44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 7, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right about one thing, and that is the fact that inflation, especially in the housing market, is a very serious problem.
In addition to housing costs, which increased by 20% in the Montreal area during the pandemic, there is the issue of housing accessibility. It is not enough to have affordable housing; units actually have to be available. If they are built, they will likely be less expensive, because that depends on supply and demand.
Scotiabank, which is not necessarily an organization that advocates for more social housing, released a report in early 2022 saying that Canada needs 3.5 million housing units over the next 10 years to match the G7 average. That is a huge amount.
What solutions are the Conservatives offering?
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Madam Speaker, my colleague seems concerned about the issue of housing, which I appreciate. I find his interventions on the matter quite thoughtful.
However, he says that the government has to do more than just throw money at the problem. One of the problems with the federal government program right now is that a lot of money is being sent to private developers to build housing that costs $2,200 in Montreal. People in desperate need of housing cannot afford it. At some point, the government is going to need to invest in building housing that people can afford.
What does my colleague think?
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Madam Speaker, I must be a bit naive and believe in unicorns and fairies. When I first got into politics, I thought that, as an elected member of an opposition party, I would be able to stand up in committee and in the House to propose solutions, to work with other parliamentarians and with the government. I thought we would work together to come up with bright ideas to help people. I thought that, at the end of the day, all the bills would be so great that everyone would want to vote for us all at once. I imagined that people would be impressed by how well we work together and how extraordinary this legislature and this Parliament are. I really thought that.
Oh, how naive I was when I first got into politics three years ago. I thought those things would happen. That is what I expected. I believed in democracy, in collaboration. I am talking about this because the speech I am about to give, I also gave three years ago, two years ago, a year ago, and again three months ago. I keep rising in this place to talk about housing. We have proposed solutions. I have talked about how pressing the needs are, how glaring they are. I have said that what the government is doing makes no sense, that it is simply not building enough units for people who really need them. I have given this speech many, many times already, and here I am forced to give it again today. The housing crisis is a major crisis.
At this time, there are three major crises in Canada. First, there is the language crisis. We have seen the Statistics Canada figures. The French language is declining everywhere in Quebec and across the country.
Second, there is the climate crisis, which we talk about all the time. The government continues to invest in projects that make no sense, such as Bay du Nord, which will produce one billion barrels of oil over 30 years and is a disastrous project. Even the UN Secretary-General has said that it is criminal to continue extracting oil. This is not just a Greenpeace or Équiterre supporter saying it, it is the Secretary-General of the United Nations. That surely means something. This man speaks to governments and leaders throughout the globe and asks them to make rational decisions that are in everyone's interest. Sadly, no, the government continues to invest in oil. Today, we learned that the bill for Trans Mountain is $17 billion. That is outrageous. There are high-tech companies in my riding that are developing batteries. In Quebec, people want to build electric vehicles, and electric buses are already being manufactured. This is the energy of the future. It represents the well-paying jobs of the future. We are working for our children. However, we are not moving forward. As much as we keeping talking about it, nothing is happening. The spirit of collaboration that I naively hoped would emerge from our debates is just not there.
Third, there is the housing crisis. I am not sure how else to say it. Maybe I should mime it or sing about it. According to Scotia Bank, we need 3.5 million housing units.
I attended a conference organized by the young mayor of Longueuil and the young mayor of Laval. By the way, this is interesting: In the last municipal election in Quebec a year ago, we saw young mayors emerge who have their heart in the right place and who want to present real solutions with a view to serving the people, from dealing with the climate crisis to protecting wetlands, or housing or other things. They truly want to find pragmatic solutions. I commend them. I like collaborating with them. They truly have their heart in the right place when it comes to housing.
At the conference I spoke with an economist from the CMHC. He told me that if we do nothing else in Quebec in the next 10 years and allow builders and developers to get on it with, then 500,000 housing units will be built. There will be all sorts of housing types, condos, low-income housing, but 500,000 housing units in total will be built.
Canada is the worst country in the G7 when it comes to housing units per 1,000 people. There are 427 housing units per 1,000 people in the country, but that number went down in the past three or four years to 424. It is crazy when we think about it.
Canada is the worst country in the G7 in terms of average housing numbers, the number of units. That is where the crisis lies. We need to build housing. We need to take action since private developers do not seem to be doing the job.
