44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 7, 2022 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her speech. I really liked the phrase “bed-to-bureaucrat ratio”. However, I think the debt-to-bureaucrat ratio is important. Both the current Governor of the Bank of Canada Tiff Macklem and the former governor of the Bank of Canada David Dodge stated this week that inflation in Canada is a made-in-Canada problem. It is the fact that we have more money chasing a lack of goods. At the same time, as I said before, since 2015, the government has hired 61,000 federal employees and has really bloated itself. We are looking obviously at motions. We want to help everyone, but like the member so eloquently stated, we have to do the basics: health care and housing.
Do you agree that we have a debt-to-bureaucrat problem also in government and that we need to address that to solve inflation as much as anything else?
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- Oct/7/22 12:57:00 p.m.
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I would remind the hon. member to direct his questions to the Chair. The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.
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Mr. Speaker, actually, the current information that we have from the Parliamentary Budget Officer suggests that our debt-to-GDP ratio is not disturbing to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
It is interesting to note the statistic that the member shared of 61,000 employees hired, because when I look at Environment Canada, there was a 10% budget cut in 2012 in Parks Canada, and those people have not been replaced. Some employees have been replaced in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but I look at departments where we are not keeping up with the work, particularly in science-based departments.
Also, I do want to express the concern that most of what we see in terms of inflationary trends has been generated externally. Most of it has been because of the spike in fossil fuel prices caused by Putin's illegal war in Ukraine. There are many elements to our current economic distress, and I do not think that government debt drives most of it.
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Mr. Speaker, previously when we were debating Bill C-31, we were discussing dental care and that this was a first step.
Would the member like to elaborate in terms of a next step that we could look at for dental care for all Canadians?
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to see amendments to the Canada Health Act to make it really clear that we understand that mental health is public health and that dental care is public health. We need to look at the totality of what the World Health Organization definition of health has always been, which is a complete state of physical, mental and it even uses the term “spiritual” health. We do not take care of Canadians, and if we are looking for a gap in our health care system, I think the opioid crisis and the mental health crisis point us in that direction.
However, as much as I think it is important to take care of dental care, I think that the steps that would be required to get to full dental care require engaging with the dentistry professional community and with the provinces to determine how we move forward to ensure that no Canadian, regardless of their age, lacks adequate dental care.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for her speech. She said that, even though the dental insurance program is not perfect, it is better to send money to people than not send it at all.
With all due respect, I disagree. For example, under this program, families that have insurance cannot collect the benefit even if their insurance does not cover everything, whereas families that pay just a small amount collect the full benefit.
Would it not be more effective to just transfer the money to the provinces, which are in a better position to meet people's dental care needs and can therefore make better use of this money? That would be better than the federal government's misguided approach.
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree that the provinces have an important role to play, but, unfortunately, I do not agree with the idea that these decisions should be up to the provinces alone.
We have to participate. We have to work with all levels of government in Canada: indigenous governments, provincial governments, territorial governments and the federal government. We must demand a public health care system that meets everyone's needs. If every province had the right to decide, I would fear for some people.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand up here once again on behalf of the residents of Bay of Quinte.
Canada's Bank of Canada governor finally admitted this week that inflation is a made-in-Canada problem not just a global phenomenon. Governor Macklem, this week in a speech to the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, said, “Some of this inflation reflects global developments that we don’t control, but inflation in Canada increasingly reflects what’s happening in Canada.”
This echoes former deputy minister of finance for the Liberal Party and former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge, who stated two weeks ago that inflation was increasingly a made-in-Canada problem. This unjust inflation is hurting Canadian families, and for Canada, a G7 nation, it is embarrassing that we are seeing families affected by the lack of the essentials, the very basics the government of this country should be looking after: housing, food, paycheques and filling job shortages, which includes our military and housing for our military.
This made-in-Canada inflation problem is costing the average Canadian family with two children $11,000 a year. This inflation problem, this crisis in housing and health care and food shortages are really affecting families to the core. Food bank usage is up. In my riding, it is up 30%, which correlates to a 30% rise in grocery bills. With housing, there is a doubling of homelessness in my region, with 500,000 alone in Belleville. There are farmers who are struggling to pay their bills.
There is the government's announcement for next year, which will be a turducken of taxes during Thanksgiving, a tripling of taxes, including the carbon tax. For a lot of Canadian businesses, we will see rises in interest as we see the bank trying to combat this inflation. Should Canada not, as a G7 nation, need to look after the basics? It has been proven that more money chasing fewer goods causes inflation, a made-in-Canada problem. Should the government not have to look after the basics for its citizens?
