44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 2, 2022 02:00PM
- Nov/2/22 3:16:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 87% of indigenous households in Canada live in urban, rural and northern regions outside their traditional territories. That is 87%. Despite this, the Liberals are only committing $300 million to address the urgent and imminent needs for urban, rural and indigenous community housing. This is so far nowhere near enough.
Will the Prime Minister commit to increasing the interim funding to a level that responds to the urgency and the desperate need the community has?
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- Nov/2/22 3:17:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the housing challenges faced by Canadians right across the country are significant, but nowhere more significant than in vulnerable urban, indigenous, northern and remote areas. That is why we have put forward record amounts, a $300-million direct investment, to support and grow housing supply in those areas.
We know there will be more to do, but we need to make sure that we are delivering results for Canadians and that is exactly what we are focused on.
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- Nov/2/22 6:52:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come back to the need to urgently act on the housing crisis. I would like the parliamentary secretary to understand why I am coming back to it.
First of all, it is because the number of people living unsheltered in my community has tripled in the last three years, going from just over 300 people to over 1,000. Also, homes continue to become less affordable. Dating back to 2005, for example, it used to be that house prices were three times the average median income. If we fast-forward to today, homes are eight times as much, which is completely out of reach for the average person, while the wait-list for an affordable one-bedroom unit is now almost eight years long.
The housing crisis will continue to define my community, as it already has, whether it is a young person who is unsure if they will ever be able to move out of their parents' place, a senior living on a fixed income or a health care worker. A nurse I spoke with a few weeks ago said they were not sure if they would be able to continue living in our community at all.
It is clear that across all levels of government, we need urgent action. At the federal level, we need to invest at the rates that are required to build the units we need, while also addressing the underlying conditions that have led us to this crisis. The fact is that homes should be places for people to live and not commodities for corporate investors to profiteer from. If a corporate investor wants to make a bunch of money, they should invest in the stock market, not do it on the backs of low-income folks in my community.
Multiple studies show that one very reasonable measure that would help is removing the existing tax exemptions for one type of corporate investor: real estate investment trusts. Back in 1996, REITs did not own any rental units across the country. Today, they own nearly 200,000 units. In fact, although institutional investors across the country do not fully disclose the number of units, we know it is somewhere between 20% to 30% of the purpose-built rental housing stock.
In my community and across the country, what we are seeing is these real estate investment trusts buy up affordable units, quickly raise rents and then make it more difficult for renters to afford a place to call home. These corporate investors are in it not for what they can contribute, but for what they can take out, with the largest return possible. It seems pretty reasonable to tax them appropriately and invest the funds in affordable housing.
That is exactly what a motion I put forward in the House, Motion No. 71, would do. When I last raised this motion with the Minister of Housing, the reply I got was that the governing party needed to study it more.
Well, the good news is that the studies have already been done. One was done by the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, which recommended this. There was another study by The Shift, which was in its directives. Locally, in my community, a study was also done by the Social Development Centre Waterloo Region. As a result, groups across the country, including Citizens for Public Justice, Canada Without Poverty, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in its proposed alternative federal budget and the National Right to Housing Network, are making this same recommendation. They recommend to remove this tax exemption from real estate investment trusts and, in the words of the motion, to put the funds toward affordable units.
Knowing that the studies have already been done and knowing that civil societies are recommending this change, will it be in the fall economic statement tomorrow? If not, why not?
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- Nov/2/22 6:56:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear members of other parties in the House agree with us on the need to increase housing supply and preserve affordability. It is vital that responsibility for this goal be shared amongst all levels of government, the private sector and the non-profit sector. We all need to do our part to maintain affordability.
Too many people in this country are struggling to find housing that they can afford, that meets their needs and that also meets the need to live with dignity by having a safe and affordable home. There is simply not enough supply to meet the demand.
Our government has implemented a number of programs under the national housing strategy to increase the supply of housing. However, as my colleague pointed out, supply is only one of the factors driving up the cost of housing. Financialization and speculation have artificially increased prices to such an extent that prices no longer reflect the true value of housing. That is to say nothing of the “renoviction” phenomenon.
That is why we brought in a 1% annual tax on vacant residential properties belonging to non-resident, non-Canadian owners. That is also why we adopted a measure prohibiting foreigners from purchasing residential property in Canada for a period of two years. That is also why we are planning a suite of other measures to guarantee that housing in this country is used for its intended purpose, in other words, as a place to live for people in need.
Earlier this year, we announced a federal review of housing as an asset class. This fiscal review will help us better understand the role of large corporate players in the market and their impact on Canadian renters and homeowners.
We also announced measures to protect buyers and renters against bad practices. We are implementing a homebuyers' bill of rights that will make the process of buying a home more open, transparent and fair. We are also proposing new measures to crack down on illegal activity in our housing market and make sure that property flippers and speculators are paying their fair share of tax.
Our government has made housing affordability a priority since we were first elected, and we will continue to do so. It was the cornerstone of our 2022 budget, which proposed measures to address the issue from every angle that could have an impact.
I thank my colleague for asking me this question and for giving me another opportunity to talk about housing. Again, it is a shared responsibility. He can count on my full co‑operation in providing affordable housing for all Canadians.
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- Nov/2/22 7:00:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for giving me the opportunity to reiterate that we must do more. That is exactly the commitment we have made. We have committed to implementing more measures to improve housing affordability. The plans we announced in the spring budget take into account the complexity of this problem by addressing it from several angles, including increasing supply and fighting financialization and speculation in the housing sector. We will continue to make housing a priority, as we have since we were first elected. I am very pleased that my colleague from Kitchener Centre shares this concern. I hope we will be able to count on his support for the suite of measures that we will be introducing in the House.
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