In short, he was saying that 500,000 units would be built whether the government intervenes or not. An additional 1.1 million units are required in Quebec alone to address the two priority issues of accessibility and affordability. That is another 600,000. The government needs to show concern and take action to ensure that 600,000 units are built. We are far off the mark.
The major national housing strategy provided for $72 billion over 10 years. The government said that housing would get built and that is the direction it would take.
The government always forgets to say that the $72 billion is not just what the government will contribute. A lot of that consists of loans. It also includes investments by provinces, municipalities and agencies. That is worth clarifying.
According to the National Housing Council, 35,000 units were built in the last five years, even though we are halfway through the strategy's timeline. Another 600,000 units need to be built in Quebec alone. We are clearly far from our goal.
About 60,000 units have been renovated. Let us call it 100,000, to be optimistic. There are 100,000 units that have been built. That is not even close to what we need. The government needs to wake up and face the facts.
I am a dreamer. During the conference, which was held in Laval, I saw something that really impressed me; it impressed everyone there. The former mayor of Vienna came to talk about her city. One hundred years ago, the City of Vienna took the bull by the horns. It recognized that housing was a problem and that governments would have to invest money and tackle the problem head on. Today, 62% of the housing in Vienna is social housing. The citizens pay for it with a blanket 1% property tax. That generates about $350 million per year, and the city continues to build and maintain the housing stock. The buildings themselves are amazing. We tend to think that social housing is for the poor, but people from all walks of life live in Vienna's subsidized housing, from doctors and engineers to psychologists and labourers. There is diversity. There are bike paths and shops that sell organics. It is the stuff of dreams.
Things are not the same here as they are there, but there is certainly a need. I keep visiting organizations all over the place.
That is the cause of the crisis. The government did understand this at one time. It realized it had to invest in social housing. After World War II, the government launched major programs. They were eliminated in 1993. The Conservatives said that they were ending the programs and would no longer be investing in housing. On the campaign trail, Jean Chrétien said that the Liberals would reinstate this program and that it was important. Once he was elected, however, he cut the program.
Had the government continued to invest as much as it did between 1950 and 1993, there would be an additional 80,000 social housing units in Quebec alone. We could have housed so many people with that many more units, but that is not what happened.
In Longueuil alone, it would take $500 million to solve the housing crisis. A mayoral candidate talked about this at a debate last year. I think the figures were about right. There is a shortage of 2,000 social housing units just in Longueuil, 23,000 in Montreal and 50,000 in Quebec. These people are inadequately housed.
Let us talk about the $500 that this bill provides. It is not a bad thing. Who could be against it? Had we invested earlier, however, we would not have to be handing out these amounts and people would have housing.
Obviously, I am not an economist. I have incredibly brilliant colleagues who could explain this much better than me. If there were more housing, the housing units we have would cost less. It is pretty straightforward. Even I understand that concept, if my colleagues can believe it. What we need to do is invest in housing.
We support this $500 payment, but if we do not address the current housing crisis in a meaningful way, we will find ourselves facing the same problem again next year.
We will find ourselves right back here next year, but at that time, we will have to send a cheque for $500 or $700. In subsequent years, it will be cheques for $800 or $1,200, and it will never end. We need to implement meaningful measures now to deal with one of the biggest crises that Canada has experienced since Confederation.
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure I understood whether there was a question in my colleague's comment, but I thank him for his comment nonetheless.
I will take this opportunity to talk about homelessness, which is an important issue. Obviously, if we do not deal with housing, sooner or later there will be homeless people on the street. During the pandemic, the government launched some decent programs to fight homelessness. A very important resource was created in my riding, and we would like to see it become permanent. However, we are not sure whether the government will continue to fund these projects, and we have to be careful about that.
I would also like to say that the government has launched a program that is pretty good. It is called the rapid housing initiative, or RHI. It is a good program because 100% of the housing is paid for. The government contributes all the necessary funding, so organizations do not have to chase down three or four different grants. The government should be putting more money into this program.
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Madam Speaker, it is indeed a worthwhile measure, but it is up to cities, municipalities and urban centres. In Quebec, some cities, such as Montreal, are trying to do that, and the mayor of Montreal is a huge proponent.
There are problems though. Some local governments impose penalties on developers that do not build a certain proportion of social housing, affordable housing or family housing. A few months ago, I read an article that said developers often try to get around that requirement. They promise that 20% of their units will be affordable, but they do not follow through because they would rather pay the penalties and build condos for the upper class.
That is why it is not a perfect solution, but it is not bad.
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