This means Canadian families right now are choosing between food, heat, medication and after-school activities. Do we not feel the government should do the same? The government needs to choose where to put its money to be more active in investing in Canada and to ensure we are looking after the basics.
These are things like creating more hospital beds, doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners or making sure our natural resources like liquefied natural gas can go to Europe, create jobs and bring money into this country. Should we make sure that we create housing for our military and that we do not have a gap of 3,600 families waiting for housing on our military bases? Should we not ensure Canadians take home a greater paycheque?
We are stuck here in Parliament debating and, on our side, having to say no to dental care in Canada, a G7 nation, because we have spent so much money on so many things except for taking care of the basics in Canada. When we are spending money, we need to make sure we invest in Canadian basics and the necessities that are helping all families all the time. That means we are going to need to say no, just like families are saying no when it comes to their own bills. Some of them are saying no to food, housing, after-school activities or anything else Canadians need to make choices on for their families each and every day. It is absolutely disheartening.
The government's number one job is to make sure it is taking care of Canadians' basic needs and to ensure that when we are spending we invest in those things Canadians will find helpful and that will help their daily lives and looks after their families. I want to talk about those things.
For housing, there are 500,000 people who are homeless in the city of Belleville. It takes one step to become homeless. Sometimes it is a domestic dispute. Sometimes it is a rental cheque that was missed, or sometimes it is alcohol and addictions. It is three steps to come out of homelessness. It means we look at shelters. It is a basic need for all Canadians that they at least have a roof over their heads, which is a shelter, but second is transitional housing.
We have an incredible transitional house in Belleville, by the shelter called the Grace Inn. It is called the Shiloh House. It has six rooms and is helping the homeless transition out of shelters and into rentals. It can help with up to six units. It is not easy. It has transitional programs for mental health and addiction. It helps with employment and keeping a job, and it ensures that people are looking after themselves. I toured it a few weeks go, and it was inspiring to talk to individuals who were getting themselves into transitional housing and will eventually find a rental and a home for themselves.
However, it is not as simple as just throwing money at the situation and thinking it is going to fix our homelessness situation. The very basis of people having shelter and being able to find themselves in a home takes three steps. That means we have to work harder. We cannot just throw money at it. We have to ensure we are working with Canadians, municipalities and provinces to move people out.
The third step is affordable housing as a whole. This country is short 1.8 million homes compared to the average of our G7 friends. We know that affects supply. When we look at the average affordable rental housing unit and affordable rent, it has to be about $700 or $800.
I am a hotelier. I have built hotels in the past. I can tell members that the travesty in our housing right now is that we are not seeing affordability when it comes to building homes. The average affordable housing unit that I have seen in Canada is well over $280,000 a unit. In 2015 I built a hotel, the TownePlace Suites Marriott, for $135,000 a door. That included a pool, and there was a kitchen in each room. It had almost everything it could have.
However, affordable housing is so expensive now that it costs $265,000 just to build the unit. There is no way, when developers build affordable housing units for $265,000 a unit, that they can charge rents of $700 or $800. Even if they get 50% or all the funding from CMHC, they still have to charge $1,200- to $1,500-plus for that rent. We have to find innovative ways that Canada can build affordable rental units so that our citizens can afford an affordable market rent.
Housing is a huge issue. It is top of mind. I am very passionate about it. It is something that we need to invest in and spend more time on. Of course, housing and shelter should come before dental care. Let us fix housing and make sure that is a priority.
With respect to food for our families, the average family spends more money in taxes than it does for food, shelter and housing in Canada, a G7 nation. When we look at the fact that we have people lined up for our food banks and what we need to feed those people through our farmers, our farmers are the most important part of that mechanism. They should be invested in and looked after. Instead, what we are hearing this week is that they are paying $45,000 on average in carbon tax per year, but getting back only $862 as a rebate. These are the farmers on whom we depend to grow our food.
By the way, by 2030, the world will need 1.5 times the food we have now. We will need 50% more food. Who grows that food, has the animals and has the farmland? Who fishes? It is our farmers and our farming industry. They need to be invested in. They have good technologies that will help them use the soil to produce double the yields and help them save on labour, because good luck to them finding labourers and employees right now, with one million jobs open in this country. We need to invest in farmers and to make sure that is there.
My last point is with respect to labour shortages. We are one million jobs short in this country, which is costing $30 billion in spiking inflation, because if we cannot get someone to truck our food, make our food and be there to serve our food, then inflation goes up because we have less. There is more money chasing fewer goods, and it is a made-in-Canada problem. We need to invest in Canadians. Unfortunately, we have to make the hard decisions to make sure we look after the basics. That means saying no to some things.
