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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 251

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 20, 2023 11:00AM
  • Nov/20/23 12:03:25 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I am glad I could help bring the House together on that potentially controversial point about the member for Winnipeg North. The Conservative member who just spoke was concerned that we are not addressing the housing crisis. I have great news for the member and for the House. We are debating this motion on Bill C-56, the affordable housing and groceries act. I am sure he will be thrilled to vote in favour of it. After months of Conservative filibuster and delay and over 20 hours of debate over five days, it is clear that the Conservatives have no intention of allowing Bill C-56 to get to a vote. During question period, for 45 minutes of the day, the Conservatives pretend to care about affordability issues for Canadians, but when the rubber meets the road, they are nowhere to be found. They delay, delay, delay. It was surprising to hear the member who spoke just before me say the Liberals are not prioritizing this. He does not look back to this own members and his own leader to ask why they are not getting Bill C-56 through fast enough to help provide relief to Canadians. This is despite the fact that many of his own members support Bill C-56, such as the Conservative member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, who more than a month ago committed in this House to voting in favour of the bill. Here is what he said on October 5: “I will be joining my Conservatives colleagues in voting to move this bill forward to committee”. That was 46 days ago. Given all this, I look forward to hearing what is going to be said today. Before my Conservative colleagues rise, I would like to remind them of what this bill does, because I think some of them may have forgotten. We know that the rising cost of groceries and lack of affordable housing are affecting families across the country. I am pleased to discuss some of the ways we are addressing these important issues through the measures outlined in Bill C-56. We know that for too many Canadians, including young people and new Canadians, the dream of owning a home is increasingly out of reach and paying rent has become more expensive across the country. The housing crisis has an impact on our economy. Without more homes in our communities, it is difficult for businesses to attract the workers they need to grow and succeed. When people spend more of their income on housing, it means less money is being spent in our communities for necessities like groceries. Bill C-56 would enhance the goods and services tax rental rebate on new purpose-built rental housing to encourage the construction of more rental homes, including apartment buildings, student housing and senior residences across Canada. The enhanced rebate would apply to projects that began construction on or after September 14, 2023, and on or before December 31, 2030, and that complete construction before 2036. For a two-bedroom rental unit that is valued at $500,000, the enhanced GST rental rebate would deliver $25,000 in tax relief. This is another tool to help create the necessary conditions to build the types of housing we need for families to live in. The measure would also remove restrictions in existing GST rules to ensure that public service bodies, such as universities, public colleges, hospitals, charities and qualifying non-profits, that build or purchase purpose-built rental housing are permitted to claim the 100% enhanced GST rental rebate. The government is also calling on provinces that currently apply the provincial sales tax or the provincial portion of the harmonized sales tax to rental housing to join us by matching the rebate for new rental housing. We are also requesting that local governments put an end to exclusionary zoning and encourage building apartments near public transit in order to have their housing accelerator fund applications approved. Launched in March 2023, the housing accelerator fund is a $4-billion initiative designed to help cities, towns and indigenous governments unlock new housing supply, with about 100,000 units total, by speeding up development and approvals through fixing out of date permitting systems, introducing zoning reforms to build more density and incentivizing development close to public transit. Every community across Canada needs to build more homes faster so we can reduce the cost of housing for everyone. We also need to stabilize the cost of groceries in Canada. With the one-time grocery rebate in July, we delivered targeted inflation relief for 11 million low- and modest-income Canadians and families who needed it the most, with up to an extra $467 for eligible couples with two children and up to an extra $234 for single Canadians without children, including single seniors. This support was welcomed by Canadians, but we knew more needed to be done to address the cost of groceries. This is why we are taking immediate steps to enhance competition across the Canadian economy, with a focus on the grocery sector, to help stabilize costs for middle-class Canadians. Through Bill C-56, the government is introducing a first set of legislative amendments to the Competition Act to provide the Competition Bureau with the powers to compel the production of information to conduct effective and complete market studies; remove the efficiencies defence, which currently allows anti-competitive mergers to survive challenges if corporate efficiencies offset the harm to competition, even when Canadian consumers would pay a higher price and have fewer choices; and empower the bureau to take action against collaborations that stifle competition and consumer choice, in particular in situations where large grocers prevent smaller competitors from establishing operations nearby. Bill C-56 builds on other measures that have been introduced to make life more affordable for Canadians, including delivering automatic advance payments of the Canada workers benefit, starting in July 2023, to provide up to $1,518 for eligible single workers and $2,616 for an eligible family, split between three advance payments and a final payment after filing their 2023 tax return; supporting about 3.5 million families annually through the tax-free Canada child benefit, with families this year receiving up to $7,437 per child up to the age of six