Rick Stiebel/News staff
Your local member of parliament wants to hear your opinions, concerns and experiences regarding housing.
Alistair MacGregor, NDP MP for the Cowichan-Malahat-Langford riding, is hosting a town hall meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 9 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Luxton Hall at 1040 Marwood Ave.
“Housing has come under the microscope in the Cowichan Valley and especially regarding the homeless camp in Goldstream Park in Langford,” MacGregor said from Ottawa in a telephone interview with the Gazette. “I’m doing the town hall to clearly explain the government’s National Housing Strategy, the traditional role of the federal government and ultimately where we want to go from here.”
Macgreor’s aim is to get feedback, suggestions and stories of personal experiences from constituents regarding housing. “I want to take all that and put it into a report that I’ll send to Jean-Yves Duclos, (Federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development) for consideration and policy making.”
Communities in his riding face the same housing constraints as the rest of the country, including rising rents, a shortage of rental housing and fallout from the federal government’s withdrawal from social housing, MacGregor noted. There are currently 1.7 million Canadian families that do not have access to adequate housing, and estimates place the number of people dealing with homelessness at between 150,000 and 300,000 people.
MacGregor also published reports in 2016 and 2017 from town halls on climate change and agriculture and food policy. “You can see how feedback from the community led to the formation of those reports,” he said. Visit alistairmacgregor.ca for a look at the reports in their entirety.