44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 2, 2023 10:00AM
- May/2/23 10:38:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, having a place to call home should not be merely a dream in Canada. It should not be a distant memory from generations past. It must be an achievable reality for all Canadian families. Canada cannot reach its full potential until everyone has a safe bed to sleep in and a welcoming place to come home to at the end of the day.
I have had the privilege of visiting many communities in Canada, and there is a despair that too many Canadians are feeling, an emptiness that many of our fellow citizens are dealing with as the dream of having a home of their own slips further and further away from their grasp. Canada needs leaders who will turn rhetoric and words into real tangible action to get shovels in the ground now.
The housing situation in Canada is in crisis, and times of crisis require bold action and real leadership.
I have spoken in the House before about Kim Doughty. She was the catalyst who motivated her husband Claude and me to get an emergency shelter in Huntsville, six beds of emergency shelter and 10 units of transitional housing. The community rallied to the cause and we got the project built. We were justly proud of the accomplishment. We also knew it was just one step, that much more to be done.
After I was elected as mayor, I met with Kim again, and some of her housing colleagues, and she told me some heartbreaking stories about suffering and struggle. Most of it was in hiding right in our picturesque Muskoka.
What Kim told me that day years ago is the same thing we hear today in our communities all across the country. Housing is more than economics. It is more than shovels, dirt and wood. For too many, it is literally life and death. If the leaders of all levels of government took up the cause of combatting this crisis, we would do more than just make our communities more affordable; we would literally save lives.
At that time, our council and administration set to work to change policies. We made land available to developers to build, and so did the community take up the cause.
The Table Soup Kitchen was working hard at the time to open a shelter for men in Huntsville. It was very near completion when an issue arose over the fire code and access and entry points, so we were not quite ready to open it. In the midst of all of this was a young man named Paul.
Paul had his struggles, but he was a joyful fellow and well-liked in the community. He requested to stay in the shelter one night, but he was turned away because it did not have its occupancy permit yet. Therefore, he stayed in his old beat up Volkswagen van that night. When police later found Paul's van, their investigation concluded that the candle he lit, presumably to create a bit of warmth on that cold November night, had tipped over as he slept.
Huntsville lost Paul that night, and our community was devastated, as was I. I received emails from residents who were shocked and angry, some charging that Paul's blood was on my hands. Paul's father later wrote a letter to our community to thank us for welcoming his son and for making Huntsville the place Paul called home, quite proudly. He assured us that Paul's death was not anyone's fault, that Paul made his own choices and that no one was to blame. Yet, were we not? Was I not, just a little?
What more could I have done to resolve the occupancy dispute? What mental health supports were not there that should have been there? Are any of us in leadership doing enough right now?
Tragically, Paul's story is not unique. It is one that is repeated in every corner of our country.
On average, in Toronto, three homeless people die a week. The vacancy rate for rentals in Canada is 1.9%. That means there is nothing to rent. Rental rates have doubled in the last eight years of the current government. Home prices have doubled in the last eight years under the government. For the 35-year-old living in their parents' basement unable to start a family, the entrepreneur thinking of moving to another country or the company passing off the opportunity to grow in Canada because it simply cannot find a place for their workers to live, the problem is getting worse.
It is a crisis. It holds our country back from economic opportunity and prosperity. It holds Canadians back from being able to achieve their dreams. It stops us from building communities. In many cases, it is life and death.
The problem is that we do not have enough supply. Years of bad policy have left our country without enough homes for Canadians. We are not building fast enough to keep up with the rising levels of immigration. The result is that too many of the homes we have today are too expensive for too many of the Canadians who live here.
The solution is to get more shovels in the ground and build more homes faster. We must make it easier to build, easier to get permits, easier to source the skilled labour and building materials needed to get the job done. We must make it harder for the NIMBY activists and politicians who hold development up to stop them from doing that.
Unfortunately, what we get from the government is a lot of talk and no real results. We see a Minister of Housing who attends a lot of announcements, but not a lot of ribbon-cuttings, groundbreakings or grand openings. In fact, a few weeks ago, I asked the Minister of Housing if Canada was in a crisis, something his provincial counterparts, economists, housing experts and his own officials agree upon. He rambled on about political talking points and spoke about his government increasing their ambition.
In a crisis, we devote every possible resource to addressing an issue. It means bringing every single partner to the table and taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to face the challenge head on. Not surprisingly, the minister has not done this, because he does not seem to be aware of the magnitude of the problem.
Canadians deserve better than that. They deserve a country where if they work hard and play by the rules, the dream of owning a home will always be in reach. Our country deserves a government that will work hard to get shovels in the ground, as those Canadians who work hard every single day, saving and sacrificing, do their part to build a brighter future for them and their families.
This crisis is real, and the solutions we put forward must be bold. The old way of doing things simply does not work anymore. For years, housing providers from social housing, co-op housing, community groups and market-based developers have found it nearly impossible to access CMHC programs. Its procedures are convoluted, its decisions often do not even make any sense. The Auditor General's has reported that they are not entirely sure if what it is doing is having any impact. Canadians do not need the Auditor General to tell the truth. The fact of the matter is that it is not working.
Just last week, the CMHC raised insurance rates on multi-unit purpose-built rentals. It raised those premiums by almost 200%. The government's out-of-touch housing policies will continue to drive up the rent on the most vulnerable Canadians and further stall the construction of new units.
