Mr. Speaker, since I did not have the opportunity to do so earlier during questions and comments, I want to begin by commenting on the speech that the member for Winnipeg North just gave. I was extremely surprised. Right now, we are talking about the homelessness crisis, which is closely related to the housing crisis, but to hear the member for Winnipeg North talk, it sounds like he does not think that he has done anything wrong. What is more, he was angry. I was wondering how he could be so angry, but then I figured that he must be angry at himself, since, after all, it is his party that has been in office for nine years. It turns out that he was actually angry about the questions he was being asked.
That is pretty bad. It is quite disappointing. I wanted to mention that because we are experiencing a crisis and it seems as though the Liberals are unable to face the mess they have made, that they are unable to see that part of the problem may have been caused by the government in Ottawa. They are unable to see that, if this problem has not been solved, it could be their fault, not that of the opposition parties. Our only responsibility is to propose solutions. We are doing that all the time. The problem is that the government does not listen to us.
I would like to begin my speech with an anecdote. We just had a by-election this week in the riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun that the Bloc Québécois won. Louis‑Philippe Sauvé was elected. He has not been sworn in yet, so I can say his name. This is an historic win for the Bloc Québécois in a riding in Montreal's West Island where there is a strong anglophone presence, a riding that was considered unwinnable for the Bloc Québécois. This time, we won.
I think I know why we won. It is simple. I helped out my good friend by going door to door. We had the chance to talk to all sorts of people. One of the things that kept coming up was the housing crisis, of course, but also homelessness. Generally, when the Bloc Québécois talks about immigration, this automatically seems suspicious, especially to the Liberals. We are not allowed to talk about it. It is taboo.
When I knocked on one of the doors, an immigrant answered. Surely his thoughts on immigration cannot be considered suspect. This immigrant told me that it does not make sense, that perhaps there are too many immigrants. Some might say he is racist, that he is anti-immigrant. He also told me he does not feel safe anymore because there is a lot of homelessness and there are a lot of people around banging on doors. He told me that he feels ill at ease, that he had left his country because he did not feel safe there but then ended up finding it was the same here. He told me he was even thinking of moving, of leaving his area. I find that particularly interesting.
By way of background, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun is a riding in Montreal's West Island, not in downtown Montreal. The area of the riding where I spoke with this person is LaSalle. It is in the most westerly area, about 10 kilometres from downtown Montreal, maybe even 15 kilometres. It would take about two and a half hours to walk there. This means that there is a homelessness problem two and a half hours from downtown Montreal, because it is rare for a homeless person to drive a car. This is serious. The government says it is not to blame. I think we have every right to wonder, especially since CMHC and National Bank economists have indicated that Canada has fallen into a demographic trap. Why am I talking about a demographic trap? I know I will be accused of blaming immigrants, but no, it is not the immigrants' fault. It is the government's fault for not properly managing the arrival of these people, for letting too many people enter the country and not building enough housing, which is all having an impact on our public services.
Obviously, it is this government that is responsible for our borders, that is authorizing people's entry and that is not providing enough funding for housing. That, too, is a problem. The government, which is waging jurisdictional battles to prevent the Government of Quebec and the municipalities from deciding for themselves how to manage their own affairs, is imposing all sorts of conditions and is always coming up with new programs so that it can have ever more control over what is happening at other levels. Even though the federal government is the one creating the problems, it thinks that it is going to be the one to implement solutions in areas that do not fall under its jurisdiction.
I am putting myself in the shoes of a mayor who sees the federal government impose new municipal rules that the mayor will have to adopt if they want to get money. That is what the Conservatives and the Liberals are proposing. I do not know what the NDP is proposing. If I were a mayor, I would tell the government, which is making a mess of things, to start by fixing its own problems with tools from its own tool box. It seems to me that, before telling others what to do, we need to set an example and do a good job ourselves. If that were the case, we would be able to tell the federal government that it is inspiring and is doing a good job. We might be more inclined to listen to its arguments.
However, from the perspective of mayors and municipalities, having a chaotic federal government tell them how to manage their affairs while failing to manage its own hardly inspires confidence. This government is telling them how to run their cities.
