Press Release: March 14, 2008
MEDIA ADVISORY – For Immediate Release
March 14, 2008
Put down the guns and pick up the hammers and nails.
Last night’s decision in the House of Commons to extend Canada’s Afghan mission reaffirms that our federal government, the Harper government, is devoid of moral conscience both at home and abroad. Furthermore, we witness a complicit Liberal party, in opposition, that has chosen to prop up a government that will continue to wreck havoc at home and abroad.
10 years ago, as a Street Nurse, myself and others formed the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and declared homelessness a national disaster in response to what had become refugee like conditions across the country. We called for an additional 1% of the federal budget to be allocated annually to a national housing program.
10 years ago, the mayors of Canada’s biggest cities declared homelessness a national disaster.
10 years ago, the United Nations declared homelessness a national emergency.
10 years later, the federal government has failed to reinstate and fund a national housing program.
We once had a national program, back in the 80s, and when we did, 12 out of every 100 new homes created were social housing units in co-ops or non-profits and were truly affordable. As a nation, we created approximately 20,000 new units per year.
Today, we are the only major country in the world without a national housing strategy.
Today, less than 1 out of every 100 new homes are co-ops or non-profits.
Today, the United Nations calls our homelessness situation a national crisis.
Today, and for the first time in 10 years, the federal minister responsible for housing doesn’t even show up at the federal-provincial-territorial housing ministers meeting.
What do we have today?
At home, we have a federal budget with no dollars committed for affordable housing. A national housing renovation program (RRAP) and a national homelessness strategy (HPI) due to expire at end of fiscal 2008. I assert that we continue to have refugee like conditions across the country – overcrowded shelters, forced migration of homeless people who are displaced, infestations, tuberculosis, hunger and a high mortality rate. And, no hope for it to end.
Yet, $18.2 billion dollars has been set aside for the military this year. A cost analysis, still to be disclosed, estimates a whopping increase to $5 billion for the war in Afghanistan alone.
In Afghanistan, 3 million people displaced – made homeless, forced out of their homes and who remain displaced (UNHCR). Famine – 7.5 million people on the verge of starvation. Thousands of Afghanis killed, more of our young soldiers coming home injured or dead.
So, while we wage war what does the United Nations say today of our nation?
Well, only two days ago Miloon Kothari, the UN Rapporteur on Adequate Housing reported on recent his fact-finding mission in Canada.
“As a very wealthy country, with significant surplus in federal budget, immediate attention is required for the most vulnerable part of the population living in inadequate housing and living conditions. There is no justification for not massively engaging in the improvement of the situation of all those that face inadequate housing and living conditions throughout Canada.” Miloon Kothari – March 12, 2008
Our Housing Not War campaign is one expression of what Canadians want – housing, childcare, education, improved care for our seniors and attention to the environment.
Put down the guns and pick up the hammers and nails.
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