44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I was listening to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance answer my colleague from Repentigny earlier. She spoke about all the good things in her budget, things we could not in good conscience vote against.
It is nice to see what is in the budget, but it is even more important to see what is not in the budget. There is nothing for the housing crisis and nothing for seniors between the ages of 65 and 74, who for years have been demanding that they also be eligible for the increase in old age security benefits.
The cultural industry has been sounding the alarm for years, especially during the pandemic. We even did a study in committee to recommend that the government maintain financial assistance to the cultural sector, because it will be more difficult for the cultural industries in Quebec and Canada to recover. We are seeing it now with our smaller festivals, which are having a hard time. There were clear and precise requests, but they were not addressed in this budget.
As a result, we will be voting against the budget. We will not vote against it because of the measures it contains, but because of the measures it does not contain, which are just as important as what the Deputy Prime Minister is boasting about today.
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Madam Speaker, rent affordability is a major cause of concern for Canadians from coast to coast to coast. Through our national housing strategy, we have committed billions of dollars to increase the construction of affordable homes. We have also provided funds for private sector companies to have affordable rental properties in their new projects. However, the fundamental thing that has to be addressed is the supply of new construction.
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- Jun/6/23 2:08:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the actions our government is taking to meet the housing needs of Canadians. Since the release of our national housing strategy in 2017, we have leveraged over $80 billion of investment, creating thousands of new units across the country and utilizing those same investments to renovate and repair decades-old, affordable housing units in every corner of the country. As an extension of this work, the minister recently announced the Canada greener affordable housing program that will provide $1.2 billion in funding over four years for much needed renovations to existing affordable housing units. The funding will allow affordable housing providers to make improvements to aging buildings that will improve energy efficiency and extend their lifespan, improving the living conditions and quality of life for tenants across the country.
While the leader of the official opposition villainizes our municipal partners, our government continues to work with municipalities and non-profit housing providers, ensuring our housing investments improve our affordable housing stock while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and combatting climate change.
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- Jun/6/23 2:30:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the cost of a house has exploded under the Prime Minister. If we look at the rising interest rates, they are making things even worse. Here is the situation in the city of Toronto: Someone earning $236,000 a year has to save for 25 years before they would have enough money for a down payment, according a CTV article. That is absurd. That is something very serious.
When will the Prime Minister take this seriously and start taking steps to deal with the housing problem?
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- Jun/6/23 2:31:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know Canadians are struggling with the rising cost of housing, whether it is a young family looking to buy its first home or a student trying to rent an apartment near campus. That is why we are taking action on so many fronts.
We are helping Canadians save up for their first home. We are investing in building and repairing more homes, including supporting local governments to fast-track the creation of 100,000 new homes. We are providing support for low-income renters, and we are assuring housing is used as homes by curbing unfair practices that drive up prices, which includes bringing forward an anti-flipping tax. Unfortunately, Conservatives are choosing to block this for political games instead of delivering for Canadians.
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- Jun/6/23 2:33:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that Canadians are having a hard time paying for their housing. That is why we are taking action on multiple levels. Our plan involves co-operating with the municipalities, particularly by investing $4 billion to speed up residential construction approvals, and by creating 100,000 new homes. It creates a link between infrastructure investment and housing. Our plan helps Canadians save up to buy their first home, offers assistance to low-income renters, a measure the Conservatives are voting against, and converts surplus federal lands to affordable housing.
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Mr. Speaker, I just went to the Boys and Girls Club in Parksville and met with the staff there. They shared with me that there are 45 kids on their wait-list and talked about the impact of child care and the agreement with British Columbia and Canada and how critical it is that we continue to move forward.
This is also well supported by the chambers of commerce and the business community in my riding. It is absolutely critical in helping to solve the labour market shortage. As cited by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, the biggest challenge is the workforce and to make sure there are early child care educators who are trained and will be able to be paid well and receive a living wage. That was absolutely essential. Of course, affordable housing came into the mix.
Is the minister going to come back with a comprehensive strategy on how she is going to resolve these differences? Absolutely, the situation is urgent in all the communities in my riding, and it is urgent that we move forward rapidly.
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Mr. Speaker, on July 1, while Canadians are celebrating Canada Day, Quebec will be marking a special day. It is moving day.
That is the day everyone moves. All the leases come to an end. The vast majority of Quebeckers who move to a new place or buy a home, although I do not think that anyone is buying a home right now, do so on July 1. Last year, in Montreal alone, 600 people did not find housing. This year, every organization is expecting it to get worse.
