December 17, 1999

OTTAWA--Family Services and Housing Minister Tim Sale and Aboriginal and Northern Affairs Minister Eric Robinson said that today’s federal announcement on homelessness doesn’t really address the most pressing shelter concern for Manitoba--housing.

"We welcome initiatives to alleviate housing shortages in Winnipeg. And we are hopeful there may be an opportunity to support our own provincial plans to support inner-city housing, which we will be announcing very shortly. But equally important is the problem of crowded and insufficient housing in places like Shamattawa, Cross Lake and Pukatawagan," said Sale.

"I support anything that addresses major social problems in Canada, like homelessness," added Robinson. "However, I am disappointed that the federal government appears to be missing the mark in many parts of the country where the biggest problem with homelessness is not only in urban centres, but also in rural and Northern communities where you often see three families having to share a tiny house. By definition, two of those families are homeless."

The federal announcement of $735 million over three years is broken into three parts: a $305 million new "Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative", a $170 million increase to existing training programs, and a $268 million increase to Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program (RRAP) and related renovation programs.

"I understand that people who live in big cities like Toronto or Vancouver believe that having people living in the street is the most severe housing problem because that’s what they see everyday. But when people die in house fires due to overcrowding and bad housing stock in remote aboriginal communities, that’s at least an equally important housing crisis," said Robinson.

Sale--who was co-chairing meetings on the Social Union in Ottawa this week--said it was interesting that the announcement came as provincial and federal representatives were talking about how governments can better co-operate on social concerns.

"We got wind of this announcement only a few days ago. This is unfortunately not a good example of consultation and partnership between Ottawa and the provinces. And unlike the impression we were under, this announcement probably won’t go very far in addressing Manitoba’s shelter problems," said Sale.

He also noted that the new part of the announcement--the $305 million over three years "Supporting Communities Partnership Initiative" appears to require a 50 per cent contribution from the provinces. That is, Manitoba may have to pay half of whatever the province was allocated.

"In order for Canada’s social challenges--like housing and homelessness--to be addressed, all governments must work together in the design, planning and implementation of new Canada-wide social programs," said Sale. "Unilateral federal spending announcements like this one don’t get at many of the real housing issues in Manitoba."

Sale also reaffirmed Manitoba’s priority for the full restoration of the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST) by the federal government, which has been recently highlighted by the premiers and provincial finance ministers.

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