44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 19, 2023 02:00PM
- Apr/19/23 2:14:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, buying a house used to be a milestone moment, like getting one's driver's licence, starting one's career, getting married and becoming a parent, or becoming Speaker, but the Liberals' failure to cut red tape and get houses built has made housing unaffordable for most people.
In Ontario, the gap between house prices and incomes has become a chasm. Over eight years, the Liberals have seen house prices grow by 180% while incomes have grown only 38%. As inflation and the cost of living go up, an entire generation of young people is left behind, as is the ability to settle down and pursue their dreams.
The Prime Minister is sending a clear message to young Canadians: It does not matter how hard they work or what sacrifices they make; with the Liberals in charge, they will never own homes and never get to enjoy the same quality of life their parents and grandparents did. This is unacceptable.
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- Apr/19/23 3:59:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to table a petition on behalf of over 1,200 people who recognize that, first and foremost, homes should be places for people to live and not commodities for institutional investors to trade.
They know that the commodification of housing, including the rapid rise of institutional investors like real estate investment trusts and their holdings, has substantially contributed to the unaffordability of housing and has worsened the housing crisis that we are in. They recognize that REITs comprise some of Canada's largest corporate landlords, which have long received special tax treatment from the federal government. They also note that REITs have grown from owning no rental suites at all in 1996 to nearly 200,000 in 2021.
As a result, along with other items, the petitioners call on the Government of Canada to remove the tax exemption for real estate investment trusts and use the revenue that would be generated in doing so to invest in quality, affordable and dignified non-profit and co-operative housing.
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- Apr/19/23 7:26:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, last Saturday night, I was with over 800 people at the Working Centre's annual mayors' dinner. It is an incredible organization in my community that has been on the front lines of responding to poverty, unemployment, the housing crisis and more.
It was at that event that we got to hear of the lived experiences of people living unsheltered. One estimate that we now have is that about double the number of people in the room that night are living unsheltered across Waterloo region.
This is a crisis that we are in the midst of. In Waterloo region, we have plenty of people with great ideas and passion. People are, for example, coming together to buy properties to keep them permanently affordable, such as Union Co-operative is doing. Organizations such as the Working Centre, the House of Friendship, Beyond Housing and so many more are pouring their hearts and lives into building the affordable housing that we need.
In light of this, I need the parliamentary secretary to know that the federal government cannot take a year off when it comes to addressing the housing crisis. Communities like mine, while full of people who are ready to step up, cannot be expected to do it on their own. We need all three levels of government acting like this is the crisis that it is.
Months ago, Canada's federal housing advocate, a position that was created by the federal government own legislation, was clear. She said that the national housing strategy is failing. After this budget, she said, “The newly unveiled Federal Budget is a sorry disappointment. It completely misses the mark on addressing the most pressing housing crisis this country has ever seen.”
Why did she say that? It is because on housing, there was nothing in it, outside of a needed investment in indigenous housing, which is unfortunately back-loaded, and the funding does not start for a few years still.
My concern is that the federal government might be out of ideas on housing while we are in the midst of a crisis that needs urgent action. For the rest of my time, I want to offer more of those ideas for the parliamentary secretary to continue to put pressure on the implementation.
First, we need to get more affordable non-market housing built. One simple idea is to make the rapid housing initiative a permanent annual funding envelope for housing providers, in my community and others across the country, to apply for, predictably, to build the housing they are keen to build.
Second, we need to increase investments in co-op housing to get more built, just the way we did back in the eighties at the rate and the pace that we did then. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for an investment in co-op housing from last year and pretend that this is enough.
Third, we need to end the loophole for real estate investment trusts to ensure that they pay their taxes at the same rate as others and direct that funding to build more of the non-market housing that we need. Fourth, we need to follow through on Habitat for Humanity's call to waive GST for all affordable housing built by charities across the country.
My question to the parliamentary secretary is this: Will they push for these kinds of initiatives to address the housing crisis we are in?
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- Apr/19/23 7:30:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and friend from Kitchener Centre for the excellent question on an issue that both of us truly care deeply about.
Just last week, I met with over a dozen stakeholders and community leaders in my community of Windsor—Tecumseh at a round table focused on the issue of affordable housing, and that includes housing for those experiencing homelessness.
Our government has made housing a priority since the very beginning of our mandate. That is why in 2017 we launched the landmark national housing strategy, a first in Canadian history and a return to federal involvement in housing. Prior to this, the federal government had not been seriously involved in housing for decades, and we knew we had much work to catch up on. The range of programs under the strategy addressed the needs of people across the housing spectrum, from building new shelter units to supporting the purchase of a first home to support directly for renters.
The rapid housing initiative is an example of one such program having tremendous success. The initiative helps people most in need, like people who are homeless or at risk of becoming so. This program provides grants to support the rapid creation of permanent affordable housing units. It has continually exceeded its targets, and now, with the third round, we hope to create a total of nearly 15,000 units.
The national housing co-investment fund is another program lifting people out of homelessness. Among its achievements, it has yielded over 3,700 shelter beds, 3,500 supportive housing units and 1,600 transitional housing beds so far. However, I do not want to talk about numbers here. I would rather talk about people.
