44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 9, 2021 10:00AM
- 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 10:28:06 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 11:39:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am perplexed by the response from the Bloc. The member said a moment ago that they were supportive of this motion, but then agreed with the NDP that the motion is problematic because it suggests that these lands should be opened up to developers.
Why would the Bloc support a motion that the member has identified has problems that lead to the concern raised by the NDP?
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- Dec/9/21 12:09:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always think that when the federal government has surplus lands available for the opportunity to be used, in particular by community and in this case by housing, those lands should be made available through the proper process.
What we are hearing from the Conservatives is a bit of a story on 41 million hectares of land, which includes 37 million from Parks Canada alone. The numbers they are throwing out do not really represent the reality in terms of the federal land available.
I am wondering whether the member knows of any federal land within her riding that would be in close proximity to the services available in order to build housing and, to her passion, affordable housing more specifically.
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- Dec/9/21 12:22:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am still processing a lot of that.
The motion that the member's colleague and the Conservatives put forward today suggests that we consolidate all of the land that the federal government owns and then make 15% of it available for housing. If we look at the math and go to Statistics Canada, we can see exactly where the Conservatives get their number of 41 million hectares of available land. Of that, 97% is in Parks Canada, Environment Canada and National Defence.
To get to 15% and, assuming we got rid of all the other land that the federal government has, the remaining 3%, what 12% of Parks Canada, Environment Canada and National Defence would the member like to see disposed of for affordable housing?
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- Dec/9/21 1:10:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola is curious about why we are talking about 41 million hectares of land, he should really go back and pay closer attention to the speech given by the member for Edmonton Riverbend. He is the one who started with this number earlier today.
I will go back to another comment from the member for Edmonton Riverbend. He accused me, in my previous role as a municipal politician, for not building enough affordable housing, as if to say it should have been the responsibility of city councils across the country. Here is the interesting thing: When I was on city council, the Ontario provincial government was investing in affordable housing and housing more generally in Kingston and throughout the province. Who was not? Stephen Harper.
The member has been around for a while. Could he reflect on Stephen Harper's legacy as it relates to affordable housing?
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- Dec/9/21 1:22:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is fascinating to see how this day is going. We started off with Conservatives talking about 41 million hectares of land in the first few speeches and now, suddenly, since holes have been blown into that argument, somebody back there is scratching out “41 million hectares” in the speeches and writing “thousands of government buildings that exist”.
We have heard it already said in this House, and the member put forward what I think is a good idea, that we should declare surplus land available for various purposes, but it already exists. As we heard the parliamentary secretary say earlier, it already exists in the form of a land bank through the federal lands initiative.
Can the member comment on why Conservative speeches in the House have suddenly adopted this tone of making thousands of buildings available when this already exists?
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- Dec/9/21 1:38:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have now seen this Conservative member come back to talking about land to build again. That is not the narrative that we have heard. More members are clapping again, which is good.
Here is what we know. This motion is asking for 15% of the federal 41 million hectares of land to become available for redevelopment, as this member would like, yet we know 97% of that land is tied up in Parks Canada, National Defence and Environment Canada.
Can the member just let us know what, within Parks Canada, the Conservative Party is looking to divest in order to build what he is speaking of?
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- Dec/9/21 3:07:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.
There have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That, the House acknowledge and support the government's clear and repeated position that taxing capital gains on primary residences is not under any consideration; reiterate its support for the government's $72-billion investments in housing through the national housing strategy, including $2.5 billion through the rapid housing initiative; and declare its support for the commitments made by the government to ban foreign purchases of non-recreational residential property in Canada for the next two years, implement Canada's first-ever national tax on non-resident, non-Canadian owners of vacant housing next year, and create a new homebuyers' bill of rights.
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- Dec/9/21 4:05:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was really hoping that this afternoon, the discussion on this motion would not be the same train wreck it was this morning. It was all over the place.
We heard this morning the Conservatives try to backtrack on the fact that we were talking about land. They said no, it is not 15% of land; it is 15% of buildings. They meant the buildings on Bay Street in Toronto and whatnot. However, the member just said, “release 15% of federal land”. I would encourage him go to Hansard to check it out. He actually said “federal land”.
Given that we know 97% of federal land is tied up in Parks Canada, Environment Canada and National Defence, can the member please explain to the House which parts of Parks Canada or National Defence he is looking to divest the country of so we can free up the land he referenced?
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- Dec/9/21 4:26:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is great to rise today to speak to this motion that has taken on a bunch of different forms today.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough Centre.
Where I will start is by properly answering the question that the parliamentary secretary asked the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. He asked where the number of 41 million hectares of land came from. I can actually answer that question.
I would encourage anybody out there who is watching this, and who might be interested, to google the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and land. It will show the actual list of land that is owned by the federal government. It starts to break down how much land is owned by each department within the federal government.
The end result where it gives a total is just under 41 million hectares of land. That is where the member for Carleton, who first started talking about this a number of days ago in question period, got his number of 41 million hectares of land. It is from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat document that outlines where the land that the federal government owns is actually located.
The problem is that, when we start to dig into it and look at the various departments that own land, members will notice that the top three own 97% of the land. Parks Canada owns just under 36 million hectares of the 41 million hectares. Environment and Climate Change Canada owns 2.4 million hectares and National Defence owns 2.2 million.