When we talk about homelessness, obviously there is a link to be made to immigration, the housing crisis and the lack of construction and funding for social housing. The reason I make all these links is that generally the first victims of a housing crisis are people who do not have a home. In general, who are the people who do not have housing? Those who leave their country to come live in Canada do not have housing. Then there are the young families hoping to get established and move out of their parents' home. Those families may have housing, but not the kind they want. If they are still living in their parents' basement, they are going to think twice before starting a family of their own. This is certainly not a life goal or an aspiration. These are the people affected by the housing crisis.
How do people end up homeless? Often the people who are hardest hit by a housing crisis are those with fewer financial resources, those who are less fortunate. When house prices, rents and interest rates spike, these people are the first to find it impossible to pay for housing. They are the first to end up on the street.
I will give a few examples of situations we are seeing these days. I travel from Quebec every day, because that is where I sleep. I prefer to support the Quebec economy. When I come to work in Canada's Parliament, I take the highway, and I cross roads and bridges and see new things all the time. I have been fortunate to be an elected member and to represent my constituents for almost nine years now. Nine years ago, we did not see tents set up on the side of the highway. Nine years ago, we did not see homeless people everywhere, even just a few metres from Parliament. It is truly a scourge. It is a serious symptom of the lack of housing and affordability, and it is creating problems that will persist over time.
Once a person ends up on the street, it is hard to get out. Once people are on the street without a fixed address, they wash less often than they would like, eat less well, and pay less attention to what they wear. Finding a job is hard. Who wants to hire someone with no roof over their head? It slowly begins to affect them mentally and physically. Their health deteriorates. It is a persistent problem. Even if the housing crisis suddenly ended, even if there was suddenly plenty of housing for people experiencing homelessness, it would unfortunately be very difficult to get them off the street. Like it or not, the impact on their lives will linger on.
It also creates a less appealing set of economic and social circumstances for people trying to buy goods or walk on the street. It damages the social climate. It is bad on all fronts. That is why urgent action is needed.
I talked about what would happen if these housing units magically got built. I will quote a few figures. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation published a report a year ago. We do not know where things stand in 2024, but in 2023, the report concluded that Quebec alone is short 1.2 million housing units. The same 2023 figures report that Quebec built nearly 40,000 housing units in 2023.
On the one hand, there is a shortage of 1.2 million homes. On the other hand, 40,000 homes were built. If we divide 1.2 million by 40,000, that means it would take 30 years to build all the housing we need, and that is just to put an end to the current housing crisis. That does not take into consideration the fact that, over those 30 years, new people will be arriving who will also need housing. At this point, it is almost hopeless. We cannot expect the federal government to wave a magic wand and stick its nose in the business of municipalities, and that in two or three years' time, 1.2 million units will be built.
It takes people to build these homes. It takes people who go to school, who are trained, who are certified, who have experience. It takes companies, equipment and people to finance these homes. It takes capital. We cannot just step outside and start building houses. It takes a lot of investment, time and skill. It is going to take time to increase the pace and build all these homes. It is not going to happen by trying to tell cities how to manage the situation. It will happen by working in collaboration with the Quebec government, for example. It is a matter of having discussions to find out what is going to happen.
That is a good thing, because we are seeing greater awareness, an awakening at all levels. We do not need to rely exclusively on the federal government to solve this problem, although we know that a great many of the reasons behind the problem can be traced back to the federal government. Every year, more than one million people come to Canada. One million is a lot of people. It amounts to almost twice the population of Quebec City entering Canada every year. It is mind-boggling. That is a lot of people. We need to house all these people. That puts a lot of pressure on the housing stock. These people naturally want a place to live, and they should have one.
When we have record numbers of temporary foreign workers, asylum seekers and international students pouring in, it becomes a problem. It is important to listen to what people on the ground are saying. The Quebec government keeps repeating that it has reached its capacity to deliver services. It is maxed out. Quebec cannot take it anymore. It cannot do any more. When Quebec says that, the federal government accuses Quebeckers of being a bunch of unwelcoming racists. The fact is, we want to welcome people, but in order to do so, we have to be able to offer them a place to live. How can the government say we are not welcoming when we simply have nowhere for these people to live? Does anyone really think that welcoming people and forcing them to live on the street is our nation's dream? The current system is not working. We need to welcome people properly. We have to give them good opportunities in life. The current situation does not reflect well on Canada on the international stage. Obviously, Canada's mismanagement is also affecting Quebec's image because we are stuck in this country, which is keeping us on a leash.
