NDP immigration critic Jenny Kwan has called the approach illogical, urging the government to find more affordable and sustainable housing solutions. “Renting hotel rooms for asylum seekers at these costs doesn’t make sense,” Kwan said.
“We need a system that supports newcomers without straining public resources.”
Statement from NDP Housing Critic Jenny Kwan on Federal Housing Advocate's Report
After a recent damning report from the Parliamentary Budget Office critiquing the policy design of Build Canada Homes, the Federal Housing Advocate’s report today exposes major additional gaps in the Federal government’s housing policies, revealing that the government has allowed homelessness to escalate while relying on inadequate, short-term fixes. Across Waterloo, London, Hamilton, and Toronto, the Advocate heard consistently that people living in encampments face unsafe shelters, inaccessible housing, and constant threats of eviction. These conditions are the predictable outcome of inadequate policy development, underfunding, and enforcement-first approaches that criminalize survival.
The report’s recommendations make clear what needs to be done. Federal investments must be expanded and sustained with a human rights-based approach, including meaningful engagement with encampment residents, municipalities, and Indigenous organizations, and evaluation of programs like the UHEI to ensure lessons inform future strategies. Adequate pathways out of encampments require scaling up deeply affordable and supportive housing, integrating health care, and protecting people from forced evictions that exacerbate trauma and risk, especially during extreme weather.
The report also emphasizes the urgent need for culturally specific and trauma-informed Indigenous supports, gender-responsive housing, and protections for refugee claimants. Community organizations must be empowered and resourced rather than monitored and penalized. All federal housing initiatives, from Build Canada Homes to the National Housing Strategy, must embed a human rights framework, set clear outcomes, and provide sustainable funding to ensure real change along the continuum of housing, including setting clear targets of 40 percent of housing set to 30% of income.
Canadians are witnessing the consequences: lives put at risk, and systemic inequalities entrenched. The Prime Minister and Housing Minister cannot continue to defer responsibility. They must act immediately to align federal policy with human rights, expand investments, end criminalization, and commit to long-term, trauma-informed solutions that actually meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness. I call on the Prime Minister and Housing Minister to follow through immediately on the recommendations from these two reports.
A leaked Liberal caucus briefing document obtained by The Maple warned that regulating the flow of Canadian-made military goods to the United States might upset the Americans, resulting in economic blows to Canada and damaging geopolitical alliances.
The briefing was prepared in response to Bill C-233, a private members’ bill sponsored by NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who also obtained a copy of the leaked document ahead of a recent debate in the House of Commons.
Bill C-233, dubbed the “No More Loopholes Act,” proposes amending federal export law to prevent certain countries from being exempt from permitting requirements, and introducing additional regulations and reporting measures for Canadian military exports.
Most military exports to the United States currently do not require permits, and researchers have warned that this serves as a backdoor by which Canadian-made military goods are ending up in Israel, which is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
A recent report, co-authored by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, Arms Embargo Now and World Beyond War, identified hundreds of shipments of Canadian-made F-35 fighter jet components, other aircraft parts, and explosives and flammable materials to U.S. facilities that supply the Israeli military.
Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne defended "historical" housing spending in Budget 2025 on his way out of the cabinet meeting Tuesday. He told reporters he respects the PBO's work but added that "sometimes you need a bit of nuance."
Champagne said that future budgets will update spending priorities and no one should "prejudge" any of those commitments.
“You don’t take decisions for ‘29 in ‘25," he said.
“We’re going to do the work now and we’ll take the decisions that are going to be needed as we go forward."
NDP housing critic Jenny Kwan accused the government of inflating homebuilding expectations through its budget last month.
"The commitment on this new generational investment that the government's talking about, it is barely a drop in the bucket to address the housing crisis," Kwan said before question period.