44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 20, 2023 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, I am glad the hon. member agrees that competition is good for Canadian consumers. A previous speaker in the House mentioned the sort of monopolistic tendencies that some big corporate players are displaying in several sectors in the economy are hurting consumers.
The hon. member mentioned the penalties that are proposed in the legislation. I would ask the member to clarify whether she is happy with the penalties that are being proposed or if she would propose any changes to them.
83 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
61 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the hon. member would know quite well, perhaps better than most in this House, that people living in northern, rural and remote communities, for decades have seen the high prices of groceries rise due to the lack of competition and the high costs associated with bringing goods to their communities.
Does the hon. member agree that programs like Nutrition North must be made into social programs, so people could afford food, not subsidy programs for companies to continue to make massive profits?
84 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, as I explained earlier, the Crees of Eeyou Istchee and the Inuit in northern Quebec need federal support.
We do not have enough food banks. All of the food that arrives in northern Quebec is already going bad. It sits for days on a boat or a plane. We need to help these people, especially in the winter. Right now, this is even resulting in more suicides in northern Quebec, where I live.
75 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
164 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, what is the point of Government Business No. 30 when Bill C‑56 could partly address public support and economic and social assistance? We have some serious concerns.
Once again, this government is dragging its feet. Nothing is happening. We are calling on the government to take action as soon as possible. The public needs this support.
61 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
41 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
40 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
2257 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on the member's thoughts when he commented with regard to the passing of legislation. He gave a very clear indication that the Conservative Party does not appear to want to see this legislation ultimately pass without some form of closure or time allocation. I believe that takes away from the process of enabling other legislation to be debated, because there is a finite amount of time to debate government legislation.
Could the member expand on how dysfunctional the chamber can be when we have an opposition party that persists in wanting to prevent legislation from passing?
104 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, we get elected to this place to deliberate, but we also get elected to make decisions. The process does not work if we can never get to the moment of decision. That is what we call a vote around this place.
It is appropriate for us to have a discussion and debate, but it is also appropriate and necessary for us to come to a decision point. It is fair for opposition parties to stand up against particular initiatives of the government and to use procedure to delay votes, but when it is happening on everything all the time, the whole place starts to break down. It does not make any sense to come to a place of infinite debate without any possibility of making a decision.
We know Canadians are relying on this place to make decisions to help with the problems in the housing market, as just one example, and there are many others. That is why it is important that we get the opportunity to vote in this place. If members of this place will not let that occur naturally, then sometimes this type of motion will be required.
194 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
161 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
161 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I find it hard to understand. I hear my NDP colleague boasting about the amendments obtained in Government Business No. 30 pertaining to Bill C‑56. These are amendments that are going to be made to the bill and are elements that are important to the NDP. However, the points contained in this motion could very well have been brought as amendments at committee stage.
The Bloc Québécois was calling for something important, namely financial flexibility, particularly for small businesses, with respect to the Canada emergency business account that was provided during the pandemic. A lot of businesses are asking us for this, and a lot of SMEs are telling us they need it to survive.
Why did the NDP not want to defend that?
133 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, it goes without saying that we are defending small businesses. We wrote the minister. We raised the issue. There are many things that we would like the government to do but that it will not do.
When we negotiate, we are not sitting in front of a mirror. We negotiate with a government that has its own priorities. Naturally, we propose things that it is opposed to.
I do not understand why the government wants to go after the small businesses that needed a loan during the pandemic. I do not understand why the government believes that it will get more money by causing bankruptcies. The government is clearly headed down that road even if it makes no sense.
We negotiated with the government to obtain what could be obtained. Regarding the loans, we do not think that it is something the government is prepared to do. I believe that the government is on the wrong side of this issue. I do not think we could have come to an agreement about this in Bill C‑56.
180 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
53 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
404 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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?
112 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
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.
96 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, this is the second opportunity I have been afforded to address this very important legislation. I want to start by commenting on when the legislation was introduced for debate earlier this morning, at which time the member for St. Catharines stood in his place and indicated that he would be happy to share his time with me.
I expected and hoped that, at least in part, there would be a general feeling that this is a substantive piece of legislation, which will have a very positive impact for Canadians. One would think that there would be support on all sides in favour of the legislation.
The member for St. Catharines, who is a little wiser than I am, pointed out in his comments that the Conservatives are filibustering, preventing legislation from passing. It was interesting that, when he pointed that out, he also referred to the fact that there are Conservative members who support the legislation and will be voting in favour of it. He then cited a specific member who indicated he would be voting in favour of the legislation.
After the member for St. Catharines spoke, I had the opportunity to speak. Based on previous experience, I also referred to the fact that the Conservatives have this natural inclination to prevent legislation from passing, even when they support it. A Conservative member across the way, speaking during Private Members' Business, made his perspective very clear in his opening comments. At the time, we were debating a private member's bill on a different issue, which is not government legislation, but he was critical of the government for not debating important issues.
I agree in the sense that the issues he referred to at the time, during Private Members' Business, were housing affordability and inflation. He may even have mentioned groceries. Within five minutes after the Conservative member sat down, we brought forward this piece of legislation, Bill C-56. If we read the title, it is about affordable housing and groceries. If we listen to what members opposite are saying, we would think they would be a little more sympathetic in terms of seeing the legislation passed.
Here is the catch: What did the very first speaker on Bill C-56, the member for Bay of Quinte, choose to do? He stood in his place, said a few words and referred to my speech, in which I referred to the efficiency argument in the legislation, which I will get back to. He referred to my saying that and said that is a very good part of the legislation. He acknowledged that. Then, toward the end of his speech, what did he do? He moved an amendment, with the real purpose of ensuring that there would be additional debate on this legislation.
