NDP

Residential schools engaged in “cultural genocide,” former prime minister Paul Martin said Friday at the hearings of the federal Truth And Reconciliation Commission, adding that aboriginal Canadians must now be offered the best educational system.

“Let us understand that what happened at the residential schools was the use of education for cultural genocide, and that the fact of the matter is — yes it was. Call a spade a spade,” Martin said to cheers from the audience at the Montreal hearings.

“And what that really means is that we’ve got to offer aboriginal Canadians, without any shadow of a doubt, the best education system that is possible to have.”

The residential school system existed from the 1870s until the 1990s and saw about 150,000 native youth taken from their families and sent to church-run schools under a deliberate policy of “civilizing” First Nations.

Many students were physically, mentally and sexually abused. Some committed suicide or died fleeing their schools. Mortality rates reached 50 per cent at some schools.

In the 1990s, thousands of victims sued the Canadian government as well as churches that ran the schools. The $1.9-billion settlement of that suit in 2007 prompted an apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the creation of the commission.

But the government has clashed with the commission and recently had to be ordered by an Ontario court to find and turn over documents from Library and Archives Canada.

“Every document is relevant,” Martin said. “We have hid this for 50 years. It’s existed for 150. Surely to God, Canadians are entitled … aboriginal Canadians and non-aboriginal Canadians, to know the truth. And so let the documents be released.”

Romeo Saganash has also testified of this time in residential schools

After the panel, Saganash took to the main stage at Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel and officially gave his statement to the TRC about his time at the La Tuque residential school in the late 1970s.

He tearfully spoke about his brother Johnny who died under mysterious circumstances when he was just 6 years old. Johnny was buried in an unmarked grave near the residential school in Moose Factory, Ont. There was no explanation given to his parents, no death certificate, no physical record that the little Cree boy had ever existed under the care of the federal government.

It took 40 years for the Saganash family to find Johnny’s grave and they did so not with the help of authorities but rather through the work of Saganash’s journalist sister Emma. When his mother finally saw footage of the burial site, Saganash said she wept like he had never seen her weep before.

The NDP MP has also struggled with the legacy of pain from his stolen childhood. The struggle caused Saganash to seek treatment for his alcoholism last December after he was kicked off an Air Canada flight for being heavily intoxicated.

But Saganash spent little time focusing on the past, choosing rather to divert the attention to the private members bill he tabled before the House of Commons in January. The bill would force the federal government to ensure all its laws are consistent with the UN’s declaration of indigenous rights — a document the Cree politician helped draft before being elected to public office.

He concluded his emotional address on a hopeful note, quoting a passage from a speech South African leader Nelson Mandela gave after his 27-year stint as a political prisoner.

“It was during those long and lonely years that the hunger for freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people — white and black. I knew, as I knew anything, that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. For all have been robbed of their humanity.

Are the NDP the new Liberals?

Apr 20th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Chris Selley wonders if the NDP have lost their way in their pursuit of power

Canadian politicians are no strangers to politicizing tragedies. Stockwell Day used to needle Paul Martin for not issuing commiserative or condemnatory press releases quickly enough. This week, Stephen Harper, unsurprisingly, wasted no time accusing Mr. Trudeau of trying to “rationalize” and “make excuses for” violence.

But then came a novel twist. On CBC’s Power and Politics, NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison piled on. “Anybody who heard those statements from Mr. Trudeau has to be mystified about how he seems to be worrying about the mental state of the people who produced the bombing,” he said, arguing we should instead be “focused on the victims.”

So, there you have it. The party of Ms. McDonough, who played the flute of caution amidst the post-9/11 war drums, the party of Jack Layton, who voiced well-founded concerns over the Afghanistan mission and was branded “Taliban Jack” for his troubles, is now the party that competes with the government to condemn foreign terrorism in the bluntest possible terms. Should terrorists ever strike here in Canada, we can only hope our Official Opposition still has sufficient gumption to ask some tough questions in the fevered aftermath.

A New Generation of NDP Ads

Mar 21st, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

4 comments

Good job by the NDP in getting a good Cam Broten ad out this quickly. The ads hit television tomorrow. That the NDP website has now been updated to feature Cam.

Cam Broten wins the NDP leadership

Mar 10th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Joe Couture reports

Cam Broten – who won the leadership of the provincial NDP on Saturday by just 44 votes – told reporters after his victory that he knows the party has “a lot of work to do in earning the trust of Saskatchewan people.

“It was a close race,” the second-term Saskatoon Massey Place MLA, who is 34 years old, admitted to the media at TCU Place, where the leadership convention was held – although, he in the next breath mentioned former Manitoba premier Gary Doer and his win of the leadership of his province’s NDP by just 21 votes in 1988.

“But we know we have a lot of work to do as a party and as a caucus,” Broten continued. “All the candidates have done such a tremendous job, their teams have done a tremendous job, and we need everyone involved to build the NDP once again and earn the trust of Saskatchewan people.”

