The Senate resolved into a Committee of the Whole in order to study the subject matter of Bill C-26, An Act to authorize certain payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose of improving housing supply.

[Translation]

Senator Gerba: Thank you for being in the Senate today, minister.

Bill C-26 seeks to stimulate housing construction across Canada. However, the housing crisis disproportionately affects Black communities. According to Statistics Canada, 29% of Black Canadians live in unsuitable housing and 15% have core housing needs, compared to 9% for the total population.

How will the government ensure that the new transfers benefit Black communities in particular in order to address these systemic inequalities in housing?

Mr. Robertson: Thank you for the question.

[English]

Thank you for your concerns. I’m very familiar with an existing program we have with the Affordable Housing Fund — a $50-million carve-out of the Affordable Housing Fund for Black households — which is making sure we’re supporting renter households and home ownership for Black families across the country.

As of the end of February of this year, that carve-out is fully committed. It supported nine projects, I believe, across the country, and more than 500 homes were created through that program. We’re now looking at the renewal of the National Housing Strategy, so we have an opportunity to take that to the next level.

It’s not directly related to Bill C-26 in this case, but I think there was good success with the Affordable Housing Fund program and certainly a desire to continue to scale that to meet the needs, noting that it is a significant challenge and Black households are disproportionately affected by affordability challenges. We need to rise to that challenge, and I do anticipate that with the renewal of the National Housing Strategy going forward.