Looking at our future, we need doctors and labourers. We need to help our farmers. We need to make sure we get shelter and housing for our families. That is what we should be focusing on, and that is what Canadians need to be focused on with respect to the current government. That is what we are going to do on this side of the House.
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Madam Speaker, the member made reference to the issue of inflation. There are a number of measures we are taking, because this government takes inflation very seriously, even though, when we compare ourselves to the United States, England and Europe, Canada has a lower inflation rate. Therefore, unlike what the Conservatives try to portray to Canadians, we are doing relatively well in comparison to the rest of the world.
Having said that, we are bringing forward measures to provide relief to people who are experiencing inflation, which is everyone. The bill we are debating today would provide relief for renters in the form of a $500 support. It also provides a framework to enable children under the age of 12 to get the dental care that is badly needed. Why does the Conservative Party want to not only vote against this legislation, but also filibuster it?
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Madam Speaker, that is very interesting. I do not know, when you are talking to your residents at the door and telling them that inflation is higher in the U.K., how that helps the family that has to choose between rent, groceries and shelter. I do not understand how you think they understand that.
Residents are hurting and they want to hear relief for those tough things. They want to know their taxes are going to be lowered and that they are going to have more money in their back pocket at the end of the day.
We cannot spent all the money and do all the things and expect that Canadians are going to be helped every step of the way. It has been proven. The Governor of the Bank of Canada said that spending the money we have spent, having more money chasing less goods, has resulted in Canadians spending over $900 a month more than they did in 2019.
If your answer is to continue what we are doing, if you want to make it $1,800 or $2,000, our answer is to rein it in. Let us get focused—
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- Oct/7/22 1:13:13 p.m.
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I have to allow for more questions. I would also remind the member that he is to address questions and comments through the Chair, not directly to members.
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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, there is a common misconception that government builds homes. Government does not build homes. People build homes.
When I have talked to developers in our region, and I have spent a lot of time on housing, being a hotelier myself and building units, the best programs we could do as a government are zero percent interest loans. They would enable developers to look at solutions so that they can build, making sure they do not lose $1 million when they are building a unit, while hopefully allowing them to build more units that they can then offer for lower rents.
Rentals are what we need. We talk about 1.8 million homes. We talk about people finding themselves at our shelters. They need transitional housing. It is rentals.
The other big thing that we have learned about hotels is that if we have more rentals in Canada, if a landlord is stuck with an empty unit and there are four more empty units, they lower the price point for the unit in order to rent it. We just need more of them. Let us help developers build more rental units.
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Uqaqtittiji, the population of Nunavut is about 40,000 people. This bill, if passed, would help more than two million people. That is more than triple the number of people who live in Nunavut.
Why is the member against targeted measures that would help all these millions of people in Canada?
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Madam Speaker, we are not.
Yesterday the Conservative government voted for tax decreases targeted at our most vulnerable. When we look at how we could help Canadians, we have looked at targeted measures. We just cannot do all of them.
I know the member for Nunavut spoke yesterday about the increasing costs of food, and I believe it is the highest in the region in Nunavut. We need to look at that cost. Looking at the broadest population, how do we help get food to Nunavut and help those populations? I think that is the bigger necessity. I would focus more on that.
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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, the hon. member's speeches are always so enthusiastic, entertaining and really on point.
I have to agree with everything he said, pretty much. I agree that the $500 for rental support is basically a part-time solution, just as the dental care solution in this bill is basically a down payment on a real program that will help all Canadians.
This is more of a comment. I was going to bring up Vienna as an example and then the member mentioned it. I think we in Canada have to look beyond our borders and certainly beyond North America for the solution we need for the housing crisis. One of our problems is that we live next to the United States, which does not provide a lot of those solutions.
I want to thank the member for his speech.
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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, I will follow the NDP member and thank my Bloc colleague for a very exciting and passionate speech.
I agree on the housing issues, especially with his comment that this is just a band-aid solution that is being put forth. It does not get to the root crux of the need for more housing and for more rental units across Canada.
I have talked about these issues with my constituents when I have had housing task force meetings. What they seem to be okay with, even the developers, in order to increase more affordable units across the country and across the riding is putting in a bit of a mandate for developers so they have to hedge so many units to be affordable. The biggest concern and push-back I got was about whether it would be the same for everybody.
Has the member heard similar stories in his riding?
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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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