Who's on board with the Liberals' $29B plan to end homelessness?

Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this Sunday morning. The Liberal government unveiled its new budget this past Thursday, the second introduced under Mark Carney's government. The budget includes a plan to eliminate homelessness in Canada. And that's exactly what we're proposing to do in Budget 2026, to help set Canada on a path to end homelessness over the next decade. To get there... We are investing an unprecedented $30 billion in a coordinated national plan. That plan includes $11 billion over the next four years and another 17, more than 18, almost 18 actually, in future years, which the government says will go towards creating stable housing, treatment facilities and prevention programs. Winnipeg is set to receive $1 billion in funding as part of the plan. That's where the Prime Minister was making those comments. That will go towards building 2,000 housing units and a treatment centre for mental health and addictions. That's city's mayor. Scott Gillingham joins me now, alongside the mayor of Quebec City, Bruno Marchand. And I've lived in both of your cities, so thank you both so much for joining me. I appreciate it this morning, mayors. You're welcome. Mayor Gillingham, I'm going to start with you because you were part of that announcement on Friday where we learned that Winnipeg is going to receive a billion dollars in funding. Give me a sense of what kind of impact that will have on dealing with homelessness in Winnipeg. Well, it's an unprecedented investment. It's historic, really, in its scale. You know, we... The city of Winnipeg has been working well with the province of Manitoba on the province's Your Way Home strategy. But the choke point, Rosemary, consistently is that we do things. We don't have enough housing. We don't have a center for mental health and addiction. And the prime minister's announcement. Do you have a sense, Mayor Gillingham, of how many people are unhoused in Winnipeg? Well, the staff vary, but we know that there's over 2,000 people right now that are either unhoused or on the verge of being homeless. Perhaps they're couchsurfing or they're really unstably housed. We know at the last count, it's over 2,000 people. Okay, so this promise could solve this situation for you, and I want to talk to you both about whether you think this is possible, but Mayor Marchand, maybe you can give us a sense of what Quebec City is dealing with, because you have responded really positively to this announcement. What is the situation in your city? First of all, it is an unprecedented announcement. Nobody in the recent history, as politicians, had, like Mr. Carney, the courage to make an ambitious goal out of homelessness. This is totally unprecedented. People think that political willingness is not that important. It is important. And Scott knows that as a mayor, as a prime minister, when you set the target, when you set the goal, everyone beyond is working toward that goal. If you don't have goals, you're putting in place means, but you don't care about the numbers. When we are talking about homelessness, we do care about numbers, In Quebec City we have over a thousand of people that are living in the streets and we know for, I would say, what we do with agencies, we know that it is possible to make them in an apartment and it works. We know that for some program that we have we do obtain 85, 90, 95 percent of stability, To the people we're working with. So it's not a fatality, Homelessness is not a fatality. It's not something that does exist and that will still exist in 10 and 20 years. But we need leaders like Mike Carney. We need those leaders to say, we're going to set the goals. And in Canada, it's no more an option. It's no more acceptable. Yeah. And part of the The challenge here with this promise, though, is getting provinces to commit funding and getting them on board. It happened in Manitoba, but not sure if it's going to happen in Quebec. Obviously, the Quebec premier is very committed to dealing with homelessness, but the finance minister there has already responded in saying... Great, give us the money, but we don't want strings attached. How likely do you think it is that there will be a deal here for Quebec so that you can actually tap into some of this funding? You're right, Rosemary. In the previous deal between Ottawa and Quebec, sometimes it took 18, 24 months before seeing the money on the ground, which about homelessness would be a crime, totally would be a crime. We're dealing with people that are dying in the streets. So we don't have time. We don't have the luxury of time to think, oh, what is it about the constitutional issues we do negotiate? So I propose to both of them, please lock them in a room. Raise the temperature and we will give them food as soon as they will find a solution to bring the money as soon as possible because we're talking about lives. And it's no more time to negotiate. It's time to give result to citizens. It's time to take care of our people. That's what both prime minister