On the second ballot at the convention, Broten received 4,164 of the total votes cast or just more than 50 per cent, narrowly beating out Saskatoon doctor Ryan Meili, who was ahead on the first ballot, but received 4,120 votes on the second.

Meili described the results to reporters as “bloody close.

“Who would expect that I could actually get closer to winning this time than last time?” he said, referencing 2009’s leadership race, in which he finished second to Dwain Lingenfelter – who ultimately led the party to a crushing defeat in 2011.

“There was, I think, an appetite for the vision that I had, but obviously what Cam brought forward also appealed very much to the party members and ultimately, his team and his campaign was successful,” Meili continued, telling reporters he didn’t expect to try to challenge the close results.

The results of the first ballot, announced earlier in the afternoon, saw Meili in first with 39 per cent of the vote and Broten in second with 34 per cent – Trent Wotherspoon, who came in third with 24 per cent, withdrew from the race minutes later.

Broten made the right moves in the winning the leadership but he was wrong about one thing

Asked about the possibility of becoming the focus of negative publicity generated by his Saskatchewan Party opponents, Broten also sought to minimize concerns.

“Attack ads can be effective in the short-term, but in the long term, I think it turns people off politics,” he said, noting he plans to “stay in touch with what Saskatchewan people want and stay in tune with what their concerns and priorities are.”

I have heard from a couple of NDP MLAs that the biggest mistake they made was not to “define” Brad Wall when he was elected Saskatchewan Party leader. If I was the Saskatchewan Party, I would not make that mistake in trying to “define” Broten. Of course the interesting part is that he may be hard to define negatively. He doesn’t claim a residence in Cavendish, PEI; he didn’t spend most of his life abroad claiming to be an American and unless I missed a big gaffe in the debates, there isn’t much there. It will be interesting on what they do and if it will stick.

A superficial cut?

Mar 2nd, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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Chantal Hébert on whether or not Claude Patry’s defection to the Bloc Quebecois is a big deal or minor distraction to the NDP

Self-interest is almost always a factor in the decision to cross the floor but the Hill can also be a lonely place and more than one MP has become estranged from his party for lack of camaraderie or, in the case of French-language MPs, linguistic isolation.

It is too early to tell whether jumping ship will improve Patry’s chances of surviving the next election. By then, the Parti Québécois could be back in opposition in the National Assembly, or going through pre-referendum manoeuvres on the basis of a governing majority.

Jonquière—Alma has been out of the Bloc fold for the better part of a decade. The riding switched to the Conservatives before falling to the NDP. It can no longer be considered a sovereigntist stronghold.

What is certain is that Patry is going back to his comfort zone. His decision to run under the NDP banner in 2011 pitted him against the Bloc-aligned local union leadership and his spell under a federalist banner apparently did not dent his sovereigntist convictions.

Perspectives on the so-called unity debate are strikingly different in the federal capital and in the nationalist stronghold of the Saguenay. The transition from one venue to the other often involves a rude awakening.

In the immediate, Patry’s defection looks more like a paper cut than a puncture wound for the NDP. There is not currently on the Quebec radar a simmering anti-NDP backlash over the issue of referendum rules, or solid signs of an imminent revival of the Bloc Québécois.

But Patry’s move is still a stark reminder to his former New Democrat colleagues from Quebec that the luck of the draw has more to do with their positions in the Commons than their merits.

With only a few exceptions, there will be no safe NDP seats in Quebec in 2015 and indeed precious few safe seats of any kind at all.

While the NDP membership numbers improved to 12,300 during the federal leadership race, there are not a lot of NDP members in Quebec. There are actually more NDP members in Saskatchewan than there is in Quebec despite the population difference which makes me wonder if the NDP can hold on to their gains in Quebec, especially is Justin Trudeau’s numbers hold and with a resurgent PQ holding power (and assuming providing organizational support). My feeling right now is that you could see Quebec losing most of the seats it gained in Quebec in the next election and the reduced to third place in the House of Commons.

I don’t think Patry’s defection is a serious threat to Mulcair but the bigger problem for the NDP is building the political machine needed to hold these seats.

NDP Leadership Race Polls

Feb 13th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

10 comments

While the LeaderPost published a poll of voter intentions in the province for the provincial NDP leader, I was curious when I heard about some internal polling done by the candidates themselves. Over the last couple of weeks the Broten, Meili, and Wotherspoon campaigns have all done some polling. Interestingly enough, the buzz is that both the Wotherspoon campaign has commissioned two polls right after the other. If you don’t like the results of the first poll, maybe you just keep polling?

The Broten campaign has been the only one talking about the results which if accurate, makes sense. It is bad news for both Ryan Meili and Trent Wotherspoon. I know Nate Silver says to not believe campaign polling but it’s all we have. Until the Wotherspoon and Meili camps post their numbers, I only have the Broten numbers to go on and here they are.

