(Oct. 27, 2010) More than 450 poorly housed and homeless people have expressed their anger towards the economic choices of the Stephen Harper’s Conservative Government by blocking a building of Canada Air Force, at 400 Cumberland Street, in Ottawa.  FRAPRU, a Quebec coalition of grassroots housing committees, is protesting against the decision to reduce by one billion dollars a year the funds dedicated to the construction and renovation of social housing across Canada. The fact that at the same time the Harper government has awarded, without a competing call for tenders, a contract of nine billion dollars to the American company Lockheed Martin for the purchase of 65 F-35 fighter jets, as well as up to seven billion dollars for their maintenance does not sit well with FRAPRU.

The coordinator of the organization, François Saillant is scandalized. ‘‘For the cost and maintenance of just one F-35 fighter jet, the government could subsidize up to 3,500 social housing units. This tells us a lot about the priorities of the Harper government, which is ready to grease the palms of the arms industry while withdrawing the crumbs it gives in assistance to the homeless, to the poorly housed, to First Nations and northern communities, as well as to all low-income tenants currently living in social housing.’’ Saillant underlines the fact that in 2011-2012, the budget of the Department of National Defence will approach 22 billion dollars a year, 11 times the budget allocated for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has confirmed several times during the past few weeks that, starting on April 1st 2011, these economic stimulus measures, including investment in social housing, announced in 2009 will come to an end. The provinces will receive 250 million dollars less per year for the construction of new social housing, and 500 million dollars less per year for the renovation of existing social housing units. First Nations communities will be deprived of 200 million dollars a year in investment, and northern communities will lose another 100 million dollars per year.

FRAPRU is asking the Federal Government to maintain its investments over the past two years for the renovation of social housing units and to increase its investments for the construction of new social housing units by another two billion dollars a year. For François Saillant, ‘‘It is not as clear as the Harper government would have us believe that the economic crisis is behind us ; what is clear is that the housing crisis continues to strike very hard throughout Canada, including in Quebec.’’

According to the Federal Government’s own statistics 1,494,400 households had urgent housing needs in Canada in 2006, two years before the current economic crisis struck. This number does not include the 150,000 to 300,000 people who are estimated to be homeless across the country.

At 4:30 p.m. this afternoon, FRAPRU’s spokerperson will bring its message directly in the Parliament Building by presenting a brief to the Standing Committee on Finance during its Pre-Budget Consultations.