to not see the issue of getting rid of mandatory minimum sentences. If the most important relationship to the government is the relationship with first nation people, it was a TRC call to action to get rid of mandatory minimum sentences, and I would be the first to stand up to pass that bill with unanimous consent.

[Violence against Women, December 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, on this sombre day of remembrance for the 14 women killed on December 6, 1989, just because they were women, we honour their memory as we work toward a world without gender violence or discrimination.

Today, as we remember, let us renew our resolve to give all girls and women a world without fear, a future full of promise and possibilities.

Today, we remember: Geneviève Bergeron, 21; Hélène Colgan, 23; Nathalie Croteau, 23; Barbara Daigneault, 22; Anne-Marie Edward, 21; Maud Haviernick, 29; Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, 31; Maryse Laganière, 25; Maryse Leclair, 23; Anne-Marie Lemay, 22; Sonia Pelletier, 28; Michèle Richard, 21; Annie St-Arneault, 23; and Annie Turcotte, 20.

Today, and every day, we remember.

[Indigenous Affairs, December 5th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker we do indeed need to make sure that the families of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls are at the centre of this inquiry and are being heard, informed and supported throughout the process.

The missing and murdered indigenous women and girls inquiry must lead to change. Will the Liberal government commit now to fully implementing all the inquiry's recommendations?