Senator Martin: I would appreciate your responses to my specific questions regarding the rent supplement program.

The Veterans Emergency Fund provides financial help to veterans experiencing a crisis. A briefing note produced in March for the Veterans Affairs minister states:

Every year since the program started in April 2018, the demand for the Veterans Emergency Fund has been more than the $1 million dollars of annual funding.

As this program has been underfunded every single year since it began, are Canada’s veterans still asking for more than the government can give, as Prime Minister Trudeau said once before?

Hon. Yonah Martin (Deputy Leader of the Opposition): Government leader, my question concerns two federal programs aimed at helping homeless veterans. In 2021, your government promised $45 million for a two-year pilot project to reduce homelessness among veterans through such measures as rent supplements. Rent is now the highest it has ever been in Canada, at an average of $2,149 in September according to the Rentals.ca National Rent Report. Your new program was finally launched in April of this year and accepted applications for eight weeks.

Government leader, has any of this funding been allocated? Have any veterans been helped under this program? Why did it take so long to get it up and running when rent has doubled in the meantime?