We are halfway through the national housing strategy that started five years ago. For five years, the Liberals have been saying that they are getting things done. Just this afternoon, the Prime Minister said that they are investing, that we are going to see a housing accelerator and that housing will be built. However, every organization is saying that this year, the situation is going to be worse than ever.
What is being done to deal with the housing crisis?
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Mr. Speaker, the member is right. Canada really does have an affordable housing crisis. We have indeed invested in a lot of programs to address that. There is still a lot of work to be done because it is true, the statistics cannot be denied. We continue to work hard to develop and finance good programs to try to make a difference.
I think it is very important for everyone here, the members from all parties, to work together to give advice and collaborate. We all have the same goals. We must recognize that it is a real problem; we have invested in possible solutions, but it is still a problem, I agree.
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Madam Speaker, I do not often agree with my colleague. However, she raises an important point, which is the budget's inadequacies when it comes to housing.
The NDP sees that there is a housing crisis. We want social and affordable housing. We want co-operative housing.
The budget is far from perfect, and we would have done things differently. However, there is something in there that the NDP is very proud of, and that is the fact that we forced the Liberals to provide accessible dental care for the most disadvantaged and the middle class. This year, the program is going to be expanded to cover teenagers and people 65 and over who may never have been able to access dental care.
If the member votes against Bill C-47, is she prepared to abandon the idea of dental care that is paid for by Canadian taxpayers with insurance from Parliament?
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- Jun/7/23 12:20:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are in a housing crisis in this country, plain and simple, and the key figures demonstrate exactly that. Housing prices in this country have doubled to over $700,000; mortgages have doubled to over $3,000 a month; rent has doubled to over $2,000 a month; and the amount needed for a down payment has doubled to over $40,000. The problem is that, because rent has gone up so much, people cannot save for a down payment that has doubled. It is an absolute vicious circle, when it comes to the eight-year record of the Liberals in Ottawa.
This is a uniquely Canadian problem. The Liberals would have us believe it is a global challenge, but the perfect example we have in eastern Ontario, when it comes to housing affordability and housing supply, is looking at us across the St. Laurence River. There was a report recently done that talked about the contrast from one side to the other. The median asking price for a home in Watertown, New York right now is $217,000 Canadian. Meanwhile, in Kingston, just a 40-minute drive north here in Canada, the median asking price is $602,000. It is nearly triple the price of a home, between Canada and the United States, from one side of the river to the other.
That is despite Canada having more land on which to build houses and the United States having 10 times the population and demand to keep up with new homes.
The Liberals have created this housing crisis in this country and, while housing prices have increased around the world, none have to the degree of what we have seen these past few years. It is inflationary spending and it is the printing of new money that has gone in and bloated the prices and bloated the real estate market and that has seen this doubling in the past couple of years.
I am zoning my questions in on the federal agency and the federal minister who is responsible for housing. The CMHC continues to get very negative reviews. Members should not take just Conservatives' word for it; I know members from all parties have major frustrations on the performance and operation of this agency that literally has a mandate to make housing more affordable in this country. I have just outlined how the absolute opposite has happened and continues to happen.
We have a housing minister who shows zero leadership and zero ability to change the performance and quality of work at the CMHC. Every time we ask a Liberal a question about what they are doing for housing, they say they are spending a record amount of money: $90 billion. They have never spent so much money to make a problem so much worse.
Members should not take my word for it. As well, the Auditor General of Canada has come out and said many negative things about the performance of the CMHC. In their recent report last year, they said that the CMHC was the lead for the national housing strategy, that $90 billion the government tries to take credit for, in saying houses were often unaffordable for low-income households, when it came to investments in rental housing units, the report said that the CMHC is not directly accountable for any of its actions and it was not working in any coordinated way.
The performance standard of the CMHC is terrible. At a time when we need the private sector to increase building houses and getting more shovels in the ground, according to the CMHC's report, they are actually seeing a decrease.
My follow-up question is this: What performance measures are Liberals using to determine success at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation?
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- Jun/7/23 12:24:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about something that I care very deeply about, and that is affordable housing in Canada.
