44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 9, 2021 10:00AM
- Dec/9/21 10:03:24 a.m.
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Pursuant to order made Thursday, November 25, 2021, it is my duty to inform the House that today we will begin using the electronic voting system.
As a result, as of today and until June 23, 2022, members who are voting remotely will use the electronic voting system.
Members are reminded that IT ambassadors are available to help them confirm their access to the system.
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- Dec/9/21 10:06:06 a.m.
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It is my duty, pursuant to subsection 94(2) of the Access to Information Act and subsection 72(2) of the Privacy Act, to lay upon the table the reports of the Information Commissioner on the administration of these acts for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), these reports are deemed to have been permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
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- Dec/9/21 10:06:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as today is the first time I am rising in the 44th Parliament, I would like to thank the kind people of the riding of Waterloo, who have given me the honour to represent the diversity of their voices in this place.
Pursuant to Standing Orders 104 and 114 and pursuant to the order adopted by the House on Thursday, December 2, 2021, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the first report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees of the House.
I would like to thank all involved for making this happen.
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- Dec/9/21 10:06:06 a.m.
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It is my duty to lay upon the table, pursuant to subsection 40(1) of the Privacy Act and subsection 25(1) of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, the Privacy Commissioner's report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h), this report is deemed permanently referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
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- Dec/9/21 10:06:45 a.m.
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Pursuant to order made Thursday, December 2, 2021, the report is deemed adopted.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-208, An Act respecting early learning and child care.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg Centre for seconding this bill and for her work on this file.
There is an affordability crisis in this country. Being able to afford housing, food and other necessities is becoming increasingly difficult, and the pandemic has only exacerbated the struggles that many encounter. Families are struggling to find early learning and child care spaces and costs are not affordable in many cities. Parents are forced to make impossible choices between delaying their return to work and paying huge amounts for the child care they need.
After promising an affordable child care program for 28 years, I am glad to see that the Liberals are finally moving forward on their many promises. However, there is still a lack of critical details on the agreements signed with the provinces and the long-term stability and universality of this program.
I am tabling this bill today to establish the core principles of a universal early learning and child care program, one that is based on accountability, quality, universality and accessibility, and to establish the standards needed to meet these principles. I am calling on the government to work with us to continue to move child care forward. It is too important to get wrong.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-209, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act.
She said: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to introduce this private members' bill, which seeks to eliminate mandatory minimum penalties in the Criminal Code and various other laws.
I note, as members may note, that we have recently received a similar government bill, Bill C-5, that also aims to eliminate mandatory minimum penalties. However, Bill C-5 only removes some, not even all, of those that have already been found to violate the charter by the courts in Canada.
I was the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands representing my constituents when mandatory minimums were increased. It was during the Parliament when Mr. Harper was the Prime Minister. It was then that we dove deeply into the evidence around mandatory minimum penalties. It became very clear that no criminologists anywhere in the world, nor any jurisdictions, had found that using mandatory minimum penalties actually reduced or addressed crime. They did have the effect, though, of increasing the number of people incarcerated, with additional financial burdens on the provinces.
I am very honoured to put forward the bill this morning, and I hope that it will meet with the approval of my colleagues.
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- Dec/9/21 10:11:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition this morning from constituents who are very concerned with the state of the law within Canada to protect our water. Watercourses and watersheds are inadequately protected, the petitioners assert, from certain industrial activities. They are calling on the government to update the laws in Canada to protect fresh water and the ecosystems that sustain and maintain water for human and non-human use.
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- Dec/9/21 10:12:00 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table in the House a petition whose signatures were collected by a Montreal resident, Ms. Sally Livingston.
The petitioners are very concerned about the climate crisis. They are calling on the federal government to do more, to set targets that are consistent with science and the Paris Agreement, to significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels, to end fossil fuel subsidies, to transition to a decarbonized economy while respecting human rights, workers' rights and indigenous communities, and to create good green jobs for the future in renewable energy, all in the interest of saving our planet.
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- Dec/9/21 10:12:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a very dangerous intersection in Sainte‑Marie‑Madeleine in my riding. Accidents happen there all the time. There have been quite a few news reports about them lately, including in Le Journal de Montréal.
I know I am going to hear about how road signage is a municipal matter. However, there is a railway, and that means Canadian National and Transport Canada are involved.
Every local stakeholder is calling for movement and action on this. Everyone agrees that CN and Transport Canada are not working together. I have personally tried to contact both of them, but my efforts have been in vain, which I find unacceptable.
In June, right before the parliamentary session ended, I tabled this petition in the House. Then, as everyone knows, there was that pointless election that put us all back at square one, and all the documents that were tabled became null and void.
I am therefore tabling the petition again. The first time around, it had 1,200 signatures. This time it has 1,155, which is roughly the same number of petitioners.
Why am I presenting a parliamentary petition? It is because of the legal obligation to obtain a response after a specific number of days.
The petitioners want all stakeholders to meet and sit down together. This would include staff from my office, staff from the office of the Quebec National Assembly member for Borduas, and officials from Transport Canada, CN and the Quebec department of transport.
