44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 2, 2023 10:00AM
- May/2/23 10:19:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is profound disrespect for your role as Speaker of the House. We know that, for an emergency debate, you make a ruling. You have made it and I would ask that if we continue to get disruption—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- May/2/23 10:19:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that the Conservative Party is, right now, showing profound disrespect to your office as Speaker, and it needs to stop doing that and start the debate on its motion.
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- May/2/23 11:15:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I liked my colleague's speech, but I do not like the Liberal Party's record on affordable housing. The national housing plan was slashed by the Martin government several years ago.
The Liberals have been very slow to make the investments, which are so important. Of course, core funding is absolutely critical to building housing. The Liberals said they were serious about starting to provide adequate funding to indigenous communities in a few years. Given the crisis and the many communities that lack affordable housing, the delay is unacceptable.
My question is quite simple. Why have the Liberals not made the investments that are needed now to address this crisis and to ensure that everyone in Canada can have a roof over their head?
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- May/2/23 11:52:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to inform you at the outset that I am proud to be splitting my time with the biggest and strongest proponent of affordable housing across the country. I am of course referring to the member for Vancouver East.
We are in a crisis, which has been brewing for many years. I will come back to that. The reality is that even though the Conservatives moved this motion today, they do not put forward much in the way of solutions. For example, they blame the municipalities. However, I know that many municipalities are doing everything they can to ensure they have affordable housing. What is often lacking is the federal contribution. The Conservatives also say that municipalities should plan. Back home, in the greater Vancouver area, municipalities are already doing that.
The Conservatives are also proposing that federal buildings be converted to housing. I would just like to mention that, during the Harper regime, the Conservatives sold off federal government assets. It is a bit rich to hear them say today that they made a mistake during their 10 years in power, that they really ripped Canada's social fabric, but that they now want to make amends and turn the federal government's assets into something useful.
What is missing from their motion? There is no mention of co-operative housing, which has been a long-standing solution in Canada. There is no mention of community housing, which is foundational in helping people access affordable housing.
There is also no mention of the role that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, has played over the years. The fact is, it has been very slow to provide adequate funding, and instead, it has often served to increase banks' profits. During the financial crisis, the Harper government made sure that tens of billions of dollars went to maintaining bank profits, rather than building affordable housing. We saw the same thing more recently from the Liberals during the COVID-19 crisis. Some $150 billion from the CMHC was used to prop up our big Canadian banks, rather than invest in affordable housing.
These are not solutions. One solution would be to change the aspect of our tax system that encourages investors to buy up affordable housing and convert it into housing units for the rich and wealthy. This is a terrible aspect of our tax system, one that has to change. We need to prioritize and fund affordable housing, ensuring that at least one-third of the new units built are affordable. All the things I just mentioned could improve this motion and ensure that we have a policy based on common sense. I know my colleague from Vancouver East will speak to that later.
We are in a crisis. There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who cannot find affordable housing, and we have had a federal government that has been very slow in the pickup. The NDP has been pushing, in this minority Parliament, as we did in the last, to force the government to make these investments. We are making some progress, but it is not at all on the scale that is required.
For a time in my life, like so many other Canadians, I simply could not afford housing. I had to couch surf. I fortunately had a second-hand car that I was able to sleep in. These are the kinds of things that Canadians should not have to struggle with. There should be that right to housing, and this is something the NDP has brought forward repeatedly over the course of the last few years, which is to put in place housing policies that actually make sense.
The Conservatives are bringing forward a different motion today, and this is something that we are all rejoicing in. They normally do the carbon tax for every one of their opposition days. Today, they are finally tackling housing. However, what I was hoping to see was the member for Carleton standing up to say, “We are sorry, Canadians. We are sorry about our contribution to the housing crisis. We are sorry that we almost doubled housing prices during the Harper regime.”
Yes, the Conservatives can point to the Liberals for doing the same thing, but this tit-for-tat does not provide the affordable housing that Canadians need. I thought that the member for Carleton would stand up to say that they were so sorry that, in the last five years of the Harper regime, they lost 322,000 affordable rental units. I thought he would say that they are sorry they did that to Canadians, that they contributed, over the course of the 10 years of the Harper regime, to stripping apart the social safety net and allowing the destruction of affordable housing, with so many housing units converted to higher-priced units, so people could not afford them.
