Lachapelle, Serge

Quebec, Westmount - Ville-Marie, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada

Since July 1, all kinds of illusions have been created by various levels of government and the monopoly media to the effect that the housing crisis has been resolved. Far from it being resolved, it has been transformed. At the centre of the crisis lies the great scarcity of affordable housing in many large urban centres, along with rent increases which exceed the rate of inflation.

The government's own statistics fly in the face of the illusions that the housing problem has been resolved. The stats show that 1,484,000 Canadian households are in dire need of housing, including some 351,800 Quebec households. Far from ensuring that the right to housing is guaranteed to each and every citizen, the federal Liberals continue to ignore this legitimate demand. They claim there isn't enough money to satisfy such a demand, despite the fact that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) is sitting on a $4.1 billion surplus.

Once again, this only proves that people themselves must take up politics in order to defend their own interests. The present political system considers affordable housing for all to be a "policy objective," not a right which must be guaranteed. Meeting the needs of human beings is not the motivation of governments which pay lip-service to these needs, whether for affordable housing, healthcare, education, security, etc., to be able to claim they "represent" the people. It is one of the most despicable acts of brutality with which Canadians must settle scores. If the role of government is not to guarantee the rights of the people, then what is it? We cannot accept the status quo where everything is facilitated for the rich at the expense of the poor.

majority seats = 155