A meeting is not too much to ask. It needs to happen soon. We need to do something. Until then, the accidents, injuries and deaths will continue.
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- Dec/9/21 10:14:46 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.
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- Dec/9/21 10:14:53 a.m.
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Is that agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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- Dec/9/21 10:15:04 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-2
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to briefly respond to the statement you made yesterday with respect to the admissibility of Bill S-2, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act.
As Bill S-2 made clear in its coming-into-force clause, the government has always had the intention of introducing a bill in this House, with the accompanying royal recommendation, to implement changes to the Parliament of Canada Act with respect to the evolution in the Senate.
I will draw to the attention of members that there have been many instances of bills being introduced in the House and the Senate that contain non-appropriation clauses. In some of these instances, we have had Speaker's rulings to confirm that the use of non-appropriation clauses was in order, both in this House and in the other place.
Without reflecting at length on the other place, I will note that the bill was adopted with the support of all groups, including the Conservative senators, in the previous Parliament. Given there have been some changes in the Senate since the last Parliament, the government wanted to confirm that the approach of Bill S-2 remains acceptable to the Senate. The fact that the bill was passed at all stages certainly is confirmation of that.
In light of the Speaker's statement, the government has proactively given notice of a government bill in the House to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, for introduction in the coming days. The bill will be accompanied by a royal recommendation, as the case requires. As such, the government has no intention of seeking to proceed with Bill S-2.
I thank members for their attention and look forward to working collaboratively with all parties to advance this important initiative that has received broad support from our colleagues in the other place.
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- Dec/9/21 10:18:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to stand here on the last opposition day of the year. It also gives me great pleasure to split my time with the hon. member for Saskatoon West.
There is a housing crisis facing Canadians. Across the country, there are places where a couple with a dual income can simply no longer afford to live, where seniors cannot afford their monthly payments, and where university and college students have completely given up on ever owning property.
The average home price in Canada is $717,000. Do members want to know what it was last year? It was $606,000. That is an 18.2% increase. To put this in perspective, when the Prime Minister came into office it was $450,000. We are seeing house prices rise this year over last year by 20%. Newbuild homes dropped 5.2%. We have the lowest supply of homes in the G7, with the fastest-rising house prices in the G7. This simply cannot continue.
I want to highlight an example of a young couple right here in Ottawa. They reached out to me and shared their story. Tony and Amanda live in a 667-square-foot apartment. They just had a baby named Clara. A 667-square-foot apartment is a small place to raise a new baby, so Tony and Amanda are looking for a new home. They searched for months and months, and put in 26 offers on 26 different homes. All their offers were above the asking price. Do members know how many homes they got? Zero.
I also want to share the story of Samy, a nurse in Calgary, Alberta. Samy has been saving since he was in high school for his future. He told me that he grew up in a family where the values were to work hard, get a good education and eventually own a home. Samy checks realtor.ca almost every day. He says he is just devastated seeing the prices. One area of the city where he thought he would be able to afford five years ago is now selling above asking price consistently. To this day, Samy still rents, Samy still checks realtor.ca every day and Samy is slowly losing hope.
Let me tell members about another couple. They are from Burnaby, British Columbia. Ryan and Sarah both graduated from university in the last three years and have good jobs. Ryan is a financial analyst and Sarah is a teacher. Both were raised with a dream that if they work hard and study hard, they will be able to afford a home one day. However, they spent the last two years looking, put in some offers, but again, zero offers were accepted. They do not want to rent forever, but what Sarah said to me is heartbreaking. She said she has simply given up. This is a young couple on the cusp of their future together. They have the majority of their lives ahead of them, but have simply given up.
These are three of the many stories we have heard since the election across this country. This brings us to what the Liberal government plans to do. The Liberals have told us that they are going to build 100,000 new homes across this country by 2025. Do members know how many homes Scotiabank has predicted that Canada needs? It said we need 1.8 million new homes, and not in four years, but right now. Simple math tells us that the Liberals are 1.7 million homes short. The promise is 100,000 new homes. It would be almost laughable if it were not so sad when I think about Ryan and Sarah, Samy, and Tony and Amanda.
What the government seems to not understand with this promise is that we need housing supply. We can offer all the tax incentives in the world, but we need the homes for people to move into first. Essentially, what they are saying is come into my store, everything is 100% off, but then someone walks in and there is nothing on the shelves. There is simply no inventory. This is where the Liberals have failed to address the real problem of housing supply and that is where our motion comes in today.
Over the past few weeks during question period, a number of Conservative members of Parliament have raised very thoughtful solutions on what could be done, such as looking at the tremendous number of buildings and amount of land the federal government owns. It owns 37,246 buildings and nearly 41 million hectares of land. This is a substantial amount of property and buildings that it could immediately provide to the municipalities and provinces to help with supply. We can go to the Treasury Board real property report and see the countless number of buildings that are in critical condition, or the land that is in areas that could really help Canadian families find a home. This is a tangible policy solution the Liberals could take from us right here today.
