Speaking Notes for

Dean Del Mastro, Member of Parliament for Peterborough

On behalf of

The Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development

Official Opening of The Woollen Mill

526 McDonnel Street
Peterborough, Ontario
December 8, 2006
2:00 p.m.

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Good afternoon. Bonjour.

I am pleased to be here today, on behalf of my colleague, the Honourable Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Social Development — and the Minister responsible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. Today, we celebrate the opening of the Woollen Mill.

Here in Peterborough, and right across the country, Canada’s New Government is getting things done for Canadians. Just two weeks ago, Minister Flaherty announced Advantage Canada which is a new and long overdue economic plan for Canada. We are setting out to pay down the national debt by 2021, and the interest saved will go towards reducing taxes for all Canadians. Earlier this year, we announced a budget plan to lower taxes and help with choice in child care by giving parents $100 a month for each child under six. We recently proposed a Tax Fairness Plan that includes an increase in the Age Credit Amount, and would permit income splitting for pensioners — delivering over a billion dollars of new tax relief annually for Canadian seniors and pensioners.  We’ve also introduced important new changes to Compassionate Care leave, brought in incentives to help young people get into the trades through apprenticeship grants, provided $1 billion for post-secondary education, and made an additional $1.4 billion commitment to affordable housing in our last budget.

Our ongoing commitment to affordable housing is helping to provide support for projects like this one, and Canada’s New Government is very proud to contribute $1.25 million to this project here in Peterborough through the Canada – Ontario Affordable Housing Program Agreement.

The Woollen Mill also benefited from $990,000 under the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program, also known as RRAP. RRAP is a federal program used to create housing by converting non-residential buildings into residential use. This program also provides funding to repair homes occupied by low income households to minimum health and safety levels.

In addition, in the early planning stages, this project received an interest-free CMHC loan in the amount of $17,500 to help offset some of the upfront costs of developing the project proposal.

I am pleased to inform you that CMHC mortgage loan insurance facilitated the financing of this project. With CMHC’s mortgage loan insurance, the project benefits from a larger mortgage loan at a lower interest rate than would be possible without insurance.

Now that it is complete, the Woollen Mill will provide 50 units of affordable rental housing for families, persons with special needs and single people.

Through CMHC, our national housing agency for more than 60 years, the federal government provides approximately $2 billion a year in housing assistance across the country. This primarily supports some 633,000 lower-income households. For the people of Ontario, this represents a total of about $705.5 million annually — in support of about 237,000 lower-income households.

Today's event marks an important step forward for the people of Peterborough and demonstrates what we can achieve when we work together. When it comes to building communities, it takes the efforts of many to achieve success. It takes partnerships at all levels of government. And it also takes creative and innovative people with a vision.

Thank you to all those involved in this project, especially everyone at the Peterborough Housing Corporation. Your work on this project, and others like it, is improving the quality of life for everyone in this community. Thanks to your efforts, this building — formerly a factory, and later part of Fleming College — can be used to meet the housing needs of people living in Peterborough. We appreciate all you are doing.

Thank you for joining us today. Merci.