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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 43

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 22, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 43 - Mar/22/22
Mr. Dan Muys (Flamborough—Glanbrook, CPC)
  • Mar/22/22 6:43:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier this month I rose in this House and cited the Realtors Association of Hamilton-Burlington, which in January confirmed that the average house price in Hamilton was over $1 million. Since then, the numbers for February have come out, and the average home price in the Hamilton—Burlington area is now over $1.1 million. That is a 10% increase in just a month. Imagine a young person in Hamilton who has been saving up for their first home, and in a single month the price of their starter home has increased by $100,000. Fifty percent of Canadians under the age of 40 say that they have given up on the dream of home ownership. Who can blame them? Since the government came to office in 2015, the price of the average home in Hamilton has gone up by 200%. That is double the national average. I am very concerned, and what concerns me most is that there is no effective, realistic, comprehensive plan to remedy this situation. When I spoke earlier this month, the response I received from the minister of housing was to advocate a tax on vacant homes as a solution to the current crisis. At that time, vacancies were on the decline, I might add. A 1% tax on vacant homes will not provide the relief that the people of Flamborough—Glanbrook so desperately need. Perhaps what is more discouraging is that a two-year ban on foreign money in our real estate market, the one solid proposal that the current government brought forward, was defeated by the Liberals at the finance committee just a few weeks ago. The national housing summit was yet more talk and no action. The people who elected us sent us here to create solutions to these challenges, but that is not what they are getting. Sadly, not only is the government failing to enact policies that will help Canadians, but it has rewarded CMHC executives with bonuses of $48 million. That is a disgrace. That is the very organization tasked with making housing more affordable for Canadians, yet the dream of home ownership has never seemed more distant for so many. That is not worthy of a bonus. Housing supply is the problem. We have a construction deficit in this country of one million homes to meet current demand. Over half of that is in Ontario, but let me break that down even further. Just to keep pace, we need over 110,000 homes built in Hamilton alone, yet the federal government’s accelerator fund proposes to build just 100,000 homes nationwide by the year 2025. As an example, last week it was announced that there would be 72 affordable housing units built at a cost of $13.2 million. While I applaud the funding of more affordable housing, this does not keep pace and is not quick enough to even make a dent in the supply deficit. More needs to be done. We need a realistic and comprehensive plan. We need to fire on all cylinders to combat the housing crisis and build more supply. This issue impacts my constituents very directly. When are we going to see less talk and more action?
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Context: House Hansard - 43 - Mar/22/22
Mr. Dan Muys
  • Mar/22/22 6:50:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the 200 more affordable housing units in Hamilton, although that is against a supply deficit of 110,000 homes, as I mentioned. The government's responses to any question on housing are formulaic, predictable and insufficient. I will ask again. What is the government doing for Roseanne, a young woman in her twenties in my constituency in Upper Stoney Creek? She laments the fact that she has witnessed an exodus of her peers leaving the country for better affordability elsewhere. The brain drain is real in this aspect and the initiatives the government is continuing to repeat are like trying to fix a sinking ship by using a bucket. Canadians still find themselves drowning. When the government's plan is to build fewer units across all of Canada than just the deficit in Hamilton alone, clearly more needs to be done. When is the government going to unveil a real plan to stabilize the housing market so that all Canadians can afford a home, not just the 700 households per week that are fortunate enough to be part of an announcement that is really too little, too late?
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