44th Parl. 1st Sess.
January 31, 2024 02:00PM
- Jan/31/24 3:16:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the MP for Dufferin—Caledon applauded the housing minister for moving quickly on his file.
He said that there were new programs, new initiatives and new plans, despite the fact his own leader has obstructed every measure we brought forward to support Canadians.
Can the Prime Minister stand in support of the MP for Dufferin—Caledon and update Canadians on what new housing programs, initiatives and plans this government has announced this week?
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-59, the fall economic statement implementation act, 2023.
This legislation, which would deliver on key measures from our fall economic statement, would advance our plan to make life more affordable, build more homes faster and develop a cleaner economy that works for everyone.
This is the next step in our economic plan that, since 2015, has supported people in Halifax West and across the country through the Canada child benefit, enhanced benefits and pensions for seniors, stronger public health care and a Canada-wide system of affordable early learning and child care. These investments have helped bring us to today, when we have seen a strong recovery with a million more jobs in Canada than before the pandemic, a record number of working-age women in our labour force and, just last month, wages growing at the fastest pace in three years. In fact, wage growth has outpaced inflation for 11 consecutive months now, but we are not out of the economic woods yet.
Inflation is still high, higher than where we would like it to be. Elevated prices continue to put pressure on Canadian families. I hear about that every day from my constituents.
Over the past year, the federal government has taken more steps to make life more affordable for people in this country who need it.
It is no secret that we need to do much more.
This bill is part of that work.
There are a number of things I can talk about that Bill C-59 would do for Canadians. It would remove the GST and HST on counselling and psychotherapy services to make mental health care more affordable. It would extend employment insurance benefits to parents who adopt, better supporting those families.
Right now, adoptive parents are entitled to EI parental benefits, but not to the 15 weeks of maternity benefits.
It would create new, paid leave for federally regulated workers to support families who experience pregnancy loss.
A truly strong economy and labour force are built upon compassion and an understanding of the difficult situations some families encounter.
Bill C-59 would also introduce new measures to further our economic plan and continue supporting a strong middle class. It would achieve that by enshrining our suite of clean investment tax credits in law, all while providing businesses with an incentive to pay a prevailing union wage. That is huge.
This is the first time in Canada's history that investment tax credits are contingent upon such labour requirements.
Let us bring this back to my own community in Halifax West. The two things I hear about most these days, especially since we signed our transformative health care deal with Nova Scotia, are affordability at the grocery store and the need for more housing. This bill would introduce both.
On housing, Bill C-59 would remove the GST on new rental home construction for co-op housing, complementing the action we took in the fall and spurring new construction. Let us recall just how much we have done to increase housing supply over the last several months, because it is major. We are investing $1 billion more in affordable units like non-profit, co-op and public housing. We are helping build 30,000 more rental units by extending $15 billion in additional low-cost financing to builders. We are reforming the apartment construction loan program to offer low-cost loans to build more student housing on and off campus, a move that I know Dalhousie, Mount Saint Vincent and St. Mary's universities are all looking at closely.
We are launching a home design catalogue so pre-approved designs, including modulars, that can benefit Atlantic Canada specifically can be used to build more homes faster. We are funding 222 new units of public housing in Nova Scotia, the first expansion to our public housing stock in decades. We are unlocking 9,000 more units in HRM over the next decade by funding Halifax's housing action plan through our housing accelerator.
While Conservatives pick fights with elected mayors and councils, we work with them, providing the right incentives and getting major changes made so we can build homes faster in Canada. That is the way forward: collaboration.
We are going to get more homes built for Canadians, and we are also tackling the problem of high grocery prices head-on through a generational change to competition law in Canada. Bill C-59 is part of that. How is it? By amending the Competition Act and the Competition Tribunal Act, building on changes we have proposed in Bill C-56, we would help stabilize prices and improve consumer choice. This includes supporting Canadians' right to repair; further modernizing merger reviews; enhancing protections for consumers, workers and the environment, including improving the focus on worker impacts and competition analysis; empowering the commissioner of competition to review and crack down on a wide selection of anti-competitive collaborations; and broadening the reach of the law by enabling more private parties to bring cases before the Competition Tribunal and receive payment if they are successful.
I know I welcomed this week's news that the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry is calling on the Competition Bureau to use its new powers to take another look at the cost of groceries in Canada. This is how we crack down on tactics that big corporations use to raise costs for Canadians.
Is there more we need to do to act on these two top voter priorities? The answer is yes, absolutely.
On this side of the aisle, we are going to stay focused on them both, fully in solution mode.
All members will have the opportunity to take part in this work, and that starts by supporting Bill C‑59.
Let us support the swift passage of Bill C-59, and let us keep working together on solutions to the challenges Canadians are facing at this time.
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- Jan/31/24 6:32:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an important question. The cost of housing is top of mind for the residents in Halifax West, for renters, mortgage holders, prospective first-time buyers and of course the first nations community. In fact, I was proud to be part of an announcement in Hammonds Plains to announce the building of the Acadia First Nation indigenous shelter for women, specifically in the Hammonds Plains area. That is something this government has brought about, and that is in construction mode right now. It is something we are focused on, and we are very much engaged in that.
Again, there are many solutions we need to work on. This is not a one-solution-fits-all, and it is not one solution that is only for government. It is for all parliamentarians from all political parties. It is for different levels of provincial, municipal and federal governments and also for other stakeholders.
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- Jan/31/24 6:34:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak again on housing.
Listen, since I have become a member of Parliament, not even two and a half years ago in September 2021, I can say that the work I have seen that this government has done on the ground in Halifax West and in the Halifax Regional Municipality has been unprecedented. People need to go to that area and see all the cranes, all the good construction and the work going on. A number of people have come to me in the last number of months since we introduced a number of changes with the accelerator fund. What we have done with the municipality and with the removal of the HST on new housing stock that is going to be built will be a game changer, I would say, across the country. It certainly is in my region and in my part of the country. I very much look forward to what the next year or year and a half will look like. I see a lot of positivism and a lot of good things coming.
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- Jan/31/24 6:36:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague with whom I serve on the Standing Committee on Science and Research. We work together in a very collegial way.
I agree that Canada needs more housing. That is the truth. In that regard, the government is doing excellent work across the country to build more housing more quickly. I am seeing that every day where I live these days.
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