I find it disheartening to see a government that, despite all this, continues to blame others. It says it is not its fault, that it is the opposition's fault. We agree with the government to a certain extent on that point. There is a growing awareness that Quebec welcomes 50% of asylum seekers, even though the province represents only 20% of the population. It is only makes sense for the other provinces to offer to take in their fair share. Everyone says Quebec is unwelcoming, yet it welcomes 50% of Canada's asylum seekers. Consequently, it asked the federal government for help. After months of pressure, the federal government said it might talk to the other provinces. Four provinces said absolutely not. So much for the great Canadian federation. Everyone is supposed to get along, co-operate and work together. The federal government is certainly not doing that, and lately, neither are the other Canadian provinces. They seem to be saying that it is not their problem and that Quebec should deal with its own issues.
What is Ottawa going to do about it? That is the question on everyone's mind. Will Ottawa force the other provinces to take in more people? Will Ottawa decide to stem the flow and reduce the influx?
That might be a wiser solution. I think that is what I am getting at. This is where the government has to listen to reason. At some point, it has to be accepted that too much is too much. Once the numbers subside a little, we are left to face the whole issue of people who are still on the street. What do we do with them?
It is going to take a record investment and a lot of leadership to take charge of the situation. The more time these people spend on the street, the harder it becomes for them to leave it. It becomes increasingly hopeless, and the cost to society only keeps growing. We must therefore act fast to take charge of people living in the street, so we can help them.
I would like to discuss another aspect. Earlier on, I talked about the federal government meddling in municipal management. Let me explain how that happens. Certain infrastructure agreements provide partial funding for municipal infrastructure. This specifically includes the TECQ program, or the gas tax and Quebec’s contribution. Other programs, known as bilateral agreements between the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada, ensure that funds flowing through Quebec can be transferred to the municipalities.
The 2014-18 Canada-Quebec agreement allocated several billion dollars. I do not remember the exact number. What I do remember is that part of the agreement was different from the agreements with the other provinces. Ottawa really does not like it when Quebec does not do exactly the same thing and it negotiates for itself a bit. In the Quebec agreement, a special clause stipulated that the money that was not spent under the 2014-18 agreement could be carried over and used in subsequent phases, under future agreements, in other words, the following agreement that covered the period from 2018 to 2024.
In that agreement, $350 million that was supposed to go to municipal infrastructure had not yet been spent at the end of 2018. I asked the minister, who comes from Atlantic Canada, about it in committee. He said that the government would not respect the agreement nor keep its word, that it would keep the money, put it in the consolidated fund and the provinces would not get it.
The amounts set out in this agreement were negotiated and distributed equally based on the number of inhabitants, the percentage of the population. In short, the minister said that he did not feel like giving Quebec that money. He asked why Quebec's agreement was a little different from those of the other provinces. He said that he did not agree with that and, even though he signed the agreement, he would not honour it. That is how things work at the federal level. We have a trusted partner that does not keep its word. Because of that, $350 million were never paid out to cities in Quebec, even though they were entitled to it. Quebeckers pay taxes to Ottawa the same as every other taxpayer, but their share has been stolen from them. That is one of the government's ways of doing things.
There is also the gas tax, which I mentioned earlier. Part of the money collected from that tax is redirected to what is known as the Canada community-building fund. Let us compare the last agreement, the one for 2018 to 2024, to the new one for 2024 to 2028. When we compare the total amount that cities are entitled to and the federal contribution to the fund in both agreements, we see that the federal government is contributing 30% less. That means that cities will be entitled to 30% less under the new agreement compared to the previous one.
The mayors are starting to call to find out what is happening. They say that they are having problems because of the housing crisis and because of extreme weather events such as torrential rains. While they are having all these problems, including homelessness of course, the federal government is telling them that they will be receiving less money for their programs.
That is what the federal government is saying. During the pandemic, it recognized that there was a deficit, and it paid more money. Earlier, it recognized that there was a municipal infrastructure deficit, and it paid more money. However, that funding was not renewed, and now the municipalities have ended up with a shortfall.
Here is what the federal government decided to do instead. In the last budget, it came up with something new, the $6‑billion housing infrastructure program. That much-vaunted $6 billion will be conditional on letting Ottawa dictate the zoning rules for the cities.
Rather than allocate the money to existing programs and improve funding for programs like TECQ, which works well and is appreciated by the cities, Ottawa keeps coming up with new programs to create new opportunities for interference. That is how Ottawa works. That is why we do not want—
