Mr. Speaker, all the municipalities in my riding have affordable housing as their top priority, and the housing minister is tasked with addressing the housing crisis that has been caused by 10 years of failed Liberal policies.
The former minister of housing indicated that 550,000 units would need to be built every year for four years to catch up with the massive increase in immigration he caused. That is what is needed, but the current minister has just announced $13 billion to build only 4,000 units. That is $3.25 million per unit. That is not affordable housing, and it certainly does not bridge the gap.
I am not surprised; when the minister was the mayor of Vancouver, he helped create the most expensive housing bubble on the planet. To run the new government bureaucracy, he has now hired Ana Bailão, a former Toronto city councillor who was supposed to create affordable housing and instead created the second-highest-priced housing bubble on the planet.
I am always willing to help out the government, especially when it helps my riding, and so I made the minister aware of the list of affordable housing projects we have on the books in my riding that are shovel-ready.
The five projects in five years initiative will add 314 spaces for the low price of $27 million. That is just $86,000 per space, not $3.25 million per space.
The County of Lambton has promised $38 million for affordable housing and multiple municipality initiatives that could use the federal money to accelerate its projects of 450 units at $84,000 per space.
Plympton-Wyoming is building 400 units for $15 million, which are middle houses. That is $37,500 a unit, not $3.25 million.
There is also a plan to create 200 all-year-round trailers that will cost people between $100,000 and $150,000 to purchase. This is affordable.
For the low, low price of $80 million, we could build 1,400 spaces at an average cost of $57,000 per space, versus the Liberal plan to spend $13 billion to get only 4,000 spaces. This $13-billion boondoggle follows the $4-billion housing accelerator fund that built exactly zero houses. The municipalities that received money from that fund actually increased the permitting fees for builders instead of creating affordable housing.
My question is for the minister: Will he give us $80,000 in Sarnia—Lambton to build all the affordable houses that are shovel-ready, and when is he going to introduce a plan to build 550,000 units a year to address the continued mass migration? What specifically will he build that people can afford?