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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 183

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 24, 2023 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 183 - Apr/24/23
Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)
  • Apr/24/23 12:13:08 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-47 
Madam Speaker, as usual, my colleague's delight over his government's budget is patently obvious. However, on one topic he was silent, and I know why. Of the budget's 250 pages, only one page addresses the housing crisis. That in itself is completely unacceptable. In the week after the budget was tabled, the National Housing Council, the body created by the federal government to oversee its grand national housing strategy, brought up a very interesting point. Between 2011 and 2021, Canada lost 550,000 affordable housing units. Not only has the government failed to create new housing, but we lost 550,000 units in the span of 10 years. The National Housing Council has suggested a highly practical solution, which is to create an acquisition fund to enable non-profit housing organizations to purchase private housing stock, take it off the private market and make it permanently affordable. It is a solution that everyone is talking about. Does my colleague think it is a good solution?
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Context: House Hansard - 183 - Apr/24/23
Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP)
  • Apr/24/23 12:51:36 p.m.
  • Watch
  • Re: Bill C-47 
Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague and many of his Conservative colleagues have been talking about housing. I think one thing we all agree on in the House is that there is a crisis of unbelievable proportions related to housing in this country. I live in Vancouver and have been there for close to four decades. The rise in house prices began in the mid-eighties, particularly after Expo, and then continued with the repatriation of Hong Kong back to China in the late 1990s and the Olympics in 2010. With each of these things, it became obvious that there was an inflow of foreign capital, from both corporate and foreign investment, that destabilized house prices in the Lower Mainland. It is at the point now where, for people who live and work there, the price of detached or even non-detached houses is completely divorced from what people actually make. What specifically does my hon. colleague say a Conservative government would do to help provide real affordable housing for people in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia? I would like to hear specifically what policy his government would advance.
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