OTTAWA — Though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proudly stated a year ago that his government recognized "housing rights are human rights," his Liberal MPs voted to defeat an NDP motion stating exactly that.

Back on a cold November day in Toronto last year, Trudeau said: "Everyone deserves a safe and affordable place to call home."

But that wasn't the message delivered Tuesday when the Liberals — including two Toronto MPs, Adam Vaughan and Marco Mendicino, who stood behind Trudeau when he made that announcement last year — joined Conservatives to defeat a motion supported by the Bloc Québécois, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and former Grit MP Hunter Tootoo.

NDP critic bashes 'cynical ploy'

The NDP motion noted that since 90 per cent of the funding for the Liberals' national housing strategy will flow only after the next election, and much of it is dependent on collaboration with provincial governments and the private sector, the House of Commons should "recognize the right of housing as a human right."

The motion called on the government to bring forward 50 per cent of the funding before the next election to help build homes in Indigenous communities, as well as new affordable housing, social housing and co-ops units, renovate existing housing, and bring forward a plan to end homelessness.

In a statement, NDP housing critic Sheri Benson slammed the Liberals for failing to live up to expectations. Instead of investing billions earmarked for affordable housing projects now, she said, the Grits were using a "cynical ploy" to force people to wait.

With home prices out of reach for many, rising rents, rental shortages, long waitlists for non-market housing and increasing homelessness, Benson said Canadians "cannot afford to wait until after the next election for this crisis to be solved."

Earlier: