Oct.11 protest: Billions for housing, not for weapons!

FRAPRU demonstration in Ottawa

Demands:
·         an additional 2 billion $ per year for social housing
·         a guarantee for the protection of existing social housing
·         sufficient and ongoing assistance for the homeless

Date:              Thursday October 11^th 2007
Time :             1:30 P.M.,
Location:       66 Slater Street (corner of Elgin)
                 Canadian Armed Forces Recruiting Centre

The Harper Government :
Everything for the military
In a study published in May 2006, the Ottawa based Polaris Institute estimated
that from autumn 2001 to March 2006, the cost of military operations
directly related to the Canadian « mission » in Afghanistan reached 4.1 billion
$. The Institute predicted that the total cost would increase by at least 1
billion $ in 2006-2007, bringing the total cost to 5.1 billion $.

These expenditures brought on by the war in Afghanistan are responsible
for inflating the already humungous budget of the Ministry of National
Defense. In 2007-2008 these expenditures are expected to reach 17.8 billion $,
which represents an increase of 69 % since 1996-1997. The military budget
represents 8.5% of all federal program spending. As if this were not enough,
in June 2006, the Conservative Government of Stephen Harper announced
that it will spend 15 billion $ in the upcoming years for the acquisition of military
equipment.

Nothing for housing!
Meanwhile, the expenditures of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
(CMHC), the crown corporation responsible for housing assistance,
should be 1.98 billion $ in 2007-2008, which represents an increase of barely
0.6% since 1996-1997. The expenditures relating to housing assistance now
represent only 0.9 % of all federal program spending.

With the exception of the 800 million $ that it put in a trust account in
2006 for the funding of supposed affordable housing by the provinces, because
of a law adopted by the previous government, the Conservative Government
has not announced a single penny of funding for new social or even
affordable housing. At the very most, it announced the investment of 270 million
$ to extend assistance for the homeless, an insufficient and non renewable
amount.

An yet, according to the latest statistics available, there are close to 1.5
million Canadian households in the core need category for housing assistance,
including 351,800 from Quebec. Furthermore, it is estimated that there
are 150 000 homeless people.

For information:
http://www.frapru.qc.ca/

See the pamphlet:
http://www.frapru.qc.ca/Special/Manif11octA.pdf