Human Resources committee  I will take your word for it, but what I can say is that the housing supply issue is—

Housing  Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the member opposite claims, we have made sure that we take care of Canadian renters. We are the government that introduced the Canada housing benefit, which is now real in every province and territory in Canada. It is delivering an average of $2,500 to vulnerable renters across the country.

Housing  Mr. Speaker, will the leader of the official opposition take responsibility for voting against the housing accelerator fund, a program to build more supply and make sure we speed up processes to make sure we build more homes for Canadians? Will the leader of the official opposition take responsibility for voting against the tax-free first home savings account of up to $40,000 to enable first-time homebuyers to buy homes?

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you very much, MP Housefather, for that question. I think you point to a really important lesson in this particular issue, which is that moving forward, we will be able to move more swiftly to immediately to cut funding and make sure that we terminate contracts. That is part of the enhanced agreement.

The Economy  Mr. Speaker, the leader of the official opposition talks about taking on gatekeepers. However, we have found that he is the biggest gatekeeper, keeping Canadians away from rental supports now. He is the biggest gatekeeper who voted against the Canada housing benefit.

Health committee  These are the kinds of measures that our government is putting into action right now to tackle the housing crisis, while taking a human rights-based approach to housing. I want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for this opportunity. I'm happy to answer any questions posed by my colleagues. Thank you.

Housing  John's East for her important question and her strong advocacy on this really serious issue. Our government takes homelessness seriously, and that is why we are committed to eliminating it once and for all. That is also why we have doubled the federal funding for Reaching Home, Canada's anti-homelessness strategy from $2 billion to $4 billion.

Canadian Heritage committee  We will continue to take every measure to ensure this never happens again. We are also putting in place enhanced vetting training for program officers, ensuring that multiple officials review each and every application, and enhanced anti-racism and anti-Semitism training for all program officers.

Canadian Heritage committee  I wouldn't say the department didn't take any action. I think that's an unfair characterization, but I'll let you finish your question and I can respond.

Canadian Heritage committee  Quite the contrary, in many years of my adult life I have spent time fighting anti-Semitism, fighting Islamophobia, fighting racism on the ground working with community members from various communities, so I take this extremely seriously and I would encourage you to revisit my remarks on this matter on a number of occasions. I disagree with you, with respect, sir. On the issue of the previous processes that existed before I became minister, this funding was approved in the summer of 2021, before I became the minister responsible for this file.

Canadian Heritage committee  One of the things the review showed is that the evaluation process did not initially detect the hateful comments made by this individual of this organization. We're taking swift action to make sure this never happens again by introducing—

Canadian Heritage committee  I've also asked officials to introduce conditions in all of our funding agreements that will allow the federal government to take immediate action should any organization or individual be identified as having promoted or shared hate, racism, anti-Semitism or discrimination in any form. This will help us to ensure that, moving forward, we can move quickly and decisively as soon as we are made aware.

Taxation  It is about introducing the first-time homebuyers' tax credit and putting in place a first-time homebuyer savings account to enable more young Canadians and others to access their dream of home ownership. We cannot take the Leader of the Opposition seriously on these issues, because on every single tangible solution that we have brought forward that actually works, he has voted against it.

Human Resources committee  There are many folks who believed that we couldn't deliver housing in less than 12 months and the rapid housing initiative has put to bed those concerns. I think we have learned a lot through that process. We'll obviously make sure that those lessons are embedded in the housing accelerator fund and that we are flexible enough to ensure that smaller communities benefit as much as larger communities. One way to address that is to make sure that the application process is more flexible and reasonable.

Human Resources committee  Once they identify those challenges, they also have to provide us with a road map of how to overcome those challenges and what it would take to overcome those challenges and basically draw a “before and after” picture. For example, you have one permitting official in your city and you give out 100 permits a year. If we provide you with a second permitting official and we pay the salary, we expect at least 200 permits to be issued in that community.