44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 23, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I can hardly believe this.
Today, my colleague tells us it is urgent, that we must quickly pass Bill C-56 for its housing initiatives. The GST credit is a marginal measure to fight the housing crisis. Still, in the economic update, two days ago, we had a unique opportunity to invest in housing. However, most measures will only come into effect in 2025-2026.
We need billions of dollars in investments now. We need to build 150,000 new units a year in Quebec. In the agreement with Quebec, 8,000 units will be built in the next five years. There are 10,000 homeless people in Quebec. We asked for an emergency fund to prevent deaths in Granby, in Rimouski and in Saint-Jérôme. Not a cent was allocated. The crisis is here now. I can hardly believe we were told this morning it is urgent to vote on the bill, while the government put nothing in its economic update two days ago.
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Madam Speaker, as usual, the Liberal members are awfully pleased with themselves. They are bragging about their government's achievements.
My colleague had a lot to say about housing. Unfortunately, the GST rebate in Bill C‑56 is not going to make much of a dent in the housing crisis in Quebec and Canada. It is a marginal measure, especially in Quebec.
The government tabled its economic update two days ago. Unfortunately, many of the measures in it will not take effect until 2025 or 2026. Quebec has 10,000 homeless people. I have seen them in Longueuil, Saint‑Jérôme and Rimouski. There are people on riverbanks. This is going to be very hard.
We asked the government to put an emergency fund in the economic update. Winter is coming, and it is going to be cold. We know that. It is going to be hard. I know people will die in Quebec, on those riverbanks, in small towns, all over the province. That is unacceptable.
We asked for an emergency fund to help address the problem, but we got nothing. Most of the economic measures will not take effect until 2025 or 2026, but we need to build 150,000 housing units a year starting right now. If we do not build them this year, there will be a backlog, and they will have to be built sooner or later.
When will the Liberal government get serious about this problem and come up with measures that will make a real difference?
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- Nov/23/23 1:12:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, but once again it was little more than an infomercial for the Liberal government's action on housing.
That is rather unfortunate, because the housing crisis is a major problem, and the further along we get in the debate, the more we see that the government is not facing the facts when it comes to this crisis. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, we need to build 3.5 million housing units by 2030. That is a huge task. In a report published two weeks ago, the federal housing advocate even indicated that we need to build nine million housing units in Canada in the next 10 years. That is a huge task.
In the economic statement, the government announced the construction of approximately 30,000 housing units in 2025-26. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Any housing needs that are not met now are just going to accumulate. The government is not going to get off that easy. In Quebec alone, 500,000 households are in dire need of housing.
I look forward to hearing from a government that will stand up and say that we are on the verge of a serious humanitarian crisis in Quebec and Canada and that it is going to take strong action to deal with it. I look forward to hearing that.
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- Nov/23/23 1:26:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there was one part of my colleague's speech that I really liked. When he talked about the housing crisis, he said it is a complex issue. He is right.
At some point, the government is going to need to wake up and face the facts. Those 3.5 million housing units will require hundreds of billions of dollars in investments. I am not even convinced we are going to get there.
However, there is one issue the government could work on, and that is the financialization of housing. That is a significant issue. We are talking about the fact that a growing share of rental housing is being bought up by large private investors, often international ones. It is estimated that, in Montreal, less than 1% of owners own 32% of the rental housing stock. They could not care less about the right to housing. All they want to do is make money. They buy buildings with 60, 80 or 100 units. They demolish or renovate them. They renovate and double the price of the units. They have a major impact on the rise in housing prices. We absolutely have to tackle this issue.
Could my colleague suggest some measures today to deal with this?
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- Nov/23/23 1:42:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am always happy to talk about housing.
Earlier, I asked my Conservative colleague a question about the financialization of housing and the growing number of large investment funds buying up housing in Canada. This is a huge problem. We know that, for every affordable housing unit built in Canada, we lose 10 to the private market because those units are being bought up by big investors.
The Bloc Québécois wanted the economic update to include an acquisition fund to take affordable housing off the private market and keep it affordable for the long term. That is what non-profit housing organizations across Canada want, too. The goal would be to shelter the $600, $800 and $850 units that are still on the market. The government could buy them and take them off the market. Everyone agrees that this would be a solution.
