44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
- Nov/23/23 6:36:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am kind of curious. This is basically a bill to address affordability in Canada.
For young families that have a mortgage right now that is coming up for renewal in the next month, and it is going to from 2% to 8%, what is in here that is going to help? What is in any type of Liberal legislation at this point in time that is actually going to help that family renew that mortgage, take the hit on the increase of the mortgage payment, and be able to heat their homes and put food on the table?
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Madam Speaker, what a great presentation that was from my colleague from of British Columbia. The common-sense ideas that he presented just reflect the common sense of a young Conservative Party that is ready to take over the reins here in Canada and bring about some new ideas to help Canadians as it progresses, goes forward and brings back the Canadian dream of home ownership.
When I first read Bill C-56, I thought that it was not that bad and that there were some things in it that looked pretty good. Then I remembered: I know why they look good; it is because they are actually Conservative ideas. They are actually things the Conservatives talked about six years ago, and I am glad the Liberals copied them. I am very flattered they copied our ideas. That is great.
Then I looked at it and thought, “Wait a minute, the bill is regarding GST on rental properties.” If we are really looking at this and at affordability across Canada, we are dealing with such a small part of where there are affordability problems. Let us take, for example, the young family who owns a house. Let us say they have a mortgage of $250,000. They bought their house three or four years ago. The mortgage is coming up for renewal now, and they are going from a 1.9% or 2.5% interest rate to roughly an 8.5% or 8.7% interest rate. Their monthly mortgage payment is going from $1,200 a month up to $1,800 or $1,900 a month. They have to find another $700 a month, so that is $8,400 a year of after-tax dollars just to pay the interest increase. That is an affordability problem. Is there anything in the bill that would address that? No, there is not. Is there anything in the Liberals' ideas they talked about yesterday, moving forward, that would address helping those people out? Have there been any ideas to work with the banks to say they could extend things out? Have there been any ideas to work with institutions to say that we could actually help people manoeuvre so they could actually afford to stay in their house?
I can see why the Liberals talked only about rental properties in this piece of legislation, because what will happen is that people are going to give up their house because they cannot afford it, and they are going to have to have a place to rent. Let us look at the legislation again. Okay, we would build lots of apartments. When would they be done? Would it be two years or three years from now? People lose their house next month, and they have to wait three years for an apartment? Where do they go? What do they do?
There has been no imagination in the government. The Liberals are out of ideas. They are old and tired, and they have no concept of what is actually going on in this country. They have done nothing to work with the municipalities and the provinces to ask how they can make things more affordable and whether there are things they can do together and leverage among themselves to make life easier for Canadians. There is nothing. We have a few examples where maybe they worked with one city here and one city there, but generally, across Canada, have they worked with anybody? No, they have not. They have picked a targeted approach based on political will and political expedience.
We saw it with home heating when the Liberals removed the GST on oil. Did they apply that to propane? Did they apply it to natural gas? Did they apply it to wood or coal? I come from Saskatchewan. We still use coal; that is way worse than diesel. We still use wood; that is probably still worse than diesel. Was there any relief for that? No, there was not. We use propane and natural gas, which are better than diesel, but the cost has gone up so much because of the carbon tax that it is really hurting. People are saying to us all the time, “I cannot pay my bills.” They are going into winter now and are asking what they will do. They are saying, “My mortgage is going to go up. My heating is now going up. My property tax is going up. What do I do?” What does the government say to them? It says crickets. It tells them to pay it, and if their wallet is empty, to borrow more money at a higher interest rate and pay it. Is there any relief there? No, there is not. Has there been any compassion shown? No, there has not.
That is the reality of what the government has done, and do members know why? The government is tired. It is out of ideas. It has no imagination. It does not understand economics. The reality is that this is very true, because if the Liberals understood economics, they would have realized five years ago, when they started borrowing money like drunken sailors, that it was not a good idea. When they started putting money into things that did not have any type of return on GDP or efficiencies, that was a bad idea.
When we look at things now, we have to pay those interest rates. It is a tremendous amount of interest we are now paying on our debt. It is more than what we pay in health care. I was around before, when people had to wait two years to get surgery. My mother had cancer. She had to wait before she could get diagnosed, because those were the days when we were paying a higher amount in interest than we were paying for health care. It took a Liberal government, in co-operation with a Conservative government and the Reform Party in opposition, to get that tackled and under control.
Did we learn from history? No, we did not. What did the Prime Minister do? He started borrowing, not just a small amount like he promised in 2015, not just $10 billion, but $40 billion, $60 billion and $100 billion. The numbers are staggering, and now, we cannot get that back. How do we get back to a balanced budget? It is going to take a tremendous amount of effort.
Not only did we spend more, but we also brought in legislation that starves businesses. We brought in legislation that kicks people out of Canada so they invest everywhere else. We kept our natural resources in the ground. We did not defend our forestry sector when it was unfairly hit with tariffs out of the U.S. What has the government done? It has done nothing. It has shown no imagination. When we talk to it about this, it blames everybody else.