wants. There's no reason, no reason at all to take time about that. Mayor Gillingham, the Winnipeg police said earlier this week that this is a good start, but obviously this is a very complex issue. You talked about how there's also going to be a center for mental health and drug treatment. Part of what cities are dealing with is a toxic drug crisis, right? So it becomes, I think, it's a nice idea just to give people a place to live, but if they're also dealing with serious addiction, how do you see those two things working together? Well, it's essential. Having that Centre for Mental Health and Addiction, it's essential. You know, you can hear Mayor Marchand, he and I and every other mayor across Canada, we're part of the big city mayors caucus, the larger cities, and we all have the same issue. And it's really falling on mayors and cities. The people of our community are looking at us to say, you know, solve this, fix this. But to the point is we, you know, we don't deal with mental health or addiction. And so having a center for mental health and addiction is critical because, you know, our paramedics who are run off their feet in Winnipeg are picking up individuals in the midst of overdose, taking them to an emergency room. And I'll use the word clogging up our emergency rooms because that's really not what they need. They need a place that treats their addiction. They need a place that treats their mental health. And so the Prime Minister's announcement, which I'm so grateful for... Which includes a Centre for Mental Health and Addiction is really essential. How quickly, Mayor Gillingham, do you think these units will get built? Because as you said, this isn't going to happen overnight, all these different components. But what is the timeline for your city? Well, as soon as possible. I think one of the reasons that, frankly, the Prime Minister came to Winnipeg, and you kind of asked Mayor Marchand about it, is that Winnipeg and the province of Manitoba, the private sector and indigenous governments and the federal government, we've been aligned for a couple of years now. So the city last year identified city properties that we are partnering with the province of Manitoba already to establish transitional housing. So our systems are in place. We're already making progress. This announcement will really help us to kind of just to expedite all this work. Mayor Marchand, talk to me about the complexity of the problem, though, as we said. In Winnipeg, they've paired this with this mental health and addiction center. Would you need that kind of support in Quebec City as well, given how much of this is driven by the toxic drug crisis? Of course. Yeah, of course. But, you know, let's not do complexity too much. We need a lot of things. Homelessness is a very complex problem. but when we look at Countries that have done great works, for example, Finland. What they did is a political willingness clearly set. We need to reach that zero level. We have that now in Canada. Second of all, we need data. What are the data? Where are they going? Are we doing the right thing or not? We need annual data to see if we're doing the right thing. And third of all, we need to take out, I would say, visible homelessness. We need to take them in apartments and take care of them. Yeah, but first of all, take... ...them out of the streets. This is the first quick wins we need to have. That's what Finland have done. It's not... The only things we should do, this is the first three things we should do to give results to those people that are suffering, to those families, but also to our agencies that are totally, I would say, out of resources to deal with the problem that is going up. And also for citizens, neighbors that live around, which they are not able to deal with it anymore because homelessness has went up. So that's why we need to do those three things. And it will help, I would say, Canada's cities a lot. So, Mayor Marchand, you clearly think that this is possible, eliminating homelessness in a decade. Of course. And you know what? People are asking us, oh, is the prime minister too ambitious? Will it be 10 years? It's a good question. But the problem is, we didn't have ever before a goal. So, for example, if it takes 12 years, will it be a crime? No, because for the first time in the recent years, we're going to see the numbers going down. We're going to take care of our people, of our people living in the streets, but also to neighbors, to people that are selling goods in those streets that are dealing with that pain, but also dealing with that effect on their, I would say, properties. Properties. So I think it's possible, but for now, let's do it, and let's do it fast. If at the end it takes 12 or 15 years, it won't be a crime, not at all. Thank you both so much. This is obviously an issue that cities are dealing with and challenged with first and foremost. So very nice of you both to make the time this morning. Scott Gillingham and Bruno Marchand, Mayor of Winnipeg and Quebec City, respectively. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you.