When I looked at the poll, it was done by Public Polling Inc which is a polling company out of Toronto (there is a Saskatchewan Party attack ad in there someplace). It was a large poll with a margin of error is only +/- 2.2%. The poll asked two basic questions — (1) “If you were to vote for the new NDP leader today, who would be your first choice?” and (2) “Who would be your second choice for the new NDP Leader?” The results of the poll show the following breakdown of first ballot support among decided voters throughout the entire province:

If the poll is correct, it looks like a 3rd ballot victory for Cam Broten and he would become the next leader of the opposition. Trent Wotherspoon has either lost his support or pundits have really overestimated his support in the first place. Maybe that is why he is polling so much. According to the poll, Broten is the second choice of most of the people surveyed. With the NDP at about 11,000 members and with the vast majority of them casting a ballot; I can’t see the convention floor delegates having enough votes to change the outcome but I have been wrong many times before.

The end result is that a) it’s going to be a boring convention b) Cam Broten will become the next leader of the opposition c) the Saskatchewan Party is probably already cutting the attack ads on Broten as I post this.

It also means that 2015 is going to be an interesting election.

Update: I immediately was emailed as asked if who I was voting for. I am not a member of any political party and therefore won’t be casting a ballot in this race. I am just looking at it from the outside.

Grant Devine 2.0?

Jan 26th, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

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It’s really odd to hear Alison Redford use the same rhetoric in Alberta that Grant Devine did in Saskatchewan during the late 80s.

In a series of interviews following her televised address to the province Thursday night, Redford said that she wanted Albertans to understand that the province should no longer rely on its resource wealth to balance its books, pointing to a $6-billion “bitumen bubble” that will cut the province’s anticipated resource revenue almost by half in 2013-14 fiscal year.

“We can no longer continue to rely on oil and gas for 30 per cent of our revenue,” Redford said Friday. “It’s a fundamental change. It’s the sort of thing a province has to deal with, I think, once in a generation, and this is our opportunity to do it this year.”

The provincial government has received plenty of advice in recent years urging it to wean itself off a practice of using resource royalties to balance its books.

The Premier’s Council for Economic Strategy, a panel of experts established by Premier Ed Stelmach, tabled a report in May 2011 that asked Alberta to divert non-renewable resource revenue instead into a new “shaping the future” fund dedicated to helping diversify the province’s economy.

The council’s chairman, former federal cabinet minister David Emerson, said Friday it sounds like Redford is looking to make that kind of shift.

“She’s looking at establishing a new fiscal regime and that’s essentially what the premier’s economic strategy council was calling for: To stop treating non-renewable resource revenues as a form of operating revenue to be spent on, in effect, buying the groceries and to become more strategic separating natural resource assets,” Emerson said.

“If that’s the case, my congratulations,” he said.

But while Redford said Friday that a “different” budget will be forthcoming, she also said will not be a disruptive document. The government has already sent some signals about what some of those changes might look like, she said, pointing to the government’s plans to borrow to fully twin a 240-kilometre stretch of Highway 63.

“The Highway 63 announcement signalled to people that we’re going to think differently about long-term infrastructure plans,” Redford told The Canadian Press. “We’re going to finance that differently. We’re prepared to go out to capital markets and to really put out stellar fiscal reputation out there and ask people to invest in our province in some of our public infrastructure.”

As of right now, however, Redford said tax reform is not part of that financial restructuring.

Right now it looks like a lot of talk without the deep cuts and probably tax increases needed to bring the budget back in line.

Mount Royal University political scientist Keith Brownsey said Redford needed to make a case for a fiscal crisis in her televised speech. She did that in a reasoned, effective manner, he said.

Such a statement was needed, he said, because Albertans thought financial problems were something that were a thing of the past because of its resource wealth.

“I think she prepped us for both cuts and tax increases,” Brownsey said. “Now, she may not have said that today, she may have said, ‘No taxes,’ but the current revenue structure in the province is unsustainable. We cannot exist as a modern industrial state living off of revenues from non-renewable natural resources. It’s simply too volatile.”

The truth is that Alberta spends money like no other province in the confederation. Even during the Klein crisis, they spent more money than everyone else. People talk of the deep cuts he made but ignore the fact that in Saskatchewan, the NDP made even deeper cuts (and had to raise taxes). Whatever the solution is that it should be a combination of taxes and spending cuts and it is going to take a bit of time.

I have no doubt that Redford is serious about making cuts (and who knows, she may even raise taxes) but when the oil prices go up, will they stay the course and remake the economy, especially when the opposition will be calling for restored spending and tax cuts (it’s always going to be like that). I really hope she sticks with it because the oil and natural gas won’t be there forever. I know the oil sands are a massive reserve but not all of that is recoverable and there is a point where it gets more too expensive to go after it.

