44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 17, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/17/23 10:07:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present this petition.
Whereas women's shelters are sadly seeing an increase in demand, the high cost of living and the housing crisis have made it harder for women and children fleeing a violent home to find a place to live. At a time when the Liberal government is dramatically increasing spending on bureaucracy and consultants, it is cutting $145 million from women's shelters.
I am hoping the government will understand that women's shelters are in crisis right now, as we are seeing an economic crisis carry on that is causing a lot of problems for many Canadians. Hopefully the government will do something about it.
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- Oct/17/23 10:39:42 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, inflation is caused by a variety of factors. Some people may include government spending in there, but the cost of housing is also part of it. According the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, in Quebec alone, an estimated 1.6 million housing units will need to be built by 2030 to adequately accommodate all the people who are currently living in Quebec and those who will move there.
However, according to the most optimistic forecasts, only 500,000 housing units will be built by 2030 in Quebec, driving up rental costs by 102%. The Conservative Party of Canada supports population growth. I would like my colleague to explain how eliminating the federal deficit will solve the housing crisis and, by extension, address rising costs and inflation.
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- Oct/17/23 10:40:48 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, housing is absolutely a growing concern, and we are facing a housing crisis.
One of the best things we could do is what the Leader of the Opposition has been calling on the government to do, which is to get rid of some of the gatekeepers that are blocking development in and around our cities, in our urban centres. We could reward and incentivize those who do build, those who are going to make a difference, and those cities and municipalities that are going to step up to the plate and make sure that we do everything we can to provide more housing opportunities.
The other thing that is impeding housing development is the fact that the cost of everything is going up. One of the biggest factors in the cost going up of all those supplies, when everything is trucked and shipped, is the carbon tax. One of the greatest things we could do to help is eliminate the carbon tax.
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- Oct/17/23 10:52:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know if things are different in the member's part of the country than they are in mine. I just met with members from LSTAR, which is part of CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association. They shared with me that one of their smallest branches just announced 40 delinquent mortgages. The banks do not know what to do because, if they go forward and close some of these, what will happen to the rest of housing?
We know that we are in a crisis when we are seeing small towns with 40 delinquent mortgages. What does the member have to say about her government's record on this?
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- Oct/17/23 10:54:29 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, has the government already thrown in the towel when it comes to the housing crisis? We know that Quebec needs 1.2 million new housing units by 2030. The government has announced GST breaks on new housing construction, which may enable a few thousand units to be built. After 18 months, the government finally signed an agreement with Quebec to release $900 million in the housing accelerator fund. Again, that represents a few thousand housing units. Unfortunately, to really address this crisis, we should be building 200,000 housing units a year from now until 2030.
What is the plan? Where are the meaningful measures to address this crisis? Has the government already abandoned people to their fate in this housing crisis?
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- Oct/17/23 10:55:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, of course, we are working tirelessly to respond to the housing crisis. In fact, we were the first to acknowledge that there actually was a crisis. We put money on the table.
Yes, negotiations with Quebec took some time. I am glad we were able to reach an agreement, as my colleague mentioned. We signed an agreement with Quebec to transfer funds.
The money is there. We expect it to be used to build more housing. We will keep on keeping on.
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- Oct/17/23 10:56:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the questions from my hon. colleague. They help elucidate all of us in the House as to the situation in her community.
I know that in the last budget, many of us worked very hard to ensure that we had the right strategy, not just the money, but the right strategy, to address indigenous and northern housing. That was found in budget 2023.
I look forward to working with the member on further issues, including the issue she raises today.
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- Oct/17/23 12:02:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Elmwood—Transcona made a couple of good points. One is that we cannot trust the Liberal government to provide affordable housing. I could not agree with him more, and I would like to give him the opportunity to expand a bit more on how the government has reneged on its promise to look after the people who need its help.
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- Oct/17/23 12:03:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we look at the national housing strategy, there is a lot of fanfare. Some big numbers were announced. One of the really important things to note is that at the beginning of the housing strategy, the big number announced was actually a multiplier that took for granted a bunch of provincial funding that had not been committed. The Liberals were taking credit for money that had not even been announced, except unilaterally by the federal government on behalf of the provinces, which is something it had no right to do.
The national housing strategy has been a bit of a smokescreen from go. Yes, some units have been built along the way, but they pale in comparison to what we need. One of the compelling proof points of that is from Steve Pomeroy, who is a housing expert in Canada. He has said that for every one affordable unit we are building in Canada today we are losing 15. How do we make up the ground that has to be made up in order to get people out of tent cities and back into homes if we are losing 15 units of affordable housing for every one being built? We cannot do it. We are not even treading water in Canada today.
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- Oct/17/23 12:04:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what he just said is very interesting. He talked about the affordable housing we are losing in Canada. This brings me to a topic that does not come up very much when we talk about the housing crisis: the financialization of housing.
We are talking about affordable housing because large investment trusts, often international, investment companies, are buying up affordable housing. Often, they demolish the housing, or they renovate it and then double the price. That is important.
When the federal government withdrew from housing in 1993, this phenomenon did not really exist in Canada. Now, we see that between 20% and 30% of the housing stock is owned by these corporations. We do not see the government legislating against that. We will not be able to build the 3.5 million housing units. They will not appear out of thin air. We will have to protect affordability any way we can.
I would like my colleague to elaborate. Are there any measures that could be taken right now to counter this financialization that is hurting Canada's housing market so badly here?
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- Oct/17/23 12:05:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his question. I would say that there have been two phases of significant federal disengagement from housing.
