Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to talk about housing. I have asked several questions and quite often have received the exact same response from the minister, and I am troubled by it.

We know that housing agreements, which were initiated by the Liberal Party, have been renewed and we know the renewals in places like Ontario constitute about $801 million in funding. I did the math when I was in city council, and certainly have done since I arrived in Parliament. When we do that math, it means that approximately 60 new units of housing will be provided by this agreement each year for the next 5 years in a city like Toronto.

Because there is no money for state of good repair, because there is no money for new housing and because the capital repair backlog, which is effectively downloaded onto the city by a provincial Conservative government, is now close to $1 billion, we are losing more units of housing in Toronto through disrepair than we are gaining in the new housing agreements.

My question for the government is very simple. We know that housing solves problems. We know that housing pays for itself through the social investment. We know that housing is an integral part of building strong cities, strong neighbourhoods, but most important, strong families. In light of the fact we are facing an unprecedented crisis in Toronto, with 92,000 families, close to 200,000 people waiting for assisted housing, close to 5,000 people a year living in city shelters of whom half are children, with this calamity facing Canadians living in Toronto, with a calamity that is replicated unfortunately right across the country in every major city, every minor city, every medium city and every city of every description, why is the government satisfied with the status quo when it is literally putting people in harm's way?

Why is there not one new dollar in this current budget for one new unit of housing anywhere in the country, let alone a city, let alone the aboriginal or traditional territory, let alone in any single settlement in Canada? Why is not one dollar put into new housing, one dollar into fixing new housing? Why is the status quo, which people suffer under, acceptable?

Adam Vaughan

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