If her hero Peter Lougheed brought in Alberta 2.0, then Alison Redford will need to be the one to bring in Alberta 3.0. I hope it’s more than Devine era rhetoric.

Ryan Meili annouces for the NDP Leadership

Sep 15th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

3 comments

I am a couple of days late on this but in all fairness a) I was busy b) I was late posting about Cam Broten’s leadership campaign c) I am not a New Democrat but I thought I would post a link to Ryan Meili’s leadership website which is interesting in two ways. I am pretty sure he is the first leadership candidate in Canada to use a domain hack with http://www.ryanmei.li as his web address. If I was him I would use it as a point of attack on Broten and Weatherspoon; “How can they lead the NDP into the future when their domain names are from the past?!” And that folks is why leadership candidates don’t ask for my advice no matter which party that represent.

Ryan Meili’s logo looked familiar to me and it took me a couple of days to figure out where I had seen it before.

After seeing what this logo has done for the Saskatchewan Liberal Party, I may have gone in a different direction.

I was pleased to see Ryan jump into the race with Cam and Trent Weatherspoon. Ryan has been a powerful advocate on social justice issues and has seen the failures of the system first hand. I think his contribution to the race will be significant. Like I said before, I don’t know what the NDP are looking for in a leader but I think having strong candidates are good for the province. Yes there is prosperity but there are also problems. Hopefully we will discover some answers as a province through the debates and process to find a new leader.

As for the videos, Ryan doesn’t have a campaign video yet but when he does, I’ll post them here.

Cam Broten for NDP Leader

Sep 8th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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The NDP leadership race is underway with Cam Broten announcing his candidacy. Along with his candidacy he launched a video about why he is running.

Cam is my local MLA and has become friends with the entire family. He has become a regular fixture at The Lighthouse and has been the MLA that I refer people to when they have problems. I don’t know what makes a great NDP leader but Cam has been a great MLA, an excellent advocate on a variety of issues, and has a compelling vision for Saskatchewan. I don’t know if he will win (I have never been able to figure out NDP leadership conventions) but I am glad he is running.

A vision for Canada

Jun 23rd, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Speaking of Liberals, here is a video of Ignatieff that I really enjoyed back in the day.

Too bad that the vision in the video never was able to get into the public consciousness. Whether that Ignatieff or the Liberal Party’s fault, we all know the results. Speaking of political videos, let me remind you of this video by Brian Topp.

Of course the right can put out some spectacular videos as well. This one comes from the Saskatchewan Party.

So much for the Dutch Disease comments hurting the NDP in Saskatchewan

Jun 23rd, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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According to this Ipscos/Reid poll, the NDP are only two points behind the Conservatives.

Among the regional findings:

In Ontario, the NDP (40%) is ahead, followed by the Conservatives (34%) while the Liberals are securely in third place (22%), followed by the Green party (4%).

In Quebec, the NDP (40%) continues to dominate, followed by the Bloc (26%), while the Tories (18%) and Liberals (15%) struggle to compete.

In Alberta, the Tories (67%) are well ahead, and are trailed by the NDP (24%), while the Liberals (5%) and Greens (5%) are at the bottom.

In B.C., the Tories (37%) are competing with the NDP (35%), while the Liberals are in third, (21%) and the Greens are last (7%).

In Saskatchewan/Manitoba, the Tories are first (45%), while the NDP (43%) run a close second, and the Liberals (10%) run third. The Greens are last (2%).

In Atlantic Canada, the NDP (38%) are in front, followed by the Liberals (30%), the Tories (26%) and the Greens (6%).

For the survey, a randomly selected sample of 1,099 adult Canadians was interviewed online throughout the Ipsos online panel. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Before someone jumps all over me because it was an online poll… I am not saying it’s an election result, I am just saying it is interesting.

At least Mulcair is consistent

May 27th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

2 comments

He runs his personal finances the same way he would run the country’s

New Democratic Party leader Tom Mulcair and his wife have repeatedly refinanced their home west of Montreal, gradually increasing the debt on the property over a series of 11 mortgages, land records show.

Mulcair’s office will not explain why the couple have loaded more and more financing onto the West Island home they’ve lived in since the early 1980s, saying only that it’s a “private matter.”

It is unclear why Mulcair would need to refinance the modest two-garage home in Beaconsfield so many times, bumping the value of the mortgage from $58,000 to $300,000.

Before he became leader, Mulcair enjoyed a successful and well-paid career as a government lawyer and, later, a cabinet minister in the Quebec National Assembly. His wife, Catherine Pinhas, is a psychologist practicing in Montreal. Both their children are now adults with jobs — one is a police officer, the other an engineer.

Mulcair was hit with a judgment from a defamation case in 2005 after he accused former Parti Québécois minister Yves Duhaime of influence peddling. He was ordered to pay Duhaime $95,000, plus legal costs.

