44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 3, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/3/23 3:30:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week Statistics Canada reported that there were almost half a million non-permanent residents in Quebec in July. That is 150,000 more than last year, and it is all because of Ottawa.
Quebeckers may well be the most welcoming people in the world and the most open to immigration, but we will have to wake up and smell the coffee at some point. There are half a million non-permanent residents here, and we just cannot handle them all. Public services cannot keep up.
Will the government be reasonable and adjust its targets so they are in line with our capacity to accommodate people?
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- Oct/3/23 3:31:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know full well that immigration is crucial to helping businesses find the workers they need and also to growing our economy.
Our plan will continue to strengthen the system and extend the benefits of immigration to communities across the country, including francophone immigration outside Quebec.
That is because immigration is not only good for our economy, but also essential to the future of our communities. We will keep working with the Government of Quebec to ensure we can welcome people, put them to work and build a more prosperous future for everyone.
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- Oct/3/23 3:31:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec immigration minister, Christine Fréchette, is asking the federal government to wake up. She said that these figures “change the game” in terms of the “state of the situation”.
Quebec controls its permanent immigration, but not its temporary immigration; that falls to the federal government.
With half a million non-permanent residents in Quebec alone, the pressure on our education system, our ability to teach people French, our housing supply and, in short, our ability to integrate people is becoming too great.
Will the government lower its targets?
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- Oct/3/23 3:32:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would recommend that my esteemed colleague spend a little more time listening to Quebec businesses, Quebec universities and communities across Quebec who need workers, who want to welcome people from all over the world and who want to help integrate them into French society and succeed in Quebec.
We will be there to continue to work hand in hand with the Government of Quebec to create a more prosperous future for all Quebeckers and Canadians.
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- Oct/3/23 3:32:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, whether they are seniors being renovicted, people who are unhoused and in an encampment or young families dreaming of owning their own home. The Liberals claim that they want to see more affordable homes built faster, yet they have rejected offers of municipal land and provincial and territorial money from British Columbia and Nunavut to build homes.
Talk is cheap. Empty promises will not house people. Will the Prime Minister commit to funding these projects to build homes that families desperately need?
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- Oct/3/23 3:33:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to announce that, recently, alongside British Columbia and the City of Vancouver, the member for Vancouver Centre announced the groundbreaking for the construction of 154 new affordable housing units close to transit. This new building in the heart of Davie Village will also house QMUNITY, a non-profit organization providing access to safe and secure services for individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS. This is what we can accomplish when we work together, ensuring Vancouverites can live close to where they work and access the services they need.
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- Oct/3/23 3:34:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is yet another answer that is completely disconnected from reality.
Families who have to renew their mortgage soon are headed for a cliff. Negligence by the Liberals and the Conservatives has resulted in the loss of one million affordable housing units in the country. In the meantime, the government has given the Bank of Canada the mandate to increase interest rates without any regard for how that will impact people. That is the Liberals' record: families worried about losing their home. It makes no sense.
Why did the Prime Minister not give the Bank of Canada a clearer mandate to avoid this crisis?
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- Oct/3/23 3:34:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we will always respect the independence of the Bank of Canada, but we know that Canadians are worried about the cost of housing. That is why we are taking action on many fronts.
We are encouraging the construction of apartments by eliminating the GST on construction. We are removing obstacles so that more and more homes are built faster by working directly with the municipalities. We are helping Canadians save up to buy a home with the tax-free first home savings account.
We know that there is still a lot of work to be done. I invite every government across the country to take bold action with us to improve the cost of housing.
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- Oct/3/23 3:35:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, “Interest rates are at historic lows”. That was what the Prime Minister said just three years ago. He told people to keep borrowing, while his government kept spending. Now the number of Canadians saying they are facing financial stress has jumped 20% in a single year.
The National Payroll Institute found that 63% of working Canadians said they had nothing left at the end of the month and 30% spend more than they make. It is calling it a national emergency.
When will they finally balance the budget so interest rates can come down and Canadians can keep more of their own money?
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- Oct/3/23 3:36:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in my first answer, let me just congratulate you in this historic role. It is historic for Canada.
While the Conservatives recite trite and misleading talking points, our government is acting for Canadians. With Bill C-56, we would be getting more homes built by lifting the GST on purpose-built rental, and we would be acting to stabilize grocery prices with historic changes to competition law that would bring competition to the grocery sector.
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- Oct/3/23 3:37:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is the minister who misled Canadians when she said that interest rates would stay low for a long time, and now homeowners are bracing for the shock of when they have to renew their mortgages. That is what the Canadian banks are saying.