and up to $6,275 per child aged six through 17; and reducing fees for regulated child care by 50% on average, delivering regulated child care that costs an average of just $10 a day by 2026, with six provinces and territories reducing child care fees to $10 a day or less by April 2, and strengthening the child care system in Quebec with more child care spaces. This government is taking action, and again, more often than not it is the Conservatives voting against, holding things up and delaying committees with filibuster after filibuster. It is shocking to see, especially because it is blatant hypocrisy. I am sure we will hear speeches about how important it is to provide relief to Canadians, but when will members opposite speak to the Leader of the Opposition and their House leader to say that we need to get this legislation through? I will not hold my breath that they are going to do that. We have been seeing for a lengthy period of time delay after delay. When will the actions of the Conservative Party match the rhetoric that occurs during question period? Granted, its members love a good slogan, but let us take a look at their voting record. All of the things I mentioned, they have either held up or voted against. They do not care. They only care about chaos in this place. It is unfortunate, because I believe some of them truly do care about their constituents and want to see these benefits flow to them. Some have said they are going to vote in favour of this legislation, but they remain silent when their leader holds it up in this place. This legislation has been debated quite a bit. The filibuster needs to end. It is time to move forward. The new proposed housing and grocery support I outlined today would make it easier for Canadians to build more homes and would help them thrive. It would help families with the growing cost of putting food on their table. The passage of Bill C-56 would help us provide a brighter future for Canadians.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:01:58 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, my colleague touched on the issue of housing prices in his speech. Quebec does not define affordable housing the same way Canada does. Canada does not seem to realize what a difference affordable housing could make for families. What is considered affordable in Canada is not necessarily affordable in Quebec. I would like to hear again from my colleague about the model that Quebec has developed in partnership with its community groups and the exciting initiatives it has implemented in community and social housing.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:02:33 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, my colleague asked a great question. A budget of $900 million was supposed to be available for housing in Quebec. Unfortunately, it took a very long time before the cities and Quebec could use these funds to build new affordable housing. One sticking point in the negotiations was the federal government's belief that affordable housing costs around $2,000 or $2,500 a month, if I am not mistaken. That amount would ruin most people, but people in Ottawa consider that affordable housing. Quebec disagreed, so I can understand why the Government of Quebec did not want to sign that kind of agreement. Then we had to defend Quebec's point of view and explain that affordable housing in Quebec costs a lot less than $2,000 a month. If we ask the average working person in Quebec, they would say that the idea of working a minimum-wage job and spending $2,000 a month on rent is unthinkable. It would simply be impossible to make ends meet.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:04:15 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I am sorry, but I did not understand my colleague's question. I was not listening to the interpretation and it was hard to hear him. I will just mention something that I meant to address in my speech on Government Business No. 30 concerning Bill C-56. We spoke about supply and demand, but the problem is that when it comes to the housing crisis, the government never talks about demand. It always talks about increasing the supply. Increasing the housing supply will take a long time, but the demand may increase rapidly as a result of the actions the government is taking. The government is talking out of both sides of its mouth. It wants to increase the demand by significantly increasing the number of people coming to Canada from abroad, but it cannot claim that adding more people will cost less money. If more people are added to a saturated market, then that is going to create more pressure. The government needs to take that into account.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:14:50 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, the national housing strategy is not working, and we are headed for a real national tragedy. We know that there is a housing shortage and a labour shortage. It is a vicious cycle. This is an economic disaster. We are therefore asking the government to take action as quickly as possible to support the people of Quebec and Canada.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:16:43 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, today we are seeing another phenomenon that keeps happening fairly regularly. We can no longer call it a phenomenon really. I would say it has become routine: another Liberal time allocation motion supported by the New Democratic Party. As we know, imposing time allocation is very democratic. I invite them to consider changing the name of their party. Bill C‑56 was supposed to be the magic solution to the cost of living crisis we are dealing with. That is what the government said. The government introduced this bill two months ago and failed to convince the opposition parties to adopt it quickly. That must be because the bill is not that good. I would like my colleague's opinion on the fact that the government, who claims to have a miracle bill to address the housing crisis and the cost of living crisis, is telling us that it needs time allocation and two months to be able to take action.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:18:12 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, could the member provide her thoughts in regard to the importance of the legislation having a positive impact on Canadian consumers and future purpose-built housing? Does the member believe that it would really contribute in a positive fashion?
