44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 2, 2023 10:00AM
- May/2/23 4:11:19 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand in this venerable House to speak on behalf of my residents of the riding I am very proud to represent, which is Davenport, and to speak to the Conservative opposition day motion on inflation and housing.
My remarks are going to cover three key areas. The first is the issue of inflation and housing and how it is impacting Davenport residents. The second is what our federal government is doing. The third will be the problems that I see with some of the key statements proposed in the opposition day motion. Unfortunately, I will not be supporting it.
The first thing I want to talk about is how inflation and housing costs are impacting Davenport residents.
I had the wonderful pleasure of being able to canvass on a rainy Saturday afternoon just recently, and I had a chance to speak to about 100 Davenport residents. I will tell members that the three issues that were top of mind for them were the cost of living, whether they will be able to live in Toronto and whether their kids or grandkids will be able to buy homes, which many were worried about.
We spoke at length at the doors, and I talked to them about all of the things we were doing at the national level. I prefaced my conversation with them by saying that for over 30 years, all three levels of government in the city of Toronto spent very little money on supporting housing affordability and creating affordable housing. Thirty years of non-investment has a huge impact.
I said to them that I have a lot of confidence that within the next few years, all three levels of government will be working really hard to address the issue. I do not agree with all of the decisions at the provincial level, but we are all seized with the issue of housing affordability and affordable housing, and we are working very hard to try to resolve the issue. I have a lot of confidence that our kids and grandkids will see houses they can buy and can afford to buy, that we will be creating more rental spaces and that we will be creating more spaces for the most vulnerable in our communities.
This leads me to my second section, which is about what we have done on housing.
I am very proud of our government. Since we came here in late 2015, we have really taken charge of housing and the issues around housing and how to build more housing in this country. I will talk to a few aspects of that, because I think it is important for people to be reminded of what we have done.
We have introduced a national housing strategy, and we have allocated more than $72 billion. We have put in a number of measures that will help individuals who are looking to save money to buy their homes. We have recently introduced a new tax-free home savings account to allow Canadians to save up to $40,000 tax-free to buy their first home. We have also doubled the first-time homebuyers' tax credit to provide up to $1,500 in direct support to homebuyers to offset closing costs involved in buying a new home.
We have introduced a whole series of measures to make sure the houses we have here in Canada are for Canadians, and to do what we can to curb speculation, which is driving our housing prices up, particularly in our major cities. I have a couple of things to mention there.
We have the two-year ban on non-resident, non-Canadian purchases of residential property to help curb speculation and ensure that houses are used as homes for Canadians to live in. We have introduced a 1% annual underused housing tax on the value of non-resident, non-Canadian-owned residential properties that are vacant or underused. We are also making sure that the profits from the flipping of properties held for less than 12 months are taxed fully and fairly.
These measures will go a long way to ensuring that the houses we have are being kept for Canadians and that we are doing what we can to curb speculation.
We have launched a $4-billion housing accelerator fund to remove barriers and to incentivize housing supply growth, with the goal of creating at least 100,000 net new homes across Canada. We have also launched a $200-million stream under the affordable housing innovation fund to develop and scale up rent-to-own projects, which I know is something that Davenport residents are very happy about. They like their apartments and are looking for opportunities to rent them. This program would allow them to actually own them one day. We have also launched a third round of the rapid housing initiative, which will provide $1.5 billion to create 4,500 new affordable housing units for Canadians in severe housing need.
In my riding, we have some of these rapid housing initiatives. They have been life-saving for the most vulnerable in our community. When they are teamed up with supportive dollars from the provinces, it is a game-changer. If they have mental health supports and supports to help them find jobs, in addition to having a safe place to live, it saves lives and helps to produce more productive citizens in our society.
Another thing we have done as a national government, which I am very proud of but we do not often talk about, is renewed our co-op housing agreements on a long-term basis. There are a number of co-ops in my riding. They are affordable places for families to live in and are lifesavers for so many people. They allow families to continue to live affordably in our large cities and in the centre of our cities.
