44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/20/23 2:25:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our government implemented concrete measures to help families like Émilie's. The Conservative Party voted against those measures.
For example, the dental benefit will help Émilie's kids and those of families like hers. There is also assistance for low-income renters and the grocery rebate. We are making these investments to help families get through this. Meanwhile, we are building a stronger economy with good jobs for years to come and investing in housing.
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- Jun/20/23 2:34:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know Canadians are struggling with the cost of housing, whether it is a young family looking to buy their first home or a student struggling to pay the rent. That is why we have been taking action on many fronts. We are helping Canadians save up for their first home. We are investing in building and repairing more homes, including through supporting local governments to fast-track the creation of 100,000 new homes. We are providing support for low-income renters. We are also ensuring that houses are used as homes by curbing unfair practices that drive up prices, including with a foreign homebuyers ban and a federal anti-flipping rule.
We will continue to support Canadians challenged with housing.
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- Jun/20/23 2:34:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister and the Liberal government are not responding with the urgency that Canadians need.
July 1 is just around the corner. In Quebec, July 1 is not only Canada Day, it is also moving day.
The Office municipal d'habitation de Montréal has been contacted by 314 families who are losing their housing. The city expects to be able to provide emergency housing to around 40 families.
Does the Prime Minister realize how stressful this is for these families?
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- Jun/20/23 2:35:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we continue to be there with programs and plans to address this housing crisis across the country.
Our plan is to collaborate with the municipalities, including by investing $4 billion to speed up residential construction approvals, and by creating 100,000 new housing units. We are tying infrastructure investment to housing. We are helping Canadians save money to buy their first home. We are providing help to low-income renters, and we are converting surplus federal lands to affordable housing, among other things.
We will continue that work.
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- Jun/20/23 2:43:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for Quebeckers, July 1 is not a day to celebrate; it is a nightmare. July 1 is just a week and a half away and hundreds of people do not know where they are going to live because we are in the midst of a housing crisis. In five years, Quebec will be short 50,000 social housing units. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's 2021 findings, if we rely on funding from Ottawa, we will not have any more social housing units.
The federal strategy is a failure that barely maintains the status quo. In other words, there will be no more housing units available in the future than there are today. When will this government truly address this housing crisis?
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- Jun/20/23 2:44:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I invite the minister to come and walk the streets of Longueuil on July 1. He will see whether it is a nightmare or not.
The Liberals' investments are barely enough to maintain the status quo. We have no new affordable housing. They say that everything is going well for families in greater Montreal, who the federal government is forcing to compete for the same housing that keeps getting more and more expensive, but let them come and tell that to the people of Rimouski, Granby and Drummond, where the vacancy rate is 0.4 %. Anyone who manages to find housing there should go buy a 6/49 lottery ticket.
We are in an unprecedented housing crisis. When will the federal government make investments to adequately address this crisis—
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- Jun/20/23 2:45:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I would like to tell him that I have toured a number of regions in Quebec and that I am very aware of the vacancy rates.
That is why we have put in place a housing accelerator for municipalities, and they are very happy to have this fund. They can start sending in applications immediately.
We will continue to increase the supply of affordable housing across the country, including in Quebec.
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- Jun/20/23 2:45:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, “low rental housing stock disproportionately impacted low-income renters.” This is not from the Bloc Québécois, but rather from CMHC's annual report.
The federal corporation itself has found that the federal strategy is abandoning the less fortunate. We need 1% for housing. We are not talking about housing for the wealthiest 1%, but about 1% of federal revenues invested in housing, with Quebec's share transferred to build social and community housing.
We are in a housing crisis, so it seems to me that 1% is not too much to ask.
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- Jun/20/23 2:46:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague that housing is a provincial jurisdiction, and that we are very pleased to be able to work with the provinces and municipalities.
Unlike a party on the other side of the House that insults municipalities, we want to work with all municipalities and stakeholders to build the housing that everyone needs.
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- Jun/20/23 2:53:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Edmonton now has one of the fastest-growing monthly rent prices in the country, increasing nearly 16% over the last year. Young people cannot keep up, and Liberals are not doing anything. They will not protect young people from corporate landlords, who are handing out eviction notices to jack up the rent. They are not investing properly into building affordable units. They are leaving young people to fend for themselves, while corporate landlords keep getting richer.
Will the Liberals invest in safe, affordable, community-based housing so that young people can actually afford to rent in Edmonton?
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- Jun/20/23 2:53:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Across the country, Canadians are having a hard time paying the rent or even just finding housing they can afford. We pledged not only to build more housing faster, but also to deal with renovictions through legislation.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think it is fair, whether it is the Conservatives in Ontario or the NDP in British Columbia, to point a finger at them and say they have failed, or at Ottawa and say it has failed, because I think all three governments have brought forward different initiatives to try to prevent real estate speculation and keep pricing more affordable for Canadians.
At the end of the day, we have a national government that is prepared to invest in housing. Has there been laundering in real estate? Of course we believe there has been. However, we are working with provincial jurisdictions and financial and real estate associations to try to minimize it, because by doing that, we will in fact make homes more affordable.