He left provincial politics in 2007 and ran for the NDP in a byelection later that year. Even then, he stood to collect on a pension from his years as an MNA. When he was elected that fall, he began earning an MP’s salary that was then set at $150,800.

But in January 2009, he and Pinhas financed the home for the 11th time. They took out a $300,000 mortgage with the Royal Bank of Canada and then paid off the previous $249,000 mortgage from three years earlier.

Then again, he is scraping by on about $225,000 a year so who can blame him.

Of course the other problem with this story is that is a four car garage on his house. Umm, so much for being lectured by Thomas Mulcair on the environment. It’s a do as I say, not as I do kind of thing I guess. Maybe he has to re-mortgage so often to put gas in his cars.

For street people of all ages, mental health a critical issue

Feb 19th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

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From the Montreal Gazette

Dans la rue’s six counsellors and two staff psychologists do what they can to help young people who are hurting. For some that’s not enough.

“We have some cases that are scary,” said Tchitacov. “The person is going to hang themselves or they are going to kill somebody. They are completely disconnected. So we go to a judge and get (a temporary committal order).”

In most cases, within 48 hours, those kids are back on the streets.

That happens in Saskatchewan but often times the order is ignored by an emergency room doctor and the patient never even sees a psychiatrist. I have seen people sent to RUH on orders only to have them back in 40 minutes because they “presented well”.

“We’ve had people at crisis centres ask my staff, ‘Well, how serious is the crisis?’ You stop and say, ‘What do you mean? Are you a crisis centre? Your mandate is to help people in crisis. Are there degrees of crisis?’ ”

Still, Tchitacov understands their motivation.

“Everybody is scared. Everybody is so overwhelmed that they are reluctant to open their doors to more difficult cases. They know this is going to be a handful, and they try to find ways not to take it in,” he said.

“Imagine the poor kid. It’s a whole other thing to get somebody to the stage of actually coming to you and saying I need help now. You start working like the devil on the phone and you aren’t getting anywhere.”

There are some encouraging signs attitudes and access to programs are changing. Corbin is Dans la rue’s delegate to the Learning Community, a national coalition seeking ways to raise public awareness and break down the stigmas associated with mental illness. And she said the centre for street youth will soon begin a welcome partnership with the psychiatry department at Notre Dame hospital to assist young people experiencing their first psychosis.

But Corbin said there’s another big challenge: getting young people, especially the males who make up 60 per cent of Dans la rue’s clientele, to admit they may need help.

“There’s the whole machismo thing. ‘I’m the one that’s in charge.’ … The whole invincibility of life comes crashing down and you don’t know what to do anymore. So you end up in panic mode,” Corbin said.

“It is hard to break the taboo of a mental illness and see it as an illness and not as a weakness. Someone has a broken leg, you go and get it treated. Well, if you have depression or anxiety or schizophrenia, you go and get it treated.”

It’s difficult enough for many adults to face up to mental illness.

“Add to that the whole ‘I have to be strong’ and all the rest of it when you are young,” she said.

In Saskatoon you have the race aspect as well. I have listened to more than one mental health professional tell me that those who are aboriginal and from the west side of Saskatoon get far worse mental health care than those that are white and from the suburbs. It’s really frustrating because there isn’t anything we can do about it.

I have listened to members on both sides of the Legislative Assembly admit to the problems in the mental health system in Saskatchewan. While there has been progress (and mistakes) made by both the NDP and now the Saskatchewan Party, there is a long way to go. If there was one bit of advice that I could give Premier Brad Wall and the future NDP leader, it would be to form a bi-partisan committee to fix and monitor mental healthcare in Saskatchewan. Take it out of the realm of partisan politics and just fix it. They are Saskatchewan’s most vulnerable people, they use up a lot of the health budget, use a disproportionate amount of resources for housing and social services but it is also something that as a province we can fix.

The flipside of it is that if we don’t do something about it, it becomes a problem that can grow out of hand as other jurisdictions have experienced.

Maybe we aren’t that angry after all

Feb 7th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Chris Selley in the National Post

Your results may vary, of course. Earlier in January, Ekos tagged Mr. Harper with a whopping 59% disapproval rating, against 34% approval — so, a -25% approval deficit. (Bob Rae, by comparison, had 44% approval against 24% disapproval.) That sounds bad. But in September 2010, the last time Ekos asked after the leaders’ reputations, it found Mr. Harper had a -20% approval deficit. And only 32% support. And then he went on and won a majority.

After nearly a decade of fearmongering, the Conservatives just keep gaining votes. The Opposition has been in disarray, certainly, but that’s precisely the point: People can see that Mr. Harper’s actions simply do not conform to the malevolent top-line items on his purported agenda. It’s far from clear to me, therefore, that it’s wise to keep insisting that agenda exists. As Chantal Hébert recently argued, the opposition parties’ screeching about Old Age Security may well make the modest reforms the government eventually proposes more palatable.