Another policy suggestion is the tying of infrastructure dollars from the federal government to new housing supply. We know the government had extreme difficulty getting infrastructure money out the door, but we are hopeful that might change. We put forth a policy idea that was widely supported by a large number of stakeholders and communities. It was to ensure that we are working with the municipalities receiving federal funding for public transit to increase density near funded projects. We see projects that are not necessarily built being announced over and over again. There is no connection to the housing crisis we are facing here in Canada. Our motion helps fix that.
Our motion also touches on the issues we are facing when it comes to foreign ownership. There are 1.3 million empty homes in Canada. The Liberal solution is to tax them 1%. If it were not so sad to tax a billionaire in another country 1%, it would almost be completely laughable. I am sure they are really shaking scared. In this motion, we are generously offering another solution, which is to implement a policy to ban foreign ownership. Imagine some of the 1.3 million homes I spoke of in places like Vancouver, where a young couple can now afford to have that home, or a place in Montreal where one can dream again of the possibility of home ownership. Homes simply are not available and a lack of a plan from the other side has only made it more challenging for Canadians to buy homes.
A recent survey that came out yesterday from Sotheby's International Realty stated that the majority of young Canadians have completely given up on home ownership. According to the survey, over 80% of young Canadians aged 18 to 28 said that the possibility of home ownership in Canada is completely out of their reach. These are Canadians with their future ahead of them just simply giving up on ever owning a home. That is not only sad, but speaks to the failure of the government over the last six years to fix the housing crisis. It is not like the crisis has snuck up on it; it is something that experts have been warning about since the government came into office in 2015.
The Canadian Real Estate Association has written budget submission after budget submission offering solutions to the supply issue. The Appraisal Institute of Canada has put forth possible solutions that would get more homes into the market. Other groups, like Inclusion Canada, have submitted solutions to the government that would not only address housing affordability, but also affordable housing. These are terrific organizations that are doing their part to offer solutions to what so many Canadians have identified as a crisis. That is what we are doing here today, offering the government solutions.
The number of available homes is failing to keep up with demand and the government has simply hoped it would fix itself. It has said it had a plan all along, but the numbers speak for themselves. We are hearing from real estate agents, home builders and not-for-profit organizations. They all say that the plan will do little to alleviate lack of supply. Most importantly, we are hearing from young Canadians themselves who simply do not know what else to do.
I will end with this. We are in a position to offer a detailed plan to tackle home prices for Canadians. We are here to offer solutions for Canadians. We are here to make life affordable for Canadians. Will the Liberals join us and enact these measures for Canadians?
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- Dec/9/21 10:18:28 a.m.
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moved:
That, given that,
(i) the government has failed to increase the housing supply in Canada,
(ii) the government's $400 billion of new spending has produced a surge of inflationary pressure that has driven home prices more than 30% above pre-pandemic levels,
the House call on the government to:
(a) review and consolidate all federal real estate and properties in Canada in order to make at least 15% available for residential development;
(b) ban foreign investors from purchasing Canadian real estate; and
(c) commit to never introducing a capital gains tax on the sale of primary residences.
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- Dec/9/21 10:18:28 a.m.
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Since today is the final allotted day for the supply period ending December 10, 2021, the House will go through the usual procedures to consider and dispose of supply bills. In view of recent practices, do the hon. members agree that the bill be distributed now?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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- Dec/9/21 10:28:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I look forward to the opportunity to speak to the intervention a bit later.
I did want to address one point that I have heard on a number of occasions coming from the Conservatives, which is this talk about millions of hectares of available federal land. In my previous work before coming to this place, I was on Kingston City Council. I can say that, from a planning perspective, the only land that is really valuable with respect to building housing is that which is within close proximity to actual services, especially if we are talking high density. Can the member expand on this? Of these millions of hectares of land that is available, how much of it is within reach of services to be developed? If he cannot give me a number with respect to hectares, can he give me a percentage?
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- Dec/9/21 10:29:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the answer is 41 million hectares of land. Not only did the member listen to my speech and recognize that is a huge amount of land that the government should explore and where we could possibly build more homes, but he also indicated he was part of the problem before he even came here, being on municipal council.
I think the member should probably look back at some of the decisions he made in his own municipality and think maybe this should have been on top of mind when he was there. Now, as part of the government, he has an opportunity to expand on the solutions we have offered here today. I hope he will support this motion and I hope we will be able to get these homes built for young Canadians.
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- Dec/9/21 10:29:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP would like to propose an amendment for the member's consideration.
In the stipulation of providing federal lands available for residential development, one thing that needs to be made clear is that the residential development needs to be non-profit and co-operative housing in the permanent sense. It does not make sense, if the federal government is going to make land available to a developer, to build high-rise, high-priced, luxury condos, for example. We want to make sure that these lands are used for non-profit and co-operative, affordable housing permanently.
Would the member support this amendment?
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- Dec/9/21 10:30:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for also offering the government solutions. At the end of the day, it has been such a failure on that side that we are seeing the opposition members using days like today to offer these solutions to the government.
To the particular amendment, I was in the member's riding recently and toured a wonderful affordable housing opportunity that is right there off the rail line. It is for Black and indigenous members of the community, recognizing their history in the Vancouver area, and allowing them to have affordable housing. That is part of where we need to go. What we really want to focus on in today's motion is how unaffordable homes have been for Canadians.
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