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- Jun/20/23 9:59:32 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, homes in Nunavut are falling apart. Overcrowding is leading to a severe mental health crisis. Suicide completions in Nunavut are among the highest. The outbreaks of diseases like tuberculosis are continuing to rise. Recently, another community was announced as having another outbreak of tuberculosis cases.
I have seen the terrible living conditions that many Nunavummiut are forced to continue to endure. There are many homes with mould. The situation is so dire that many of our young people are leaving their families behind in order to escape. The housing crisis has existed for years in Nunavut. Nunavut will continue to need sustainable long-term investments if any improvements are to happen. The government continues to apply a double standard to indigenous peoples by chronically underfunding housing for them. We have known for years how extremely serious the situation is, yet budget 2022 allocated only $60 million over two years to the Government of Nunavut. There was no commitment to funding for Nunavut in this year's budget.
Since the Prime Minister took office in 2015, just over $2 billion has been invested into indigenous housing Canada-wide. The Assembly of First Nations estimates that what is needed to close the gap is about $40 billion to $60 billion, a gap that I would like to remind the government it committed to closing by 2030. The funding for the urban, rural and northern housing initiative is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that Nunavut and the two other territories will get housing allocations under the initiative.
As public governments that serve both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, the northern territorial governments may have difficulty accessing funds under the for indigenous, by indigenous housing fund. The people in my riding cannot wait any longer. I was told by people in Talurjuaq, for example, that they have a resident who lives in a tent because there is no housing available. I was told that in Kugaaruk, a suicide was completed right after a woman was told she would not get a house that year. In Qikiqtarjuaq, there are five families living in one unit. The people in my riding cannot wait any longer.
My question for the government is simple: Knowing all of this, what is the plan to address the urgent unmet housing needs for Nunavut and the territories?
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- Jun/20/23 10:02:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to acknowledge that I am speaking from the traditional territory of the Algonquin and Anishinabe peoples.
Safe and affordable housing provides the safety and security that families need to learn, live and play. Indigenous peoples are more likely to experience poor housing conditions and overcrowding than the general population. This is unacceptable.
Over the past year and a half, I have visited communities throughout the country, especially in the north and Nunavut, and met with families who are struggling to find decent and affordable housing, but there are success stories too in communities that are using new investments to build housing that matches the needs of their communities.
Our government has been hard at work to ensure that indigenous peoples have the same access to safe and secure housing as other Canadians. Since 2015, the government has committed more than $7 billion in funding for first nations, Inuit and Métis housing. We have now built or renovated nine houses for every one house built under the Stephen Harper Conservative government and we have fixed the gap left by the previous government by investing in off-reserve urban, rural and northern housing, which received zero funding from the Conservatives.
In budget 2023, we provided investments to improve housing for indigenous peoples living in urban, rural and northern areas. We are investing $4 billion over seven years, starting in 2024-25, to implement a co-developed urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy.
In last year's budget, the government invested an additional $4.3 billion to support housing in first nations, Inuit and Métis Nation communities. The funding includes $2.4 billion over five years to support first nations housing on reserve, $565 million over five years to support housing in self-governing and modern treaty holder first nations communities, $845 million over seven years to support housing in Inuit communities and $190 million over seven years for housing in Métis communities. The 2022 budget also included $300 million for urban, rural and northern housing.
Earlier this month, the member for Nunavut joined the Minister of Indigenous Services Canada and others to announce the transfer of $287.1 million for an indigenous, by indigenous approach to fund housing projects in urban, rural and northern settings, a historic change driven by a commitment to self-determination. We are starting to see some results. Census 2021 data shows that, since 2016, the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous populations living in crowded housing declined by 1.7%.
As members can see, the government has been taking concrete action to work with partners and improve the housing situation for indigenous people across this great nation.
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- Jun/20/23 10:06:09 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, unfortunately, the member did not answer my question because I did ask about funding for territorial governments. As he said correctly, I was at the announcement for NICHI.
I will say this again. According to the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, more than 50% of Inuit live in housing that is overcrowded or needs repairs. This is just 8.3% for the rest of the population in Canada. This continues to be such an injustice. The government has invested $1.3 billion since 2016, less than half of what would be required to meet their own housing objectives.
When will the government commit to providing direct, long-term and predictable funding for the territorial governments so that they can build the housing they deserve?
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- Jun/20/23 10:07:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think I did answer the question. I was very explicit about the numbers that we have invested over the past few years and will be investing in the upcoming years.
I do agree with the hon. member that for far too long indigenous peoples in Canada have suffered from inadequate housing. That is why, as I mentioned earlier, the government has been working with first nations, Inuit and Métis to come up with practical solutions to meet their needs. We have co-developed strategies as well as policies and we have worked together to implement them.
We are working with indigenous partners to understand what will work best for communities. We have not imposed a top-down, made-in-Ottawa solution to go with indigenous housing problems. It is the opposite, from the bottom up. We are seeing results. We are seeing improvements that are being made across the country.
We know there is much more work to do and that work is under way. Having safe housing is the foundation for everyone and we are committed to making this a reality for indigenous peoples across this country.
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