In the 1990s, the Liberals cancelled the Canadian housing strategy. Later, the Harper Conservatives made the decision not to renew operating funding for affordable housing mortgages once those mortgages matured. Since these buildings could longer offer affordable rents, large corporations began buying them up and raising rents.
It would be really helpful to have an acquisition fund for non-profit organizations, to make sure that it is not just big business that has the resources to buy these buildings. Other organizations that are committed to offering affordable rental housing need to be able to access these buildings and take over the work that the previous owners were no longer able to do.
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- Oct/17/23 12:41:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for bringing up today the impact the housing crisis is having on women. I had a visit yesterday from some members of Parliament from the United Kingdom, and they were saying that the mortality rate of children is on the rise in the U.K. because women cannot find housing, so I just wanted to ask the member a question.
In 1993, Brian Mulroney ended all new federal funding for social housing construction. Does the member agree with that decision?
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- Oct/17/23 12:52:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I happen to represent some of the same parts, from Elgin—Middlesex—London. We are talking about new homes being built, which absolutely needs to be done. We recognize that all the policies that were put forward by the government really did not have housing, immigration, health care and all those things working in parallel, so there is a lot of desperation right now.
One of the biggest concerns right now is for people who are renewing their mortgages, who were told by the government not to worry and that it was okay to invest. People were getting up to their eyeballs in debt, and we now have interest rate increases that are causing them to face more difficult times.
What are the member's thoughts about individuals who have to renew their mortgages and who need help right now?
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- Oct/17/23 12:52:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is a neighbour in London, so I assume she would also know that an investment has been made in the city of London of $74 million to add 2,000 extra homes. We are talking about the things that we have done to make sure that Canadians and Londoners are able to afford their lives, to send their kids to day care and to afford dental care.
These are all things that work together to make sure we are responding to this global challenge of inflation. We are responding to housing affordability to make sure that Canadians have everything they need and that, when this crisis is over, they can continue to live their lives.
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- Oct/17/23 12:54:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think those are challenges that our government is continuing to consider, and we are working to find solutions. We are talking about how our government can continue to invest to support Canadians across the country. By investing in housing and child care services, we are ensuring that women can participate in the economy and that we can grow our economy and support Canadians across the country.
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- Oct/17/23 12:56:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague that there are many challenges we share as we serve the same city. Just recently, I announced a renovation project in my riding. These are challenges we continue to respond to as a government.
On the $74 million that has been invested in the city of London, we can work with the City of London, as colleagues and as MPs, to make sure some of that money also goes to the co-ops.
The bigger thing I want to say is that we responded to a call to build homes in a fast way. We are doing it through the housing accelerator fund. The City of London was the first city to put up its hand, because it knows the challenges. I encourage my colleague to bring these issues to the City of London, so we can continue to respond to the most challenging issues in our ridings.
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- Oct/17/23 1:11:10 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, the Conservatives say that this motion is to help address housing so Canadians do not lose their homes. I do not think it is a great solution, but the Liberals have not done so well either.
I am glad she did not include URN on her list of investments that government has done, because URN does not do enough. There are still gaps in investments that need to happen. One of those gaps is to ensure that there is housing funding for the territorial governments. Territorial governments are not indigenous governments, so they would not be eligible to receive housing through URN.
I wonder if the member agrees that we need to ensure that territorial governments get a carve-out for housing.
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- Oct/17/23 1:11:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I mentioned $82 billion, which is a significant amount of money. I am very proud of that amount of investment in housing. We need to do more at all levels, including to help support more of the indigenous needs in our country.
Last week, the Prime Minister was in the Northwest Territories. He did announce the construction of 50 new affordable homes in an apartment building in downtown Yellowknife. This project will support people who need it the most, including indigenous people, seniors, women, children and those living with disabilities.
We have to do more and we know we need to do more.
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- Oct/17/23 1:16:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, now Canadians are on the brink of losing their homes and their livelihoods.
Just last week, I met with a home inspector who has done seven home inspections of homes in Oxford County that are going up for bank foreclosure. That is just in one week. Normally that would be in one year. That is the true impact of rising interest rates. The Liberal government encouraged Canadians to borrow when interest rates were at an all-time low, but now Canadians have one of the highest household debts of any other G7 country.
This is more than just numbers and dollars. It is about real people and the impact this has on their lives. I recently told this House of the single mother in Woodstock who cried at the door because she was struggling to put food on the table for her kids. There is the young couple in Tillsonburg who went to school and got a job but now cannot access the housing market because of the rising cost of housing. There is the senior who lives in Tavistock who now relies on handouts from his family because he cannot survive on his own. He has even looked at MAID as an option. These are real people with real, devastating human consequences.
The government needs a common-sense plan. If it stops the deficits, it will stop inflation from continuing to rise, it will stop the increasing interest rats and it will stop the defaults from happening. That is why we are calling on the government to bring its financial affairs in order. We are calling on the government to introduce a fiscal plan that includes a pathway back to balanced budgets so we can decrease inflation and interest rates. We need a plan because we know that budgets do not balance themselves. I hope all my colleagues will use common sense, cap spending, cut wasteful spending, balance the budget and bring home economic stability for all Canadians.
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- Oct/17/23 1:19:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to listen to the Conservatives, one would think that every bit of spending is inflationary spending.
Last week, the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec finally came to an agreement on a program to speed up the construction of housing, something that we voted on a year and a half ago and from which we are now finally starting to see some results. The federal government will provide $900 million.
I would like to remind the House that, at last count, there were 10,000 homeless people in Quebec alone. Does my colleague think that the $900 million that will be used to build housing to help those 10,000 homeless people constitutes inflationary spending?
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