There are a couple of things that I would love for us to do. One of the key things we can do, which would not cost a lot of money, is serve as a coordinating body to bring all levels of government together. We need to include developers when looking at the inflation issue and ask this: Now that inflation is at a certain amount, how do we make sure that we get things out of the way, whether at city hall, at the provincial level or with any type of regulatory issue at the federal level, so we can expedite things quicker than where we are at right now?
A number of non-profits in my community would love to build affordable housing units on top of their community centres. They have asked us to work with CMHC to better facilitate ways for them to work with CMHC to ensure they have the capital, investment, framework and support they need to create affordable housing units.
This opposition day motion talks about inflation. We have talked quite a bit in the House about a number of targeted supports that our federal government has put into place, as well as some huge programs that are literally game-changers for families in my riding of Davenport and for all Canadian families across the country.
We are talking about the grocery rebate; the Canada child benefit; the Canada workers benefit; old age security, which we have increased by 10%; and the national child care program, which means Torontonians in my riding of Davenport are saving 50% of their costs. There are also some of the newer measures just introduced in federal budget 2022, such as automatic tax filing and dental care, which will be expanded to seniors and all youth under the age of 18, as well as a number of other initiatives. When I go to people's doors and talk about these initiatives, there is a lot of appreciation for them. They are working and they are helpful.
We have an opposition day motion, and part of my disappointment with the motion is that it seems to imply the federal government is the reason inflation has reached a 40-year high and that our government, for some reason, has not so much caused our grocery prices to be higher, but has caused Canadians to cut back on their groceries. I think members of this House know that we have high inflation because of the after-effects of COVID, supply chain disruptions, the geopolitical situation we have right now, the war in Ukraine and of a lot of other global economic changes that impact inflation not only in Canada but right around the world.
I will end on a positive note. I like the fact that opposition members are concerned about housing and inflation. We should all be concerned about that. I think we should all put forward our best ideas and continue to try to work together so we can support Canadians through this very trying time.
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- May/2/23 4:22:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, at the finance committee, which I have the privilege to serve on, we did a study on inflation and housing. We heard from a number of advocates saying that we really have to look at the REITs, which have a particular mechanism that allows companies to buy apartment buildings. What we are hearing, in many cases but not in all cases, is that apartment buildings are being bought and slightly renovated, and then the apartment rents go up exponentially, so a lot of people have to move out of what were affordable apartments.
I can tell the member that our government is looking at that. We are looking at a number of measures that are stopping us from having affordable housing and housing affordability in the marketplace. We are looking at those, and if the member has other—
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- May/2/23 4:23:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know if I totally understood the question, and I apologize for that.
However, on whether there is appropriate funding levels to go with immigration levels, I think that maybe the core of the issue is probably that we are bringing in a lot more immigrants and those immigrants need housing. We have revised our immigration policies and numbers, while being very much aware that there is a housing affordability issue across this country. I do think that we keep that mind. Yes, there is a housing crisis in this country, and we keep that in mind as we move forward on our immigration policies.
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- May/2/23 4:24:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are doing a lot, but I will mention two key things.
One is rapid housing, which is getting a lot of housing for our most vulnerable, for new Canadians, and they are built very quickly. If we talk to mayors right across this country, they will tell members that this is a very successful program, which is why we are about to introduce the third stage. The second thing is the $4-billion housing accelerator fund, which is going to help incentivize cities to eliminate a lot of their red tape and a lot of their long timelines to get housing built in the cities.
Those are two key things that we have put into place. There are many other initiatives, but I have run out of time.
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- May/2/23 4:26:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for raising this.
When we heard about this in the finance committee, we were all very concerned about it. My understanding is that we are looking at it right now. We are studying it, and many of us are advocating for immediate and urgent changes.
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