If Mr. Harper does indeed transform Canada into “Dickens’ London,” as Mr. Caplan puts it, then his party will presumably go down in flames in 2015. Certainly, there will be voter fatigue. Never mind the Conservatives’ serial murder of their own openness-and-accountability promises. This is an ostensibly pro-free-speech government that, on Monday, denied Green Party leader Elizabeth May leave to speak on the legacy of Vaclav Havel. These people are just as hardwired for eventual self-destruction as the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives before them.

But you know what? I have this weird feeling that Canada in 2015 is going to be pretty much the same place as it is now. And that Mr. Harper’s would-be successors — not least the relentlessly Harper-bashing NDP leadership candidates — are going to have to go out and win this on their own merits, not just on Mr. Harper’s demerits. If you’re wondering why Canadians aren’t rising up in furious protest, it’s at least worth considering that, despite your very best efforts, they are simply not as angry as you assumed they were.

The State of the Debate on Housing Right Now in Saskatchewan

Jan 25th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

1 comment

This comes from a December 14, 2011 Question Period in the Legislature. Direct from Hansard

Ms. Chartier

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Social Services has been housing many people in hotels like the Coachman, the Sunrise and the Quality Inn in Regina. There’s been one man who’s had to call the Coachman home for seven months, Mr. Speaker. He was housed in the Coachman for seven months at approximately $2,676 a month, or about $90 a day. He asked for an increase in his shelter allowance and was denied. The government has made the choice to house people in hotels rather than work with them to find affordable and appropriate housing.

To the minister: why is this government choosing to pay huge hotel bills instead of addressing inadequate shelter allowances?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know specifically the case the member is talking about. But I can tell you that we have raised emergency shelter rates by 85 per cent, and we’ve increased the number of spaces by 130 since we became government. Mr. Speaker, we have new spaces in Saskatoon in the Salvation Army Mumford House. And we know that there is more work to be done in this area, Mr. Speaker. And we also know that our hotel usage has decreased considerably in the last year. In February 2010, we were using an average of 427 rooms a night, and last year it was 30.

Mr. Speaker, we know there’s more work to be done to ensure that people have a safe place to go in the evenings and at night. But we also know that every individual, their cases are looked at to find out why they are still in a hotel, and there’s always answers and reasons behind that.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Riversdale.

Ms. Chartier

Mr. Speaker, being housed in a hotel for seven months isn’t emergency shelter and it becomes someone’s home. And a hotel is not a home, Mr. Speaker.

We heard yesterday that Regina has the lowest vacancy rate in Canada, point six per cent. The average one-bedroom apartment in Regina costs $790 a month. Shelter allowance for a single, unemployable person is $459. Even if someone is eligible for the maximum rental supplement over and above this, this still puts them below the average one bedroom, if they can even find one, Mr. Speaker. While the core issue certainly is a lack of affordable rental units, the immediate issue is inadequate shelter allowances.

To the minister: both people, renters and taxpayers, are paying for the failure to address people’s pressing housing needs. When will the minister recognize shelter allowances fail to match the reality of today’s tight rental market?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, we know that the vacancy rates right now are about the same as they were last year at this time. And we know that there’s an increase in the number of people in this province, so we are managing to keep up or get ahead of that pace.

But, Mr. Speaker, we do know that there are people that are in shelters right now and there’s more work to be done. Some of the work that we’ve done in the last while is making sure that we have more affordable units on the market, more people that are buying into the idea of having the rental incentive program and affordable housing program. Right now we have 960 units that have been built since we became government; another 950 are on the way. Places like Regina have got applications for 900 rental incentive units.

Mr. Speaker, there’s more work to be done. We know that, but we feel confident that working with the communities and the developers right around the province, we can address this issue that is part of one of the great parts of about a booming province.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Riversdale.

Ms. Chartier

Just to recap, Mr. Speaker, so the vacancy rate is at point six per cent in Regina. The average one-bedroom apartment is $790 a month, shelter allowance for a single person is $459. Again, even if someone is eligible for the maximum rental supplement, this still puts him or her — their total housing allowance — $69 below the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment, if they can even find one.

The additional money that people pay to have a decent apartment comes out of their very limited living allowance, which means less food on the table or having to choose which prescription to fill.

To the minister: taking everything into account — the low vacancy rate, the fact that the shelter allowances are not enough — is she prepared to immediately increase the shelter allowances so people can find adequate and affordable housing now?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, knowing that people are living in a hotel or in a shelter isn’t something that anybody wants to hear about. But doing this is not something that happened because we became government. The same thing was happening under the NDP. The only difference is we increased the amount of money that we’ve given to people in shelters. We’ve increased the amount of shelter spaces there are, and we’re working on making sure that there are more units for people.