However, there is good news. The Conservatives are ready to clean up the government's mess. We are going to get the big government inaction out of the way and ensure that the federal government is no longer a barrier to getting more homes built. We are going to make available a minimum of 15% of underutilized government properties and clear the way for homes of all kinds to build on land that the government has not been using.
While we are at it, we will stand up to the NIMBY activists and cowardly politicians who plague our system, the folks who fight tooth and nail against new homes being built in our communities. The Conservatives understand that if we are ever going to ensure that the next generation, that new Canadians and that young families have the same opportunities that every person in the House has had, then we cannot allow the NIMBYs, the naysayers and the critics to stand in the way anymore.
That is why we are going to tie federal funding on all infrastructure projects for municipalities to how quickly they can clean up their act and get homes built faster. We will require that any major transit project to receive federal funding must have the land around that transit ready to go for high-density housing immediately.
Let me be clear that the Conservatives are loudly and proudly saying yes to building more homes in Canada's backyard. The days of municipal councillors being able to hold up projects and vilify homebuilders must come to an end. The days of talk, delays and deferrals must be a thing of the past.
Come the next federal election, the days of having a Minister of Housing who does not even have the courage to admit that Canada is in a housing crisis, let alone take the actions to fix it, will be done too.
As a former mayor, I can tell members that homes do not get built without leaders who have the courage, the fortitude and the conviction to make the tough decisions, some decisions that are not popular but must be made.
From coast to coast to coast, the housing crisis is claiming lives and shattering dreams. Canadians are living out of trailer parks and taking on crippling levels of debt. Sadly, too many are dying in the streets of our communities, big and small. It is time for bold action and tangible results. Working with all levels of government, trade unions, the private sector and community organizations, we will get things built.
I ask every Canadian who has ever dreamed of having a place to call his or her own, the single mom working relentlessly to build a better future for her children, the entrepreneur thinking of leaving Canada, the new immigrant dreaming of coming to Canada, the young people locked out of the housing market, the parents with young people still living in their basements, to not lose hope because we hear them loud and clear and help is on the way.
After the next federal election, the Conservative government will hit the ground running and work on day one to ensure that having a place to call home at the end of the day is not just the privilege of a few, but the reality of every single Canadian from every walk of life. A home of one's own in this magnificent Canada must no longer be just a dream; it must be a reality. The Conservatives will get our country building again. The Conservatives will bring it home.
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- May/2/23 10:49:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a former mayor, and I was a chair of planning for many years before that. I guarantee the vast majority of these complaints come from people who just do not want change. Many, many times in planning committees we would have people come to say they did not like something, it would negatively affect the value of their property or there would be too many people.
The fact of the matter is that municipalities have official plans, governing documents that say how the municipality show grow. There is professional planning staff who recommend in favour of things because it makes sense and is good planning. Then there are the cowardly local politicians, and trust me because I dealt with lots of them, and I chastised many of them many times, would say that the people of the community do not like it. They are worried about getting re-elected.
We need to do what is right, and we need to challenge municipalities that are not doing what is right to get the job done because they are holding things up. They are making it more expensive, and it is harder and harder for young people to get into a home of their own because of their delays and tactics to stall these projects.
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- May/2/23 10:51:09 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will use a line from President Reagan: “trust, but verify.” If they are not getting the job done, they cannot be trusted. That is all there is to it.
The federal government ties strings to funding all the time. This is a crisis. People say to just trust the municipalities, to not worry about it and that one should not invade in anybody else's space. In a crisis, it is all hands on deck. People who make comments like that do not realize it. One needs to go out in the communities and meet the people who are just desperate for a place to call home.
This is a crisis, and dancing around on the head of a pin worrying about jurisdiction is not what one does in a crisis. We all need to come together to make it happen.
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- May/2/23 10:52:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a big fan of my colleague who asked the question, and I admire her passion for housing. REITs were a tool used by the previous government with tax treatment to create investment in an aging housing stock. Part of the problem we have in this country is that we stopped building purpose-built rental in the 1970s because the Trudeau government of the time decided it was unfair and was worried about helping private landlords.
The fact of the matter is that, once we stopped that, there was little investment in those purpose-built rentals. We are desperate for more purpose-built rentals, and we are also desperate for the purpose-built rentals to be revitalized. They are tired, and they are old. They need more investments, and REITs have actually done that.
Trying to demonize the private sector is not going to help us in this situation. We need trillions of dollars of investment in housing, and the government cannot get it done, no matter how much it thinks it can.
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- May/2/23 3:04:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, CMHC is reporting that Canada could see a reduction of almost 32% in new housing construction this year. Its chief economist said that, with record inflation, sky-high interest rates and labour shortages, the current economic situation is “inhospitable” for new construction.
The warnings are coming from inside the castle walls now. I am wondering when this government will actually clean up the fiscal mess it created so Canadians can one day afford a home again.
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- May/2/23 3:05:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I can assure members that when we replace the Liberals as the government, we will deliver better. We will not waste taxpayers' money so egregiously to achieve nothing for results. Under the Liberals, local politicians are delaying and even blocking new housing. Saskatoon guarantees a building permit for a house in five days. It can be done. There is no reason for the delay.
When will the government finally stand up to local politicians who are creating costly delays, so we can get the homes built that Canadians so desperately need?
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- May/2/23 4:06:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was not planning on asking a question, but I will tell the member how the town of Gravenhurst is pronounced.
Many times in this House I have talked about the importance of the federal immigration system working directly with the provinces to make sure we are attracting the right skills to build the homes Canadians need. I wonder if he can speak to that. Are we actually doing enough to attract skilled trades to this country?
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