I was hoping the member for Carleton would do that, but we have not had any apologies from the Conservatives for their absolutely lamentable record over the course of that dismal decade of the Harper regime, where they stripped apart all of the protections that Canadians needed. The Conservatives basically amplified a despicable decision made by Paul Martin to end the national housing program and, instead of saying it was developing as a crisis and that they needed to address it, we saw the results.
We saw that the Conservatives did not protect those affordable housing units and did not make the investments in social housing, co-operative housing or community housing, which Canadians, seniors, students, families and people with disabilities need. The Conservatives did not do any of that. They had an appallingly bad record.
The first step the Conservatives need to take, as a party, is to recognize what a deplorable, appalling record they have. They nearly doubled housing prices with respect to market housing, and they basically did not protect hundreds of thousands of rental units that were affordable, and those that were lost to higher-priced units in conversions. These are things that Conservatives should acknowledge. These are things for which Conservatives should step up to say that they are sorry, to Canadians, for their very large part in provoking the housing crisis that exists today.
However, not a single Conservative has done that. No Conservative has stepped up to say that they were wrong to do what they did during that dismal decade and to acknowledge their contribution to this housing crisis. Yes, the Liberals are culpable as well, but the Conservatives played a significant, major and disappointing role in the housing crisis that we know today.
After the Conservatives allowed those rental units to be converted, and people with disabilities, seniors, students and families lost their affordable housing, the most reasonable person in this country would say that, really, when the Conservatives are raising in the House on the issue of housing for the first time ever for their opposition day, they should have started off by saying that they are sorry for all the neglect and everything they did that has contributed to so many people being homeless today.
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- May/2/23 12:03:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not even know where to start. That was such a strange intervention. It shows that Conservatives are still struggling with the housing issue. They know a talking point, which is that the price of housing has doubled. That is true, except that the price of housing almost doubled on their watch. When that is pointed out to them, they get very sensitive and react. They like to accuse, but they do not like to resolve.
In this corner of the House, New Democrats pushed the Harper Conservatives during that regime. As we know, it was a majority government; unfortunately, a Conservative majority has absolutely appalling results for Canadians. When they basically allowed seniors, people with disabilities and families to have their affordable housing stripped away from them, we fought back.
Of course, in this Parliament, we have been fighting for affordable housing. We make sure that we push the Liberal government to do the right thing and make the investments; in this way, we can hopefully catch up on the years of neglect.
The reality is that this housing crisis is a product of Paul Martin, the Harper regime and the current government. New Democrats are going to continue to speak up for Canadians from coast to coast to coast to make sure that housing is built. Canadians have a right to a roof over their heads at night, and we are going to continue to fight for just that thing.
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- May/2/23 12:06:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I am saying and that is exactly what the NDP is doing.
The member is well aware that, for years, the NDP has done more than any other party, and even all of the other parties combined, to promote and and push for the right to housing and the right to affordable housing.
We are working and fighting for funding to be granted. That is part of our role and our mission here in the House. We will not stop until everyone in Canada has affordable housing and a roof over their head every night.
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- May/2/23 12:07:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, New Democrats have been saying all along that we need to put in place a non-profit acquisition fund. The federal government needs to step up with core funding to ensure that we build and acquire not just non-profit housing but also co-operative housing, social housing and community housing. This is the housing mix that Canadians are looking for and that we had in this country before Paul Martin decided to rip up the national housing program and give that money to big corporations instead.
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- May/2/23 12:19:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver East shared with the Conservatives a copy of this motion a number of hours ago, and so I am sure there will be somebody provided from the Conservatives. They do have a number of House officers, all paid by taxpayers, and so I am sure one of them will step up in just a moment. They have been given plenty of notice. Hopefully they will have their tie on. They should not be taking their tie off, quite frankly, but that is up to them; it is a free country.
I am sure the Speaker will get a response given the notice the NDP provided several hours ago on this amendment.
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- May/2/23 12:39:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy hearing the member speak, but we cannot neglect the deplorable Harper regime record where we lost over 300,000 affordable housing units. These were units to which seniors, people with disabilities, families and youth all had access.
The Conservatives today have presented a motion that would not give one blue cent to housing, and they have just rejected the NDP amendment that would ensure there would be a role for co-operative housing, social housing and community housing.
My question for my colleague is simply this. Is this just the performative arts by the Conservatives, that they are not actually seeking to find the solutions and to put in place the funding that is so critical to ensure that every Canadian has a roof over his or her head at night?
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