Mr. Speaker, we know that we can’t do those alone, and that’s why we have about 200 non-government organizations that are working with us to ensure that we have places, and not only is it a home but a support for people. Mr. Speaker, the community-based organizations are working with our government, and together we’re going to make a difference to everyone in this province.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Riversdale.

Ms. Chartier

Mr. Speaker, the government is currently paying for people to live in hotels. It costs about four times as much as they are willing to spend on shelter allowances. To the minister: she gave us some numbers, but how much is it costing us to house our citizens in hotels?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, I know that the member opposite cares about this issue, as do all of us on this side of the House. That’s why we’re working extremely hard. That’s why we’ve got 5,700 units that are being prepared to be constructed in the next while. That’s why we’ve invested $309 million in housing.

Mr. Speaker, the vacancy rate that was talked about yesterday, there’s another part of it that makes everybody understand that there is work being done. They’re saying, "On the bright side," and I’m quoting from the Leader-Post today:

On the bright side, we’re seeing the market respond. On the condominium side, we’ve seen a two-fold increase (from 2010). We’ve also noticed an increase in rental-designated starts, not just in Regina but right across Saskatchewan.

That’s close to 3,000 multi-unit buildings we’ve built in this province, a 44 per cent increase from last year.

Mr. Speaker, we know that the shelter rates are something that have to be addressed, but in the long run we ought to make sure that there are affordable units for people, that there are places for people to go at night and to look at their individual needs. Mr. Speaker, we will continue to work with the people in the province to make sure they’re pleased to call Saskatchewan home.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Housing

Mr. Forbes

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the Minister of Housing was unable to provide a good explanation to reporters between the difference between social housing and affordable housing. To the minister: does she now understand the difference, and is she able to explain it?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Yes, Mr. Speaker, there’s a number of people in this province who know all about affordable units and social units, and I’m one of them.

Mr. Speaker, the affordable units are 90 per cent of the average market rent and social is geared to income. But, Mr. Speaker, 95 per cent of the seniors’ units in this province are social housing units, and these are the kind of units that didn’t see increases that were talked about yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, we are building more units. That’s a part of our goal as the government is to make sure that there are units for people in the province. And not only that, we’ve indexed them through the cost of inflation seven times since we became government. Mr. Speaker, there is more work to be done, but when it comes to housing, our government puts this challenge at the front.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Mr. Forbes

Mr. Speaker, to the hundreds if not thousands of people in affordable housing today, that’s cold comfort as they’re thinking about what to do. But here’s a quote from the minister’s scrum yesterday: "Right now we cannot have people staying in places that are below market value and just staying there."

To the minister: what is the purpose of affordable housing, if not to be below market value?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

We know that the affordable housing markets are 90 per cent of the average market rate. We know that. Social housing is geared to income.

But, Mr. Speaker, all of a sudden after being out of government for a number of years, the NDP now has a real concern about it. I wonder why they didn’t have a concern about it when they did not increase the benefits to seniors between 1992 and 2007, despite during that time having a 40 per cent increase in inflation. And the NDP did not increase shelter rates for 13 out of 16 of their years when they were in government, and at that time there was an inflation of over 30 per cent.

Mr. Speaker, during that time when they were in government it didn’t look important to them to increase the shelter rates. Mr. Speaker, we know as government we have to increase them. We did it seven times in the last four years. There’s more work to be done, and it’s something that’s part of our policy as government. I assure you, Mr. Speaker, this issue is very important to us.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Mr. Forbes

Well, Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Housing was not only confused about social housing and affordable housing, she was also very confused about who’s eligible for the rental supplement. Today I ask the minister does she now understand the difference about who is eligible and who’s not? Can she explain this to the House?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, I’ve explained to the member opposite a number of times, and I’ll say it again. With social housing, the rent is geared to income and affordable housing, it’s 90 per cent of the average market rent. Mr. Speaker, that is the premise we’ve been working on. It hasn’t changed since they’ve become government. And we know that there are a number of units, like 10,500 senior units in this province that are under social housing. The rest of them are under affordable housing.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to affordability and what we are doing as government, we have decreased the number of people that are paying taxes by 114,000. We’ve decreased the debt. We’ve put money back into the pockets of people. Mr. Speaker, single, low-income seniors in our province right now have saved $1,200 per year in their pockets because of the taxes and the benefit changes. And if you’re a couple, it’s $2,000 per year. Mr. Speaker, there’s more work to be done. I know there is. But, Mr. Speaker, this is the work that we’re doing at this time.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Mr. Forbes

Mr. Speaker, my question was specifically about the rent supplement and who is eligible for the rent supplement. Would she please answer the question

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

People that are eligible for the rent supplement are families, Mr. Speaker, or people with a disability are eligible for our rental housing supplement. I think the member opposite should know that. We have about 5,900 people right now that are benefitting from the supplement, and it’s something that we look at and we index. It wasn’t done under the previous government, and it’s the type of thing that we continue to look at. It’s an important part of our budgetary process as we go ahead.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Mr. Forbes

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in the media scrum, the Minister of Housing was asked what is the advantage of Sask Housing if rents are going to simply keep pace with the market. The minister responded with this, and I quote: "Because there are still some that are going to be able to have the supplements as well."