Someone might ask what is wrong with a little more debate. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with it. However, people who follow not only this legislation but also many pieces of legislation that the government brings forward will know that the Conservative agenda has nothing at all to do with what is in the best interests of Canadians. For the Conservative Party of Canada today, it is all about putting roadblocks in place and the members doing whatever they can to assassinate the characters of government members and prevent legislation from passing. It is as simple as that.
That is why the Conservatives brought forward an amendment. What does the amendment actually say? It says:
...and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, and the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities be ordered to appear as witnesses for no less than two hours each....
Every member of this House is very much aware of their opinions and thoughts on the economy, inflation and housing, as the ministers themselves have commented on the issue in different forms. The purpose of the amendment is, again, just to prevent or slow down the legislation's passing.
The Conservatives have no reservations in doing this. I appreciate that it gives me another opportunity to address the legislation. I look to the member for Bay of Quinte and thank him for allowing me to express myself a little more on the legislation.
At the end of the day, some members have said they support the legislation and other members have said there is good stuff in it. There is no reason why the Conservative Party should be attempting to prevent this legislation from passing.
Let us look at what is happening around us. If we want to support Canada's middle class and those aspiring to be a part of it, and if we want to look at how we could support low-income Canadians, in terms of getting into non-profit housing or even, in this situation, purpose-built homes, there is good stuff in here. Increasing competition is a good thing. Conservatives talk about that, but their actions are very different.
We introduced the legislation this morning, with the idea of having three hours of debate; maybe the Conservatives would see the light and the advantage of helping Canadians and would allow the legislation to pass. However, that is not the case.
It is just like one of the other pieces of legislation that really surprises me: the Canada-Ukraine agreement. We are going to be debating that legislation. It is scheduled for this afternoon. What is the Conservative Party of Canada going to do to prevent that legislation from passing? Will it bring in another concurrence report?
We have even had members in the chamber accuse the Canada-Ukraine agreement of being woke legislation. They have portrayed Canada as taking advantage of Ukraine, even though the President of Ukraine came to Canada and had a ceremony with the Prime Minister to sign this agreement.
There is no one steering the Conservative Party today on policy, ideas or things that would help Canadians in a very real and tangible way. Conservatives are more concerned about bumper stickers than they are about good, sound policy. A good example of that would be in trying to figure out what the Conservative Party of Canada stands for on the issue of the environment. I said, “What is the policy on the environment?” Members across the way just heckled, “Axe the tax.” That is what I mean about bumper stickers.
The reality is that the leader of the Conservative Party and his entire group are more concerned with social media posts, which are often very misleading, if I am being kind, and the bumper stickers they could use in the next election, as opposed to being concerned with what is in the best interest of Canadians.
This legislation, Bill C-56, is good legislation. We finally have a government that is trying to address the issue of affordability and stability of grocery prices, and the Conservatives do not want the legislation to pass.
Earlier, I brought up the issue of competition and how Canadians benefit through competition, and this legislation would provide the opportunity to take away efficiency as an argument that could be made by companies to acquire other companies. The example I used earlier was grocery stores. In Canada, as I am sure members know, we have five major grocery stores: Metro, Loblaws, Sobeys, Walmart and Costco. Those are the big five. We used to have Shoppers as a separate entity until Stephen Harper and the current leader of the Conservative Party thought there was nothing wrong with Shoppers being acquired by another company. That reduced competition.
On the one hand, we hear the Conservatives talk about the benefits of competition, but on the other hand, when it comes to voting for legislation that would help with competition pass, what do they choose to do? They choose to filibuster the legislation. They do not want to pass the legislation. That is why the member for Bay of Quinte moved an amendment. It is to prevent the legislation from passing. It is so they can continue to debate endlessly. As a government, we will have to go to the New Democrats or the Bloc to negotiate bringing in time allocation to pass this legislation, or it is not going to pass.
On the one hand, the Conservative Party will be critical of the government because it wants to see more competition, yet when it was in government, it allowed Shoppers to be acquired, with no questions asked. It was an acquisition worth billions of dollars, and its members allowed it. Then, when it has come time for us to be able to deal with those kinds of acquisitions, they are now preventing the legislation from passing. Many would suggest that is somewhat hypocritical, myself included, but it does not meet their agenda.
I ask members to take a look at what the legislation actually does. It would provide a GST exemption for purpose-built homes over the next number of years. That initiative is expected to see tens of thousands of homes being built, and that would be a direct result of this legislation. As I indicated earlier, the idea is sound and it is good. The Conservative Party of Canada should support it.
We are seeing provincial governments recognizing that this initiative is good, and they are applying it to the PST too, the provincial sales tax. We have provinces of different political stripes, and we have the Liberal government, the NDP and the Bloc all supporting that initiative. On the other hand, we have the reckless Conservatives, who feel that their job is to prevent legislation of all forms from passing in the House. I would argue that it is at a great expense to Canadians.
When we think of the housing issue, it is of critical importance. I have heard about it being of critical importance from all sides of the House, but when there are initiatives, whether legislation like this, budgetary measures that support housing co-ops and organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, the transfer of billions of dollars to provinces and non-profit groups to assist in subsidizing units, or the housing accelerator fund and the monies allocated for that, the consistent thing we get from the Conservative Party is that they vote against them, or they filibuster. In the meantime, Conservatives have the tenacity to suggest we are not doing enough on the housing file.
The reality is that no government in the last 60-plus years has been more proactive on the housing file than this government has been. No government has, and the numbers will clearly show—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
1785 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
