The last Girard budget had the effect of a slap in the face for all those who demanded a strong revival of the construction of social and affordable housing or who demanded, more generally, responses to the housing crisis.
In his latest opus, Eric Girard has planned the construction of 1,500 new affordable housing units over the next five years. One can wonder if it is not an appetizer. During the election campaign, the Coalition avenir Québec had promised to build 11,700 in four years. During its first mandate, the Legault government undertook to deliver the 15,000 social housing units left unfinished by the Couillard government. Of this number, there are still 6570 to be brought out of the ground.
In this regard, the budget allocates sums this year to carry out the construction of 3,300 of these housing units from AccèsLogis, a program that the CAQ government has abolished to replace it with the Affordable Housing Program of Quebec (PHAQ). What about the other 3,270 housing units whose financing is still not completed? Mystery and gumdrop.
The mayor of Quebec, Bruno Marchand, was waiting for confirmation of funding for 500 affordable housing units per year in his city alone. It is off the mark. The Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, expressed her deep disappointment, especially since François Legault pointed the finger at the Montreal administration for the undue delays in the realization of the projects.
The Prime Minister is not wrong, but the main cause of the delays affecting the AccèsLogis program is that the financing scales did not take into account the inflation affecting housing construction in particular, which forced the promoters in the community to glean money here and there, which takes time, or even to suspend their projects. Who wants to drown his dog accuses him of rabies.
It is true that Montreal and its municipal housing office are not without blemish. When we know that after more than a decade, the Montreal administration has not been able to develop a vast piece of land that it owns, design a living and diversified neighborhood there, that is to say the land of the former Blue Bonnets Racecourse, and in light of Griffintown’s error, the City of Montreal cannot be said to be a model of vision and efficiency. Moreover, the City has just announced the creation of an “action plan”, in the form of pilot projects, in order to simplify the administrative processes that delay real estate projects. Fault confessed is half redressed.
The housing crisis is not only affecting the poorest households, but is now spreading to young middle-class families. In an interview with Radio-Canada, the Minister of Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, did not have the audacity, like her predecessor, Andrée Laforest, to deny that such a crisis was raging. But, a philosopher, she replied with detachment: “Over a ten-year horizon, the shortage will be reduced. “She still promised to present” other strategies “. We hope so, because for the time being, the CAQ government is running out of solutions.