44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 20, 2022 10:00AM
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-31, An Act respecting cost of living relief measures related to dental care and rental housing.
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Madam Speaker, we want to make sure we are not giving something to the provinces they are going to claw back, because disabled people will be worse off as a result. There is some evidence of how much money it takes to live, which I think varies by location. A lot of times we see that when people are assigned a salary, if they are working in Vancouver or Toronto there is a supplement for addressing the cost of housing there and things like that. Therefore, the amount may not be the same across the board depending on where people live. I think there is a private member's bill from one of the NDP members calling for $2,200 a month. We saw with the CERB that $2,000 a month seemed adequate, so I would say that might be a target. I would again encourage the government to look at the GIS, because single people who receive the OAS and GIS are living in poverty, so it is not the right amount.
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- Sep/20/22 2:15:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the new Conservative leader will put people first: their retirement, their paycheques, their homes and their country.
We need to restore the hope of home ownership. Right now, youth and newcomers cannot get a home because local government gatekeepers block housing with heavy fees and long delays for building permits. This leaves us with the fewest houses per capita of any country in the G7, even though we have the most land to build on.
A Conservative government would require big cities that want federal infrastructure money to speed up and lower the cost of permits, and to approve affordable housing around all new transit stations so that our young people can live there and not even need to afford a car. We will also sell 15% of the under-utilized 37,000 federal buildings to turn them into housing and use the proceeds to reduce our deficit.
In other words, stop printing money and start building homes for people.
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- Sep/20/22 2:27:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are absolutely focused on the issue of housing affordability in this country. That is why we have put forward real solutions like the housing accelerator fund, which is about increasing housing supply. It is also about turning more Canadian renters into homeowners. It is about introducing the first-time homebuyers' tax credit and putting in place a first-time homebuyer savings account to enable more young Canadians and others to access their dream of home ownership.
We cannot take the Leader of the Opposition seriously on these issues, because on every single tangible solution that we have brought forward that actually works, he has voted against it.
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- Sep/20/22 2:29:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, throughout this session, we are going to see two competing visions, one in which our government focuses on the needs of Canadians, and one in which Conservatives tell the country that it is on its own.
Just today, we introduced two pieces of legislation that will add a $500 top-up on housing, double the GST credit and put in place a Canada dental benefit.
These are targeted measures to Canadians who need it the most, when they need it the most. Our hope on this side of the aisle is that the Conservative Party will support us to get these measures to people as soon as they need them.
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- Sep/20/22 3:09:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Don Valley East, many people are struggling with increased rent and housing costs, especially families, working individuals and the most vulnerable. There is no question that more help is needed and that our government must continue to act.
Could the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion please tell the House—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Sep/20/22 3:10:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my riding of Don Valley East, many people are struggling with increased rent and housing costs, especially families, working individuals and the most vulnerable. There is no question that help is needed and that our government must continue to act.
Could the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion please tell the House what new measures our government is putting in place to help families through this difficult time?
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- Sep/20/22 3:10:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that it is getting harder for many Canadians to afford the increased rent. That is why today we introduced legislation to provide a $500 federal top-up to the Canada housing benefit. This will help 1.8 million low-income Canadians and will be on top of the already existing $2,500, on average, from the Canada housing benefit.
On this side of the House, we will always have the backs of Canadian renters.
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Madam Speaker, last week I visited an organization in our community called Reena, which provides housing for people with disabilities. It has created an environment where people with disabilities can share their experiences. There are staff there who will help and assist them. One of the things it does is that it has programs to assist with funding. The funding is not always enough, because some of these programs cost money. I agree that we need to include an increase so that they can at least buy the minimum. Right now, out of the $895 that one recipient is receiving at Reena, $500 of that goes to housing. There is not much left over, so we do need to do better.
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- Sep/20/22 7:24:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in so many ways, the member is wrong. We have seen a government, under the leadership of the current Prime Minister, virtually from the very beginning back in 2015, that has taken a very progressive and aggressive attitude both in legislation and in the form of budgetary measures to support housing, in essence bringing forward a national housing strategy, billions of dollars overall.
It is having an impact. I would challenge the member to indicate what government in the last 50 or 60 years has invested more in housing in Canada. I will give some help to the member in terms of the answer: She will not find a government that has invested more than the current government has done over the last six years. We have made significant investments. Let me highlight a few when it comes to the important issue of indigenous people.
In collaboration with ISC and the CMHC, as of December 31, 2021, first nations have been able to support the construction, renovation and retrofitting of 25,102 homes on reserves, of which 17,432 have been completed. To support housing in Inuit and Métis communities, $980 million has been announced by our government since 2016. These investments have been provided to partners, and thousands of Inuit and Métis families are now living in new and renovated homes via strategies led by indigenous partners.
In the 2022 budget, we announced an additional $4 billion in funding for indigenous housing over seven years to accelerate work in closing indigenous housing gaps, including $2.4 billion over five years to support first nation housing on reserves, $845 million over seven years for housing in Inuit communities, $190 million over seven years for housing in Métis communities and $565 million over five years for housing in self-governing and modern treaty first nation communities.
Lastly, through the indigenous homes innovation initiative, we are supporting creative projects led by indigenous people to design and build more effective, sustainable and culturally inspired living spaces, some of which will specifically support indigenous women and girls from other vulnerable populations.
This government has committed and followed through on a wide spectrum of dealings in terms of Canada's housing crisis. I could easily spend the next 20 or 30 minutes just talking about some of those initiatives. We would have to go back many years, if in fact one could find a year, to find a government that has invested more in housing. If one does a comparison with the NDP platform back in 2015, we have out-measured and outdone that platform by a country mile.
This is a government that understands the value of housing to Canadians from coast to coast to coast and continues to work with indigenous leadership to ensure that wherever the federal government can play a role, it is, in fact, playing a role. We understand the importance of reconciliation and the way in which housing plays a critical role in it.
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- Sep/20/22 7:28:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know what rock this member has been living under. The truth of the matter is this: It was the Liberals who cancelled the national affordable housing program back in 1993. The NDP called for the government to build 500,000 units of true affordable housing to meet that need, a gap that the Liberals created when they cancelled the national affordable housing program.
The member can talk all he wants. All he has to do is open his eyes. I invite him and the minister and the Prime Minister to come to Vancouver East and see for themselves the people who are unhoused in our community today, who are dying today, who are being criminalized today, and for him to say those words to their faces, that somehow their lives do not matter and that the Liberals are doing all that needs to be done to address the housing crisis.
Shame on the member. He has not paid any attention to the truth nor faced the truth.
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- Sep/20/22 7:29:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, shame on that member. The member can come over to Winnipeg and I can tell her that after 15 years of New Democratic rule, and it is the provinces that play a critical role in housing development, the provincial NDP failed the citizens of Manitoba. They completely failed.
Take a look and take a drive in Winnipeg Centre or Winnipeg North. Members will see the severity of the housing crisis, where we have indigenous people and others living in bus shelters because the NDP, for 15 years, failed to address the issue of housing. That is the reality of it.
If we want to deal with the housing crisis, we need to work with the different levels of government and indigenous people. That is something that this government has been doing since 2015-16 under the leadership of the Prime Minister. We do not need to be lectured by the New Democrats when it comes to housing. The member can talk about 1993 and other years. As I indicated, show me a year when we have seen this much investment and support for housing in Canada.
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