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  • Nov/20/23 1:18:40 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I do not think that this fully addresses the current need for rental housing. I think that amendments will be made in committee. That is when we will get more details. Right now, things are not entirely clear.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:19:07 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak to today's motion. As will come as a surprise to nobody in this place, Canada is facing a housing crisis. It is not a recent housing crisis but, as time passes, it gets worse and worse. My father used to offer an anecdote regularly, particularly when talking about the environmental crisis we are facing. He would talk about lily ponds. One of the features of the growth of lily pads is that they grow exponentially. It starts with one and then, the next day, there are two and, the next day, there are four. The lesson, both for the environmental crisis, and I do not want to diminish that in any way, and also for the housing crisis and where we find ourselves in the housing crisis, is that the day before the entire pond is full of lily pads, it is only half full. To a spectator who does not know anything about exponential rates of growth for lily pads on the lake, they might come by the lake and say, “There is a lot of lake there. There is lots of time. Certainly, the lily pads are coming in but it is not that bad. We still have half the lake.” As I say, there is an important lesson when it comes to the environment and the climate crisis we are facing and the accelerating rate of change. It is also important to understand the housing crisis. We are now at the point where the lake is full. We do not have any more time to act. We have to start repairing the situation right away. There is the sense of urgency. It is why, when we came back to the House after summer, we were pleased to see the government had an idea that it wanted to move forward with respect to housing, something new and tangible that New Democrats and many stakeholders have been calling for for a long time, which was to eliminate the GST on purpose-built rentals. For our side, we wanted to see that done as part of a comprehensive housing strategy. We certainly do not agree that what the Liberals have called a national housing strategy since 2015 is that. It is clear that it is missing many components and that even the components that are there have not been effective in meeting the challenge that we face in Canada. We were glad to see the government taking some good ideas from stakeholders and, indeed, from the NDP, saying that it is something that it wants to move forward on. Our problem was that we knew, with respect to the changes to the Competition Act, that they were inadequate. We know this because our own leader, the member for Burnaby South, has done a lot of work on the Competition Act and proposed a suite of changes to the Competition Act right around the same time. We wanted to see the changes proposed to the Competition Act and Bill C-56 take the stronger tone that our leader has taken. Our leader does not shy away from taking that tone when it comes to talking back to corporate Canada and letting it know that we see the role of government as requiring it to do right by Canadians, not exploiting its market position to gouge Canadians. That is something we are not shy about and we believe the government should not be shy about it. It is why we run to form a government that is not shy about taking corporate greed to task. In the meantime, we want to get as much done in that regard as we can, working with the Parliament that Canadians elected. There was work to do on strengthening the Competition Act provision. When it came to housing, we wanted to see a more comprehensive strategy and more initiatives, particularly to focus on building more non-market units in Canada. No matter how many market units are created, there are going to be a lot of people who cannot afford or cannot access those market units. When we build non-market units, whether that is in co-op housing or whether that is social housing, where rent is geared to income, or whether it is investing in projects alongside the private market, to ensure that there are at least some suites that have a below-market value, whatever the combination of those things is, we know that this also helps relieve pressure on the housing market. There are people who are sacrificing their prescription drugs and food in order to pay market rent. When they get an option to be able to rent a home that meets the needs of their family and allows them to have money left over for essentials like food and medicine, that frees up market units for those who can afford them but may, nevertheless, be struggling to access them. One glaring oversight in Bill C-56 was that it excluded, without any good reason, co-operative housing from getting a break on the GST for purpose-built rentals. That was something we definitely needed to fix, and we have received a commitment from the government to fix it at committee, along with some changes to strengthen the Competition Act. All we have to do is look at the latest case of the Rogers-Shaw merger to know how frustrating it is for our Competition Bureau to do its job. It could not compel evidence from Rogers or Shaw, which would change here, as the Competition Bureau would be empowered to require certain kinds of evidence from the folks they are investigating. This would also mean that when the commissioner of competition believes a market study is required, the bureau would be able to embark upon it on its own initiative, something we think is very important. We also argued for tougher fines for companies that break the rules, and