SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Lindsay Mathyssen

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the Subcommittee on Review of Parliament’s involvement with associations and recognized Interparliamentary groups Deputy House leader of the New Democratic Party
  • NDP
  • London—Fanshawe
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $131,911.16

  • Government Page
  • Nov/23/23 7:13:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am at a loss in terms of the ridiculousness of the answer to the previous question, saying that the government has no place in housing. That is why we are in this crisis in the first place. It is because government has stepped away from the business of building houses and has left it to the market when, ultimately, housing is a human right. We cannot live without it, and we therefore expect that a government has to take it into account. I have heard from home builders. They are doing wonderful things in our community, but they do not do it out of the goodness of their heart. They do it for a profit, and that cannot continue when people are left homeless and dying on our streets as winter comes forward. How can the member possibly defend his position?
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  • Oct/21/22 11:15:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, last week I had the honour of attending a groundbreaking ceremony at the largest affordable housing development in London’s history. Vision SoHo is a coalition of six non-profit affordable housing providers convened by the London Community Foundation, and they will build more than 650 units as a mixed-use community. This is needed more than ever in my community as Londoners are priced out of their neighbourhoods. In the last few years, the average home cost has more than doubled in London. Home ownership is now only a dream for too many. The city’s list of individuals using homelessness supports grew tenfold, and more than 6,000 people are now on our social housing wait-list. The financialization of housing in Canada has caused a crisis in my community, which of course started because the Liberal government cancelled the national affordable housing program in 1993. However, I want to thank my NDP colleagues for pushing for a study of this financialization in the HUMA committee. I call on the government to take the real action needed to make housing a right, not a commodity.
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