QS offers a “chore” for housing

Photo: Ryan Remiorz The Canadian Press “The [Coalition Avenir Québec] program is not working. It’s a total failure, and we are in the middle of a housing crisis,” declared Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois on Thursday, launching a “housing chore” with his co-spokesperson, Émilise Lessard-Therrien.

François Carabin in Laval

January 25, 2024

• Quebec

To fill the void created according to him by the Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ), Québec solidaire (QS) is proposing a housing “corvée”, which would rely primarily on state loans at an “advantageous” interest rate.

At a press conference Thursday to close the pre-sessional caucus, the solidarity co-spokesperson, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, did not mince his words to describe the actions of the CAQ government in matters of housing .

“They killed the program which, historically, developed social housing in Quebec [AccèsLogis] by telling us that it wasn’t working and that it was too long. Two years later, the results of their program [PHAQ] which was supposed to solve all the problems, is zero,” he proclaimed to journalists.

According to the most up-to-date data from the Société d'habitation du Québec, 46 housing units financed by the PHAQ are “in progress” at present. None of them are yet in operation. More than 1440 are “in development”.

“The proof is in the pudding. The [Coalition Avenir Québec] program is not working. It’s a total failure, and we are in the middle of a housing crisis,” declared Mr. Nadeau-Dubois on Thursday, launching a “housing chore” with his co-spokesperson, Émilise Lessard-Therrien.< /p>

To accelerate construction starts, the left party argues, we must “relaunch public investment” in housing. Since its launch in February 2022, the PHAQ has opened the door to investments in private-led projects. Desjardins is one of the groups that participated in previous calls for tenders for the program.

QS therefore relies on a proposal for “advantageous mortgage loans” intended to “stimulate” housing construction. Asked about the details of this measure on Thursday, Mr. Nadeau-Dubois was unable to specify the value of any associated interest rates. “Not all the details are ironed out this morning,” he said.

Asked to give more details on another of his proposals — that of “debureaucratizing” government housing programs — QS housing spokesperson Andrés Fontecilla maintained that he wanted to see better support for promoters by the government at the start of the project financing process.

The third measure of the “solidarity housing chore” aims to offer tax credits for intergenerational homes. The three proposals are inspired by the Corvée-Habitation of 1982, launched by the president of the Quebec Federation of Workers at the time, Louis Laberge. This led to the creation of more than 50,000 housing units.