To fill the void created, according to him, by the Quebec Affordable Housing Program (PHAQ), Québec solidaire is proposing a housing “corvée”, which would rely primarily on state loans at “advantageous” interest rates.
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 terms of housing.
“They killed the program which, historically, developed social housing in Quebec [AccèsLogis] telling us that it wasn’t working and that it was taking too long. Two years later, the results of their program [PHAQ] which was supposed to solve all the problems, it’s zero,” he thundered in front of 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 still in operation. More than 1,440 units are “in development”.
“The proof is in the pudding. The program of the [Coalition avenir Québec] do not work. It’s a total failure, and we are in the middle of a housing crisis,” Mr. Nadeau-Dubois explained on Thursday, launching a “housing chore” with his co-spokesperson, Émilise Lessard-Therrien.
To accelerate construction starts, argues the left party, we must “relaunch public investments” in housing. Since its launch in February 2022, the PHAQ has opened the door to investments in projects led by the private sector. Desjardins is notably one of the groups that participated in previous calls for tenders for the program.
QS therefore relies on a proposal for “advantageous mortgage loans” 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. “All the details are not finalized this morning,” he said.
Asked to give more details on another of his proposals – that of “debureaucratizing” government housing programs – the QS housing spokesperson, Andrés Fontecilla, maintained that he wanted to see better support for the government’s share for promoters 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 “housing chore” of 1982 launched by the then president of the Quebec Federation of Workers, Louis Laberge. This led to the creation of more than 50,000 housing units.