Does my colleague agree?
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- Nov/23/23 6:54:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. More than that, I want to congratulate him on his French. I think he delivered about half of his speech in French, which is amazing. Seriously, kudos to him, and I am very happy to hear French in the House.
At its press conference in Ottawa today, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities said that, to build the millions of housing units we need, they would require $600 billion in infrastructure such as transportation, roads, public transit and sewers. I would just like to know what a future Conservative government—not that we want one—would say to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities about that.
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- Nov/23/23 7:11:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the federal housing advocate, which is a body tasked by the federal government with ensuring that the right to housing is respected in this country, issued a report a few weeks ago stating that Canada will need a staggering 9 million housing units and 3.3 million social housing units in the next 10 years.
I want to know how many social housing units would be built by a Conservative government, not that we want one.
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- Nov/23/23 7:29:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am wondering what country my colleague actually lives in. I listened to him brag about what his government has done to deal with the housing crisis. The Liberals have been in power for eight years.
I did a tour of Quebec. I travelled all around the province. Homelessness has increased by 40%. Right now, 10,000 people in Quebec are homeless. There are homeless people everywhere: Saint‑Jérôme, Val‑d'Or, Lac‑Saint‑Jean, Rimouski, Gaspé, Sherbrooke and likely in my colleague's riding too. I heard what the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry said earlier. There are also homeless people in Shawinigan. It is a problem everywhere.
We asked for an emergency fund so that people are not dying on Quebec's riverbanks. There was nothing about that in the economic update. As my colleague—
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- Nov/23/23 10:06:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives always sound a bit off when they talk about human misery. They talk about food banks being at capacity. They talk about people struggling.
A month ago, the mayor of Quebec City, the only place where the Conservatives are able to get their people elected, held a summit on homelessness. Oddly enough, I did not see a single Conservative MP there. A lot of provincial elected representatives were there. I was there too. We talked about homelessness and tried to come up with solutions. Not a single Conservative MP was there.
I have one very specific question for my colleague. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities held a press conference in Ottawa today. Its spokespeople said that municipalities would need $600 billion to support the construction of the millions of housing units the country needs. That money is needed to pay for roads, public transit and sewers.
How much would a Conservative government—which nobody here wants—be prepared to give municipalities to address those needs?
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- Nov/23/23 10:54:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, who is always interesting, always brilliant, always thorough and always has relevant things to say.
As we have heard, the GST rebate will not solve the entire housing crisis. Housing is a complex issue. At the current rate of construction, we know that we will never be able to build the amount of housing we need. We are talking about 3.5 million units in Canada and 1.1 million in Quebec. We have never built more than 70,000 units. We will never get there.
We also need to tackle the financialization of housing. That is extremely important. We proposed a measure, and I would like my colleague to talk about it. It is an acquisition fund. We know that we are losing affordable housing. In fact, we are losing more than we are creating right now, which is rather interesting, because these large groups and real estate funds, which are often international, are buying up the affordable housing stock right now. It is a real tragedy.
What we need is an acquisition fund. The government needs to make a fund available to not-for-profit organizations to be able to buy housing that is still affordable—there are still some out there—and remove them from the market to guarantee affordability. I would like my colleague to talk a bit about this measure and tell us how this might greatly improve things in the market.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑56 touches on housing. It is a priority, actually.
I said it earlier, when my colleague made his speech. It will be difficult to build millions of homes. That has never been done in Canada. We have to find ways to rise to the challenge. We talked about an acquisition fund, which could be an interesting tool.
The elephant in the room when it comes to the housing crisis is the financialization of housing. Big real estate empires are buying up the housing stock. In Montreal alone, it is estimated that less than 1% of owners own a third of the rental stock. That is outrageous. We need to do something about these people who buy up buildings with 60, 80 or 100 units, either to demolish them or renovate them. They double the price and it becomes very problematic.
I am certain it is the same in Toronto and Vancouver. Ottawa needs to tackle this. Could my colleague speak to that? I imagine that the NDP has been thinking about these issues. Do they have any ideas about how to deal with this?
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