To the minister: is it really her view that the advantage of Sask Housing, that people there can live there, can still receive supplements?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, I think again that the member opposite knows that in certain circumstances the rental supplements are available to people, Sask Housing tenants. For example, a single mother whose income fluctuates is often eligible for a top-up from both the rental supplement program and from the Saskatchewan employment supplement. Our income assistance divisions and housing authorities work together on these issues.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the members opposite would like to just talk about what happened yesterday. I’d like to talk about what their concern was a number of years ago when we had people who were living in homes that were not kept up. There was no investment into the affordable housing. In fact the last year that they were government, they built 58 units. In the first four years we were in government, we built 968 units, Mr. Speaker. Let’s talk about who cares about people who are needing help from our government.

[14:15]

: —

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Mr. Forbes

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. We’re very proud of the fact that we introduced the rent supplement. But the issue today is about the rents are increasing in Sask Housing. The tenants are very upset, so that’s where we’re focusing on this issue today. And that minister should be aware of it and not be talking about last year or the year before, or in the out years.

I just want to ask her a question though. The minister repeated several times yesterday that if the rent in the government’s affordable housing units is not close to rent in the private market, there would be no incentive for people to move out. To the minister: has she changed the mandate of Sask Housing, or is it still to provide safe and secure housing to those who cannot afford other options?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, the policies that we have in Sask Housing are ones that are always being reviewed because we’ve got to make sure that the homes we own as government, that the people of this province own, are geared to people who most need them, Mr. Speaker. And you know, what we are doing at the same time is making sure that people have more money in their pockets and making sure that people are in those housing units that belong to the government, if they have an opportunity to move forward because they’ve earned more money, let’s look at it, Mr. Speaker.

But at the same time, Mr. Speaker, I would think the members opposite should be pleased that our province is going ahead, that there are more people that are off the income tax rolls, that there are more people working, that our unemployment rate is one of the lowest in Canada. And together we are making sure that Saskatchewan is going ahead.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Mr. Forbes

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday the minister was asked the following question, and I quote, "Where would you find a better deal than social housing?" Her answer was this: "Well if we raise the rents and the rent is higher than you can get in the private market, they probably would move out."

To the minister: is that the Sask Party’s plan, to raise rent in affordable housing units so it is higher than the rent in the private market?

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know whether the member opposite is running out of questions or what he’s doing because right now what we’re talking about is making sure that it stays 90 per cent of the average rent. Mr. Speaker, that hasn’t changed.

But we also do know that there is more work to be done in this area. Mr. Speaker, we’re building affordable units, not just in Saskatoon and Regina and Prince Albert but right across the province. In fact our five point housing strategy talks about involving community partners, involving developers, involving builders, and making sure that right across a growing province there are units for people to be living in.

Mr. Speaker, I know the members opposite are focusing on affordability because they don’t believe that there’s a bright future in this province. In fact they probably are the only nine people left in the province who don’t because the rest of them are on this side of the House.

The Speaker

I recognize the member for Saskatoon Centre.

Mr. Forbes

Mr. Speaker, of course we’re focusing on affordability, and it is the right thing to do. People are talking about that right across the province. So forgive us if we’re doing our job asking about affordable issues.

Well, Mr. Speaker, it was abundantly clear that as of yesterday the Minister of Housing had no understanding about the purpose of Sask Housing’s affordable housing units and when she chose to increase the rents. To the minister: now that she’s got her head around this, about what affordable housing’s supposed to be, will she do the right thing and cancel the rent increases? Thank you.

The Speaker

I recognize the Minister of Social Services.

Hon. Ms. Draude

Mr. Speaker, out of the 10,500 senior units that are operated by Sask Housing, these are the social housing. None of these units are subject to increase. Out of the remaining, which is 3 per cent of the seniors’ units, they have an increase to their affordable housing. We’ve looked at why, what we can to do to make sure that it’s affordable. And, Mr. Speaker, I’ve told the member opposite that there’s another $1,200 in the pockets of single seniors and there’s $2,000 more in the pockets of couples. Mr. Speaker, the members opposite didn’t look at this issue when they were in government because they didn’t increase seniors’ income benefits between 1992 and 2007.

Mr. Speaker, what is it . . . the people that they have right now, their seniors are important to the people of this province, and making sure that we have double the seniors, the number of people on seniors’ income plan. And after this year’s election three times increased, they have tripled the amount of people under the seniors’ income plan, Mr. Speaker, three times of the amount of money under those people.

To be honest, I wasn’t really all that thrilled with either side of the debate which may be partly the nature of Question Period but still it gives you an idea of where the Saskatchewan Party and the NDP stand in the area of housing.