“Canada has 65,000 homeless people, and very little social housing compared to other countries. I want the member to agree that building a strong country means ending homelessness.”

“Mr. Speaker, of course, there are things that my colleague and I may not agree on, but there are certainly things that we do. He talked about how the bill does not go far enough in terms of infrastructure. I think about the Prime Minister’s words about nation building, about building Canada strong. Right now, there are 65,000 Canadians who are homeless. They cite that this costs us about $3 billion a year and that it would save us $2 billion if they were to be housed. Right now, in Canada, 3.3% of our housing is non-market housing, compared to France and Britain, which are at about 16% to 17%, Denmark, 21%, the Netherlands, 34%. We do not have to look far to see what 3.3% looks like. Does my colleague agree that nation building, in a country as wealthy as Canada, should mean making sure that we do not have any homeless people in the country?”

“Mental illness costs our economy about $200 billion a year. The government calls a pipeline nation-building because it might bring in $20 billion a year. Mental illness hurts our economy ten times more than that pipeline helps it. The government should treat mental health care as nation-building.”

“Mr. Speaker, build Canada strong and nation building should also be about plugging economic leakages. The Mental Health Commission of Canada estimates that mental health costs our economy nearly $200 billion a year. That is roughly 6% of Canada’s GDP. The government is promoting its new pipeline as nation building because it could add more than $20 billion a year to GDP. That is about 0.6% of our GDP. To be clear, mental illness is imposing an economic burden roughly 10 times larger than the annual GDP benefit the government projects from this pipeline. If a potential 0.6% increase in GDP warrants nation-building action, why is the Liberal government not dealing with the economic burden approaching 6% of the GDP, namely unaddressed mental illness, that is impacting our economy?”