Now there is another former bank governor raising alarm bells. David Dodge warns that the burden of past debts are catching up. Governments cannot spend their way out of the problems they have created.
When the government spends money, the bank raises the interest rates, and when the rates go up, Canadians pay more for their mortgages, so will the NDP-Liberal government finally listen to everyone, or anyone, and stop its spending so Canadians can keep their homes?
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- Oct/3/23 3:37:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the only people misleading Canadians are the Conservatives on that side of the House.
The reality is that Canada has the lowest deficit in the G7 and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. Our AAA rating has recently been reaffirmed by DBRS Morningstar. These are independent experts, not Conservative partisans.
We know we need to get more homes built. That is why we have lifted the GST on purpose-built rental and added another $20 billion to the financing CMCH has available for rental construction.
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- Oct/3/23 3:38:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians should not have believed the finance minister when she said to borrow as much as one wants and that interest rates will be low for a very long time.
She turned around and threw hundreds of billions of dollars of fuel onto the inflationary fire, giving Canadians the worst inflation in 40 years and the most rapid interest rate hikes, which we have not seen in the last 30 years. Anyone who took on a mortgage five years ago at 2% will now have to renew at 6% or 7%. That is an increase of more than 200%.
Will the Prime Minister rein in his inflationary deficits so interest rates come down, or does he want people to start losing their homes?
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- Oct/3/23 3:39:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yet again, these are misleading comments from the Conservatives. The reality is that Canada's AAA rating has been reaffirmed year after year we have been in government. We have the lowest deficit in the G7 and the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio.
We also know that we are a growing country, and a growing country needs to build more homes faster. That is exactly what we are doing by lifting the GST on purpose-built rentals and making more financing available through CMHC, with $20 billion for the financing of new rental construction.
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- Oct/3/23 3:39:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the rating she brags about came at the high cost of one in five Canadians skipping meals and seven million Canadians visiting a food bank in a single month. She is completely out of touch, but she is in line with her incompetent government's legacy. The finance minister was doing victory laps two months ago, saying that she stopped inflation. It went up 43% since then. What did she think was going to happen when she added $1.2 billion of debt in the first quarter of this fiscal year alone?
Will the Prime Minister rein in his inflationary spending, or does he think that this too is not one of his responsibilities?
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- Oct/3/23 3:40:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are hitting new lows in this question period. Not only are they are misleading, they are internally contradictory and incomprehensible.
I think the member opposite just said that our AAA rating is disadvantageous to hard-working Canadians. I beg to differ. Our AAA rating is a foundation for everything our government is doing to build more homes and provide more support to hard-working Canadian middle-class families.
It is time for the Conservatives to get that.
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- Oct/3/23 3:41:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, according to a recent National Payroll Institute survey, almost two out of three workers spend all of their net pay and 30% spend more than their pay. We can help them by rejecting the second carbon tax. That tax applies in Quebec, and the Bloc Québécois supports it.
People are suffering. They are having a hard time putting food on the table. This is a serious issue; it should not be a partisan one.
The Bloc Québécois wants the Prime Minister to radically increase the carbon tax. Will he walk back his pledge to do so?
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- Oct/3/23 3:41:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that, during the last election campaign, his party and Conservative candidates, some of whom are now MPs, campaigned in favour of a clean fuel standard. The difference between us and them is that they talk while we take action. We created that standard, and it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is resulting in lower greenhouse gas emissions in Canada and generating over $2 billion in investments across the country. That is the difference between us and them.
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- Oct/3/23 3:42:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the government being out of touch with reality, this is exactly what we are talking about. The minister is completely out of touch with the reality of Canadians, people who are currently seeking help from food banks that are overwhelmed. Food banks are so overwhelmed that they are not able to provide food to all those who are asking for it right now. There are families in the minister's riding, in Montreal, who are being turned away by food banks because they cannot meet the demand. It is unprecedented. Unfortunately, even in the face of this crisis, members voted to keep the second carbon tax on June 5, 2023.
Can the Prime Minister and the Bloc Québécois set aside their ideology for once and help people in need?
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- Oct/3/23 3:43:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what is out of touch with reality in 2023 is to be a party that hopes to form government but has nothing to say about climate change. Still today, the party's official position is to deny the very existence of climate change, while, this summer, tens of thousands of people across the country were displaced not once, not twice, but three times, in some cases because of record wildfires. There was major flooding across the country, and the Conservative Party has nothing to say about climate change.
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