Madam Chair, CMHC's mandate is to help Canadians in housing need by improving access to affordable housing.
I am concerned this is not currently the reality across the country, and I am not the only one. From her 2022 report on chronic homelessness, the Auditor General found “Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation did not know whether it was addressing the housing needs of and improving housing outcomes for vulnerable Canadians”.
This deeply concerns me because in my community, home prices and rents have skyrocketed, while homelessness has more than tripled since 2018. No wonder the national housing advocate recently shared that the national housing strategy is failing. I have several questions and suggestions for the Minister of Housing to push for CMHC, and the federal government, to get closer to meeting its mandate.
First, we know that real estate investment trusts, REITs, one of Canada's largest corporate landlords, contribute to worsening the housing crisis by buying up existing units and raising rents as they seek to maximize their profitability. Oddly, CMHC has recently loaned $60 million to Choice REIT, one of Canada's largest REITs, which made over $744 million in net profits last year. This is just one of four such agreements with REITs.
Will the minister ensure our national housing agency, with a mandate for improving housing affordability, stops loaning public funds to for-profit corporate landlords at a time when funds are being reduced for non-profit housing providers?