Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like most MLAs, many of us spend a large portion of our time assisting our residents with affordable housing situations. For the most part we find solutions but, sadly, there is still much disappointment for our most vulnerable in society. This has prompted me to speak today about what I think should be a basic human right. That right, Mr. Speaker, is the right to shelter.
There is nothing more colonial in our modern-day history than the way a number of bureaucrats and politicians in Ottawa decide on budgets for our nation’s housing crisis. Sadly, with federal CMHC funding declining to zero in the next 23 years, provinces and territories are left struggling to fill the void of affordability, adequacy, quality and homelessness. In essence, housing has become the real orphan of public policy in Canada and the North is not immune.
With our small population base and our inability to increase own-source revenues, this state of dependency is further cast into despair of resentment and dysfunction in seeking resolution to the question many of us ask: Do we have the power and the means to address the challenges of housing in our foreseeable future? Many are optimistic. I myself am very skeptical.
You see, this download of responsibility has created nothing more than a crisis of governance that provincial, territorial and Aboriginal governments share. None of these entities have the means to address this issue alone, even with the best of intentions and collaboration. Dysfunction is imminent.
It’s time, with 2015 being the year of elections at all levels, I ask citizens to address these challenges in the voters booth by asking and seeking clarity in the way we divide the fiscal pie, to ensure that the proper revenue streams are going to the right orders of government and to make sure the housing crisis is deserving of a proper transparency and accountability its citizens want and need.
We can learn from our history when it comes to our housing crisis, but we cannot afford to live in it any further. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