tougher fines not just generally but also for recidivist corporations that do not learn the lesson the first time. Those penalties would increase to deter companies from continuing to do things they know full well they should not be doing. The government has agreed to this suite of changes, and we will continue to press. Another thing we think ought to have been included here in respect of the GST exemption were projects that had already received a commitment of some kind of funding through the various programs of the national housing strategy. We know that not enough projects are getting funded under that strategy as it is, but some of the ones that have been funded have been put on hold. Why? It is because of rising interest rates. That means for a project to proceed, people have to find more money. They either have to do that through private fundraising, which is very challenging to do at the best of times, or have to increase the amount from government grants in a project. They could benefit from the GST exemption as well, and we do not think they should be excluded just because a project started before September 14 of this year. We think extending the GST rebate to non-profit housing projects that the government has already agreed to fund to make projects work, after a year of punishing interest rate increases, is a small thing the government can do to ensure that people out there in our communities, who are already doing great work to build housing that Canadians can afford, do not have work stymied by rising interest rates and can see something in their budget that makes it work. Removing the GST is the simplest way to do that. The government will collect no GST from these projects if they do not move forward, because the business case is being ruined by rising interest rates. We think waiving the GST for projects that are otherwise not going ahead is a very low-cost way to ensure that the government delivers on promises it has already made by allocating funding to the projects that have stopped because of circumstances beyond their control. That is not a fight we are prepared to give up on. It is something we think should be happening, and we are going to continue to argue for it. However, we are not insensitive to the fact that a lot of folks have announced that they want to move forward with new purpose-built rentals as a result of the GST rebate the government is offering in Bill C-56. We know that we are already well past the time to contemplate how to act. We know this is a demand that stakeholders in the housing industry, whether they advocate for market-based housing or non-market-based housing, have talked about as a way to pencil out projects, so it is something we need to move forward with. There was an opportunity to move forward quicker if debate on the bill had collapsed, but of course it is not collapsing because no debate on bills is collapsing in this place. The official opposition sees to that daily, whether it is by moving motions to take time away from dealing with government business or by putting up speakers ad infinitum. It ensures that we need some kind of time allocation or closure just to get to the point of having a vote on a bill. When we are talking about a crisis that is in full swing and the need to build more market housing and non-market housing, New Democrats are prepared to work with the government to move the bill through far more quickly than it has been. We will use the opportunity here to improve the bill, as we believe it is our duty to do. We would go further if we could, but there is only so far we can go with the Liberal government, apparently. However, we are willing to test how far we can go every day of the week and are going to keep fighting for the things we think are very important, including fighting for new announcements in the fall economic statement around housing that make more funding available for organizations that want to pursue non-market housing, and offering financing on better terms for those who want to build more rental housing in the market but are struggling to make projects work from a financial point of view because of rising interest rates. That is a bit about why we think Bill C-56 is important, how New Democrats have worked hard in this place over the last couple of months to improve the bill, what we are going to continue to fight for and why we think, now that we have reached some agreement on improving the bill, it is important to move it forward. The contractors out there waiting to pick up the shovel and put it in the ground need the deal done on the GST and want to see it move ahead. We think it is important that it move ahead. We think it is important those units come to market and Canadians have the opportunity to rent them. We want to see them come to market in sufficient volume so there is a lowering of their price. We know that is going to take time, but delay will not help. We have been delaying already for too long, certainly for eight years under the current government, which is after 10 years of delay and no meaningful action in the housing market from the previous government, and even longer before then, going back to the mid-nineties, when the national housing strategy was cancelled and we saw the federal government completely walk away from building social housing units in Canada. That is when the first lily pad started hitting the pond, so to speak, and it has taken us 30 years to see the pond fill, with really no more time to wait to enact important solutions. Is there more the government can do? Absolutely. We want to see it get rid of the special tax treatment that real estate investment trusts enjoy. We want to see it take action to make sure that non-profits with experience and a great track record of delivering non-market