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House Hansard - 248

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 7, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 248 - Nov/7/23
Mr. Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West, CPC)
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present our dissenting opinion. After eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, Canada has been plunged into a never-before-seen housing hell. Forty-eight per cent of Canadians have given up the hope of ever owning their own home, mortgages have doubled, rents have doubled and Canada is in a housing crisis. To address this, Conservative members of the committee recommend the immediate implementation of Bill C-356, the building homes not bureaucracy act, which includes seven recommendations: (a) establish a target for the completion of new homes in high-cost cities that increases 15% every year and ties federal infrastructure funding allocated to high-cost cities to that target; (b) provide for the reallocation of $100 million from the Housing Accelerator Fund to municipalities that greatly exceed housing targets; (c) require that federal transit funding provided to certain cities be held in trust until high-density residential housing is substantially occupied on available land around federally funded transit projects’ stations; and (d) make it a condition for certain cities to receive federal infrastructure and transit funding that they not unduly restrict or delay the approval of building permits for housing. It also amends the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation Act, the National Housing Act and the Excise Tax Act in order to (a) eliminate executive bonuses unless housing targets are met and to reduce executive compensation if applications for funding for new housing construction are not treated within an average of 60 days; and (b) provide a 100% GST rebate on new residential rental property for which the average rent payable is below market rate. It would also require “the Minister of Public Works to table a report on the inventory of federal buildings and land, to identify land suitable for housing construction and to propose a plan to sell at least 15% of any federal buildings and all land that would be appropriate for housing construction”.
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