Affordability is the basis of what is going on here. Let us look at things in a more macro and holistic sense. Let us break it down to a family that buys groceries. Groceries are more expensive. The inflation rate for groceries is tremendous. There is the war in Ukraine and a variety of things that have brought commodity prices up through the roof, no question about it, but there are things the government could do to alleviate some of the pain.
I have no issues with change to the Competition Bureau. I have a few concerns, but no issues. Again, when would we get the results from the changes? Would they help us next week or next month, or a year, two years or 10 years from now? There are no deadlines. There are no time frames for allowing us to see any type of reduction in prices based on the changes. There is nothing there that would immediately help the family that needs the help today, so has the government done anything on affordability in the legislation? No, it has not. It has laid out some good targets to move forward in the future, four years or five years down the road when it is no longer in government, but what has it done today? What it has done is spend more money on things Canada cannot afford. It has put money into programs that do not help Canadians at this point in time. It has taken money out of their pockets that they need in their pockets.
This is why we asked the government to just freeze the GST. Never mind the quadrupling, even just freezing it would alone at least help Canadians. If the government reduced it, it would show compassion. If it reduced it for all Canadians, it would show that it genuinely cared about this country and did not pick favourites on one side or the other based on political expediency. If you showed some consistency, we would be in better shape and in a better position in this Parliament, but you have not; you have divided Canadians by region, by different sectors—
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- Nov/23/23 7:06:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians are being divided, and when they are hurting, they get divided even more. When one starts picking winners and losers, it gets even worse.
The government just spent $30 billion on two companies for electric batteries. It is probably $35 billion from what we are hearing now. It does not mean we should or should not do it, but that is $30 billion. Let us make sure that investment is going to happen, that it is done in such a way that Canadians are going to benefit from it. We do not know, as we cannot see the agreement. Canadians do not know what is in it. It is hidden. Why is it hidden? Maybe there is a reason to have foreign jobs. Maybe they are training the trainer and things like that; I could live with that, but I do not know. The government should show the agreement to us and to Canadians so they understand. It has spent a lot of money at a time when Canadians do not have a lot of money. It has tried to build the next sector of industry with huge government subsidization. Did it try to create a competitive environment here in Canada so businesses want to be here? Did it want to take advantage of the natural advantages we have in Canada: our diverse population, our multiple languages and the abilities we have? Those are the things it has to look at.
If we look at the Canadian GDP per person, since 2017, it stagnated and now it has dropped. Basically, our standard of living compared to that in other parts of the world is going down. When we compare it to that of the U.S., ours has dropped 2.5%, and the Americans' has been rising 5.5% this last year. If we look at the graphs, theirs is going up and ours is going sideways and down. The government has to change that. If it continues, our families are going to get into worse problems.
Canada is at a crossroads right now. Canadians are hurting. They are in pain. The government has done nothing to relieve that pain and has shown no compassion or empathy in regard to that.
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- Nov/23/23 7:10:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, we ran deficits, and I know why. It is because we were in the greatest global meltdown of our banks that Canada and the world had ever seen. Where did that money go? I can tell the House where it went in my riding. It went to lift stations, to water treatment plants and to sewer lines. It went to things that Canadians actually needed. It was spent to actually create jobs and employment. It was returned to the economy and came back in taxes. That is where that money went.
Tell me where the Liberal government's money went. Where did the billions of dollars go? I do not know. We got the ArriveCAN app; maybe some of it went there. Where else did it go? It is like the $40 million; nobody knows.
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- Nov/23/23 7:11:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, actually, it is not up to government to build houses. It is up to the marketplace to build houses. It is up to government to actually set the stage, to put the environment in place so houses get built. It is up to government to make sure the platform is there so developers and homeowners who want to build a new house can actually do that. What have we done here? We have taxed them. We have taken away all of their disposable income. We have made it tough to actually even afford groceries, so how are they supposed to build a house? Talking about revenue properties and social housing, there is a role for government in social housing; there is no question about that for municipal, federal and provincial governments. Let us have a proper game plan to see that happen.
Do members know what? It is pretty tough when the cupboard is bare because the money was spent on things we cannot find.
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- Nov/23/23 7:14:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the NDP have a philosophy that they should own and be involved in everything. They think that the government can actually do things better than the marketplace; that is their philosophy. The reality is that we have seen that when the government is involved in things—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/23/23 7:14:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate your defending me there, because there is a lot of battering coming from that side.
To get back to what I was trying to say, I think there is a role for government to be involved in social housing; there is no question about it. When it comes to homelessness, government can help people up from poverty and give them a hand up. We have seen that in the past with Conservative governments, and we will see it in the future with Conservative governments. This is done properly in partnership with municipalities, NGOs and the provinces.
When it comes to private housing, there is a place for the marketplace to be involved. When the government spends $1 billion to build houses, the marketplace could probably spend $100 billion. The reality of leveraging in the marketplace is a lot better than the government trying to do it by itself. We are never going to build all these houses through government. We have to get the private sector involved, and if we do not, it will never happen.
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