housing in our communities have access to capital so that when buildings with low rents come on the market, they have an opportunity to bid on those buildings and have the money to close a deal successfully to make that happen. The term of art for that is a non-profit acquisition fund. It is a fancy term, but all it means is making sure the non-profit housing providers in our communities, which are already doing a great job, have the opportunity to run low-rent apartment blocks when the current owners do not want to do it anymore, instead of having a corporate landlord come in, superficially renovate the building, kick everyone else out and invite tenants with higher incomes to rent suites that were formerly homes for Canadians who cannot afford luxury rent prices. Those are some of the things we think the government ought to be doing. We are not going to get them all done in one bill, but we managed to improve what is in this bill, and we think it should hurry along so we can bring more units to market.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:34:38 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, the member spoke quite a bit about housing, and it is definitely clear that we are in a housing crisis right across the country. When I think about how it is playing out in northern Ontario, I know we need to see affordable housing. We also need to see market housing addressed across the Kenora district and northern Ontario. We are not able to fill labour needs as a result of people being unable to find adequate housing to live in so they can either stay in our communities or move to our communities. The Leader of the Opposition, the leader of Canada's Conservatives, brought forward an important bill that would tie infrastructure dollars to the number of homes that are allowed to be built, as well as a GST rebate specifically where rental prices are below market value. That is part of our plan to address this housing crisis. Will the member support moving that legislation forward?
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  • Nov/20/23 1:35:37 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I will take the opportunity to highlight two problems I see with the member for Carleton's bill. One is that when we talk about using public lands to create housing, there are no conditions on what kind of housing would be built. There are no conditions asserting a return on investment for the taxpayer, whose land is going to be used to develop housing. We do not need to look very far out of this place to see what happens when Conservative governments that are cozy with developers decide they are going to start auctioning off land or opening up land for private development without a very clear set of rules at the forefront. That is a major failing of the bill. I would gladly speak to the other failing, but I see I am out of time. Perhaps I will get a question about the other failings of that bill. I would be happy to answer it.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:38:58 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, the member's speech was very relevant to the issues. I thought I would give him this opportunity to outline some of the concerns he has about the opposition leader's bill on housing, what the other challenges might be and how it would not meet the needs of many Canadians.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:39:25 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I certainly very much appreciate that unprompted question. I spoke a bit already about the lack of criteria around the use of public lands in the opposition leader's bill. However, I wanted to come back to this notion he has that he is going to punish municipalities. We have had the opportunity to hear from a lot of representatives of municipalities presenting at the finance committee. They talk about the challenges that they are trying to overcome in order to facilitate building more housing in their own communities. I do not believe that they need to be browbeaten or punished financially in order to get that done. I would remind the Conservative leader that, when he talks about financially punishing municipalities that are not meeting his Ottawa-set target for housing starts, what he is really talking about doing is punishing the people in those municipalities. In a municipality where the leadership is acting in good faith to try to get more housing built, it has no interest in not getting that housing built in the community. There can be problems, and a lot of municipalities are trying to work through them. The Conservative leader is saying that, if they are already under-resourced and do not meet his benchmark, he is going to deprive them of even more resources, expecting them to meet the target with fewer resources when they are already clearly under-resourced to meet that challenge. That is not a strategy that would set municipalities up for success. All it would do is punish the people who live in the municipality when their government is struggling to figure out a convoluted permitting process and a bunch of other stuff. In some cases we have heard at the finance committee, it is about the underlying infrastructure, such as sewer pipes and other things like that, which have to be in place in order to increase density. For a municipality that already does not have the resources to do that, getting dinged because it did not meet the Conservative leader's Ottawa-set housing target is not something that is going to help it to do that into the future. Therefore, yes, we need to put an emphasis on outcomes; yes, there should be consequences for outcomes. However, just depriving municipalities of resources when they are already cash-strapped is not going to get the job done for Canadians.
