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Parliament returns on National Housing Day, Speech from Throne prioritizes housing

Published November 23, 2021

For Immediate Release (Ottawa, November 23, 2021) – Yesterday, as MPs returned to Parliament for the first time since being elected, housing advocates were keenly aware that it was also National Housing Day.

In a joint letter published by National Newswatch earlier in the month, CHF Canada’s Executive Director Tim Ross, as part of the Vote Housing coalition that was formed during the federal election, outlined why he believed the timing was more than a coincidence.

This perspective was validated by today’s Speech from the Throne, which serves to outline the priorities of the new government. The government outlined two major priorities: housing and childcare.

In particular, the Speech committed the Government to working with its partners to build more units per year, increase affordable housing and end chronic homelessness.

“Today’s Speech from the Throne recognizes that Canada is facing a housing crisis,” says Executive Director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of Canada, Tim Ross. “But more importantly, it signalled the Government’s intention to prioritize addressing it, including by working with partners to build more affordable housing and end chronic homelessness.”

As a vital type of affordable housing, Canada’s housing co-operatives not only applaud the prioritization of housing, but are ready and able to get to work in support of the federal government’s intention to invest in more affordable housing.

CHF Canada, together with our Vote Housing partners, will be working to ensure the commitments outlined in today’s Speech from the Throne translate into meaningful investment in the building and acquisition of more non-market, affordable housing, including through an urban, rural and northern Indigenous housing strategy. In particular, we’ll be looking to ensure co-op housing is a central part of the mix in the needed scale-up in the supply of affordable housing.

For more information please contact: Dallas Alderson, 613.760.3375, dalderson@chfcanada.coop

CHF Canada is the national voice of co-operative housing, representing 2,200 housing co-operatives, home to a quarter of a million people in every province and territory. Co-operative housing is a well-documented success story. For over 50 years, co-ops have provided good-quality, affordable housing owned and managed by the community members who live there.


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