Before I get to the substantive question, I note that in an earlier debate this evening, we were talking about child care. Since we are talking about home finances, I think it prudent to put down that there is a calculator on the federal government's website where we can calculate benefits. It was suggested by members of the Conservative Party that there is no benefit for stay-at-home mothers and that somebody on this side of the House suggested at some point, fallaciously I would add, that single parents or mothers who stay home are less valued by this government. I would challenge that assertion. The Canada child benefit is an example of something that does support parents who choose to stay home if they earn less.
I ran a scenario through the website. I used a scenario where there is a $70,000 earner and a $45,000 earner in a household with two children eligible for child care. When the $45,000 earner stays home, they receive $250 extra a month. That is $3,000 a year, which actually meets that family halfway on the child care subsidy they would receive otherwise. Given that child care would be available to the family if they are paying more tax, the program pays for a lot of itself, and I think it is quite prudent.
On the substantive question regarding housing, while the member opposite was speaking, he talked about how housing was so much more expensive on his side of the river than on the other side. I found some classifieds on both sides, from Malone, New York, and Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, and I found that apartments were actually a very similar price. Sometimes Conservatives just throw out prices and say that a one-bedroom apartment is now $2,500. The veracity of those claims should be analyzed by people listening. I found apartments in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry anywhere from $400 for a single room explicitly for a female student to $1,200, $1,500 and $1,600 for a three-bedroom apartment. At the same time, I found two-bedroom apartments for $1,320, or $900 U.S., in Malone, New York, just across the way.
The reality is that Canada needs more homes, and any member of this House who is serious about the issue would agree that we need to focus on getting more housing built, including affordable housing and purpose-built rentals. While some in this House, like the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, say that the federal government has to do less and pull back from investing in housing, we fundamentally disagree. I think most Canadians would disagree as well. Quite frankly, we know we need to do more.
Since 2015, this government has invested more than $36 billion to support, create and repair half a million homes across this country and help nearly two million individuals and families get the housing they need. I am a co-op housing kid. I grew up in a co-op, and I am proud that this government has also invested $1.5 billion in a restart to the federal co-op strategy.
We have made housing affordability a central pillar of recent budgets. For example, budget 2022 pledged billions to boost supply and put housing within reach of everyone in this country, and our most recent budget has provisions to build on that momentum, particularly for indigenous housing, with over $3 billion invested in recent budgets. There is also the housing accelerator fund, a $4-billion fund that intends to yield over 100,000 net new housing units over five years.
I can talk about the leadership demonstrated by the minister, who was in Milton, Oakville and London meeting with the mayors of those communities. He talked about the importance of the housing accelerator fund and how municipalities across this country can step up, find solutions and cut some of the red tape that the member opposite has referenced this evening. Since the member opposite has served in a municipal capacity, he would know that much of that red tape is, in fact, municipal. I would love to hear some solutions rather than just slogans and criticisms of things that have not worked. He is an expert on municipal affairs, and he could probably provide this House with some recommendations on how to cut municipal red tape in the housing sector.
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- Jun/7/23 12:28:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have a great solution to start: Let us tie performance bonusing to actual performance results. Call me crazy, but at the federal, provincial or municipal level, whatever the level is, far too often we have groups and organizations, like the CMHC, and the federal housing minister making a great big announcement promising more money and more results and the opposite happens. It is like this line: We are here from the government and we are here to help. Canadians do not buy it, and $90 billion later, the problem has never been worse.
Regarding the referencing back and forth, rent prices have doubled in Cornwall, in eastern Ontario and in this country. One-third of income is what an average family should budget to spend on housing, but it is now over 60%. The more the Liberals spend, the worse it gets. They do not tie the rhetoric and the announcements to actual performance results. It is not unreasonable to ask that performance results be based on performance.
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- Jun/7/23 12:29:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again, the member opposite just pulled numbers out of thin air, stating that 60% of somebody's paycheque is going to housing. Those are examples, not statistics. We are driven by evidence on this side of the House to make sure that we are investing where it is needed.
For example, recently the federal government and Ontario's provincial government came together to find an infill solution in Milton. I rushed home from Parliament in order to do a housing announcement with the minister, a former member of Parliament here in this House, who is now in Doug Ford's Conservative government, Parm Gill. I will give a quick little shout-out to my Conservative colleague down there.
We worked together to find solutions. Thirty-four new units were built for just under $5 million for residents. They are already occupied. They are already tenanted. We are finding solutions because, regardless of our parties' stripes, we are working together, not just making accusations across the way, or making up numbers and throwing wild figures around about doubling and tripling, and how a supposed cutting of the price on pollution is going to solve everybody's problems. That is not true—
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