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  • Nov/20/23 1:41:43 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for all the information, and specifically, for talking about the importance of housing. In my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, so many people are struggling to make ends meet, and housing is largely unaffordable. I am hearing from many residents that they want to see an increase of co-op housing, which, I know, is something that was brought up. Could the member expand a bit on the importance of a strategy that takes into account the non-market housing that he is speaking about and of our being able to have this legislation move forward and not see the Conservatives continue to block at committee?
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  • Nov/20/23 1:42:20 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-56 
Madam Speaker, the Conservative leader has called housing co-ops a Soviet-style takeover of housing. Actually, it is quite the opposite; co-op housing is a great way to build non-market housing that is not government-owned and controlled but is actually owned and controlled by the people who live there in a way that makes access to that housing more affordable now and into the future. That is why we fought hard to ensure that the GST exemption applies to co-op housing, so that co-ops can get those benefits as well.
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  • Nov/20/23 2:26:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to listen to this version of revisionist history of the hon. member's time as the minister responsible for housing. If we actually go back and look at the numbers, we would see that he actually had housing starts of fewer than 200,000 a year. This morning, we are seeing data that shows we are on pace to build more than 256,000 homes this year. If we want to compare apples to apples, we are going to make a difference. Does the hon. member like apples? We are going to beat his numbers. How does he like those apples?
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  • Nov/20/23 2:28:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Leader of the Opposition opposed spending that was supporting families. Now, during a national housing crisis, he opposes government investments that would actually get more homes built. When we have the opportunity to make generational investments that would gain a toehold in a new industry, he opposes it without vision for what the future economy could be when we create many thousands of jobs. We are going to continue to invest in the Canadian economy and make sure workers bring home paycheques that would put food on the table for their families.
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  • Nov/20/23 2:32:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are currently studying the affordable housing and groceries act. We must continue to support everyone in our country when it comes to groceries—
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  • Nov/20/23 2:33:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-56 certainly, I think, after some improvement by New Democrats, would help a bit with the housing crisis but would not solve the housing crisis. The fall economic statement is an important opportunity to make further progress on both the housing crisis and the affordability crisis. Funds have been depleted for social housing that need to be replenished, and there is further work to do on strengthening competition laws in Canada. Are these initiatives that we are going to see in the fall economic statement, or are Canadians going to be left waiting again?
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  • Nov/20/23 2:34:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that he and I will both wait for tomorrow to see the details of the fall economic statement. However, I want to signal my intent to continue to the pattern of investment in affordable housing in particular that is going to make sure that everyone in this country has a safe and affordable place to call home. Over the 30 years that preceded our time in government, governments of different stripes chose not to make the necessary investments to ensure that we had sufficient, affordable housing stock. We are going to continue to make the investments that are necessary in affordable housing to restore something to the ecosystem, and that is a level of affordability that we desperately need.
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