PHAQ is not the only affordable housing program, argues Duranceau

Photo: Jacques Boissinot The Canadian Press Housing Minister France-Élaine Duranceau in Quebec City on Tuesday

Isabelle Porter in Quebec City

Published at 16:32

• Quebec City

The Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ), which is facing new delivery delays, is not the only program the government is relying on, argues Housing Minister France-Élaine Duranceau. “We have given ourselves the tools to do much more than with a single program,” she said Tuesday in the National Assembly.

Le Devoir revealed this morning that only six of the 130 housing units that were supposed to be ready by the end of September under the PHAQ had been delivered. These revelations have sparked the ire of the opposition parties.

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“In the last budget, the CAQ promised Quebecers to deliver 20,000 PHAQ housing units,” thundered Solidarity MP Andrés Fontecilla during question period. “At the rate the minister is going, the CAQ will keep its promise by the turn of the next millennium!”

Earlier, interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay said the government was “not capable of delivering” on housing and that “the minister was talking through her hat.” He was referring to comments by Ms. Duranceau, who had previously said she expected “a very good number of units to be added to the PHAQ unit balance sheet by the end of the summer.”

“The CAQ has made us lose two years,” responded PQ MNA Joël Arseneau.

Launched two and a half years ago, the PHAQ was created by the CAQ government to accelerate the construction of social housing to replace the AccèsLogis program.

“Partnerships”

On Tuesday, Duranceau sought to be reassuring. “There is no money sitting around in the system that is not being used. […] We will deliver the units,” she said before emphasizing that the PHAQ was not the only program at her disposal to build affordable housing. “The PHAQ is one of the programs. And we continue to innovate with several partnerships.”

By “partnerships,” the minister was referring to different channels: tax-advantaged funds, the fast track for developers and the Unitaînés initiative, in particular

The tax-advantaged funds take the form of agreements with Desjardins, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ or Fondaction. Launched in 2022, they have made it possible to finance more than 5,000 units, of which 1,594 have been delivered, according to the Société d’habitation du Québec dashboard. The government has also entrusted the construction of 1,000 affordable housing units for seniors to the Unitaînés project proposed by businessman Luc Maurice.

And more recently, Ms. Duranceau announced the creation of a new “fast track” allowing her to enter into agreements with large private developers to build affordable housing. A first agreement with the Société de développement Angus was concluded at the end of August to build a thousand units.