These are people like Emily from Vancouver, who was homeless and struggled with addictions. She found a home at Union Gospel Mission's Women and Families Centre, and she says the support she received changed her life. The centre was built with funding from the national co-investment fund. There is also Bill, a Canadian Forces veteran in Ottawa who went from being homeless to living in Veterans' House. That project was also financed by the co-investment fund. Projects like these are successful because they acknowledge the complex nature of homelessness and the range of factors that lead to it.
Our government's homelessness strategy, Reaching Home, takes a whole-of-government approach to the issue. We also work closely with partners in other orders of government and elsewhere in the housing sector.
Our government takes a human rights-based approach to housing because we fundamentally believe that access to housing is indeed a human right. This is unlike the Conservative Party, which has no plan for housing, did nothing when it was in government and still will not say whether it believes housing is a human right. This should be something that all parties agree on.
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- Apr/19/23 7:33:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would agree that there are other parties here that are not doing enough on housing, but that was not the question I asked. I asked how the parliamentary secretary can stand by a budget that does not invest in the housing we need.
He spoke about the rapid housing initiative. That is one of the issues I am calling on to be renewed. The City of Kitchener was calling for it to be renewed too, and it was not in this budget. The calls of organizations across the country are clear. We cannot spend time patting ourselves on the back for investments from past years in the midst of a housing crisis.
I would invite the parliamentary secretary, as I have said to others, to come by my community and meet the people who are living unsheltered and calling for so much better. Will he come and visit?
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- Apr/19/23 7:34:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's concern about making sure that our policies are also forward-facing, not just talking about the major historic investments we have made, but what we will do looking forward.
The plans we announced in the spring budget acknowledged the complexity of the issue by approaching it from multiple directions. That includes increasing supply, like the supply of deeply affordable housing, tackling speculation in the housing sector and so much more.
We will continue to prioritize housing, as we have done since the start of our mandate, unlike the Conservatives, who simply spew buzzwords instead of putting forward a real plan. They did nothing on housing when they were in government and continue to do nothing in opposition.
I am pleased to know that my colleague from Kitchener Centre shares our concern, and I hope we can count on the support of everyone in the House as we continue to work to ensure everyone has a safe and affordable place to call home.
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Madam Speaker, I am here in the House again to ask for financial support for persons with disabilities. I want to start with a story so that the government can understand how this is actually impacting people in my community.
Last week, a mother in her 70s came in to talk about her adult son who lives on his own and is about to be demovicted from an apartment he has lived in for almost 17 years. He cannot afford the new rent on the income he has at this point in time. This is what is really happening to people in this market-driven housing frenzy that the Liberal government has fed.
Once again, I rise in the House to shine a light on the urgency for persons with disabilities to have immediate income support as they continue to wait for a Canada disability benefit. While provincial and territorial income support programs have been virtually stagnant for years, the community is facing an ever-shrinking income while struggling to cope with the rising cost of food and the skyrocketing price of housing.
Through the course of the HUMA committee study on Bill C-22, the Canada disability benefit act, we heard that about one million Canadians living with a disability are in poverty. We heard from the minister and her ESDC officials that the average gap between provincial and territorial support and the poverty line for persons with disabilities is $9,000, and there is no way to fill that gap. Overwhelmingly, we heard that these one million people are not eating enough meals daily and that their housing can be unacceptable and often inaccessible.
It is essential that the federal government step up immediately with an emergency benefit. Therefore, I ask again for the Minister of Disability Inclusion to provide this emergency response benefit for persons with disabilities while Canadians wait for the currently unfunded Canada disability benefit.
Canadians with disabilities face exclusion from society on a daily basis. The recent Auditor General's report on accessible transportation found that, in 2019 and 2020, nearly two-thirds of the 2.2 million persons with disabilities who travelled on planes, trains and other federally regulated modes of transportation faced barriers. Even worse, the risk of damage to their essential assistive devices is beyond unacceptable. Transportation is essential to people's daily lives, including for people with disabilities. The government should understand that. Persons with disabilities are more likely to rely on public transportation as they navigate this incredibly ableist world.
Education is another place where people with disabilities are facing barriers and exclusion every day, whether in the aging infrastructure that years of out-of-date schools have put in front of people; insufficient funding for school boards to fully include children with disabilities; or challenges related to accessing and applying for student loans, grants, tax credits and other programs that are supposed to give access to better education. It is just not working. Even in seeking employment, people with disabilities are excluded, with inaccessible workplaces, biases of employers and the stresses of coping with too many other challenges on top of employment.
The NDP knows that people with disabilities need assistance today. This includes better access to income supports, publicly funded pharmacare and dental care as part of improving the lives of persons with disabilities.
With the Canada disability benefit at least a year away, I implore the Liberal government to help persons with disabilities now with an emergency relief benefit. The disability community deserves it.
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- Apr/19/23 7:52:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly do not question the wishes of the minister but what I do question is the understanding and the political will of the government.
I just wanted to point out that more people like the man whose mum came to see me just last week in my office will lose their housing and will go hungry. This is not acceptable. It is not acceptable that we will let people lose their housing and they will not be able to have a meal a day because we will not support the income supports they have been asking for.
Through the full consultation that I know this department has done, the number one pillar that people needed was financial security. Why will the government not look after the people in this country? Why will they not do it?
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