Why is this so important to talk about? It is because the entire premise for this motion, and the narrative we have heard from the Conservative Party this week, has been the idea that the federal government has all of this land available that can suddenly become ready for housing. I want to dive into this for a second to examine why the Conservatives are making this claim and why it is such a false claim to make.
For starters, I do not think that any member in the House is going to actually suggest that Parks Canada land should be divested for housing. More importantly, there would be very little Parks Canada land that would be serviceable for the creation of housing.
Earlier, I mentioned to the member for Edmonton Riverbend the planning responsibilities of municipal councils. He was oddly critical of municipal governments for somehow being responsible for the problem we are in right now. I will come back to that in a second.
There is this idea that we can just take land and start using it. The truth is it is not developable land, and certainly not 15%, which is what they are suggesting. One has to ask: Why are the Conservatives talking about land as though that is the only solution to the problem that we have? It is twofold. First, they think that running around and saying this 41 million number sounds so incredible. If that was all someone knew, they would ask why we were not using that land until they started to understand, as I have tried to outline, where the land is from. It is a really good talking point because it will come off very well.
More importantly, why do Conservatives focus so much on land? Why do they not talk about buildings? Why does the member for Carleton not talk about buildings? It is because the Conservatives know that those who develop land are part of their base. When we sever off land and look to build housing on it, no federal government is going to go into an area and start severing individual property lots to sell to individual people to build housing on. They are going to sell to a developer.
They are going to sell hectares at a time to developers who are going to develop that land to build housing. It explains why they were dead set against the NDP amendment to this, because that is their base: developers and people who build things. It is fine. We should be supportive of developers, but that should not be the only area we look at. When we talk about developing housing affordability, we also need to talk about affordable housing. The term the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London was trying to get was “rent geared to income”. A lot of people out there need their rent geared to their income. Severing off land and selling it to developers who are going to build houses is not going to help the problem of people who need rent that is geared to their income.
The other issue that I wanted to go back to was how the member for Edmonton Riverbend criticized me earlier this morning, as though I was part of the problem that we are now in when I was on city council, because we were not able to tackle this problem as a municipal government. Members can imagine that. A member of Parliament, through one statement, has broadly accused every city council in the country that has a problem with housing for creating this problem.
I would like to educate the member for Edmonton Riverbend on what I went through. My introduction into politics was sitting on the affordable housing development committee in the city of Kingston. Do members know who brought forward money in order to enable that? It was the Dalton McGuinty provincial Liberal government. I brought this up earlier, and the member for Edmonton Riverbend started asking if I wanted to lump myself in with the McGuinty and Wynne governments.
They were the only ones doing anything for housing. Stephen Harper would not put any money into housing. I sat on the committee that received the funding from the provincial government and used it to build housing in the Kingston area. Not a dime came from the feds. It all came from the province. For this Conservative member to somehow accuse city councils throughout the country of creating this problem, when the previous Conservative government played a major role in limiting the funds, is extremely disingenuous.
The member for Kenora accused me of political grandstanding. He should read the first line in this motion, if he wants to talk about political grandstanding and implying that governments are failing. This is the problem with Conservative motions. They always do this: They bring in these motions that have one clause they know we will never support, and then try to put in a bunch of reasonable clauses, not because they actually think the motion will get passed, but because they want to say later on that they brought this forward and talked about capital gains, and the Liberals would not vote for it. They will say they told the House what we were doing all along.
This is the problem with these opposition motions from the Conservatives. Every time they bring them here, they do not actually expect them to pass. All they are trying to do is create ammunition for their next political fight, which is disingenuous to what they are supposed to be doing in this place: helping Canadians with the problems they are having. They refuse to do that. I feel bad for the Bloc, because I think that the Bloc members came in today thinking they would support this and that it made sense, but as the day has been going on and the holes have been shot straight through the opposition motion, they are probably starting to wonder how they can possibly reassess their position on this.
In any event, I have appreciated the time that I have had to speak on this today. This is, unfortunately, not a motion that I am going to be able to support. That is no surprise to the Conservatives. Nonetheless, this government will continue to fight for Canadians and make sure we can bring in as much housing supply as we possibly can.
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- Dec/9/21 4:36:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he should have kept it on mute and become aware that I was out here with that question. Kathleen Wynne and Dalton McGuinty were giving the cities money to build housing. Stephen Harper, his Prime Minister at the time, was not doing that.
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- Dec/9/21 4:38:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the cosy coalition between the Conservatives and the Bloc continues.
The member just said that the motion makes sense. The motion calls for 15% of the 41 million hectares of federal land, of which 97% are Environment, Parks Canada and National Defence.
I will ask a question back to the member. Can he tell us what part of those lands in Quebec he wants to give up in order to make this motion successful?
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- Dec/9/21 4:39:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question and the member is right. There are city councils throughout this country that have been working tirelessly to build affordable housing for this country. For the member for Edmonton Riverbend to suggest that it is their fault that this all happened is ludicrous.
As the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader said earlier, we already have an initiative in place like this. We have a land bank, basically, where surplus federal land will go. There is a process to divest of that land. I believe, when I was on municipal council, it was first offered to the province and then to the municipalities. We can perhaps talk about adjusting that. How do we change that to be more effective at distributing those surplus lands?
The member is absolutely right. That is going to be where the success is. We need to find these parcels of property that are in highly dense areas and retrofit and rebuild them, not look for 15% of the 41 million acres of land the federal government owns.
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