44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 18, 2024 10:00AM
- Apr/18/24 11:31:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is the same housing minister who lost track of one million immigrants when he was the immigration minister. This is the same housing minister who unleashed absolute out-of-control chaos in our immigration system, not according to me but according to his Liberal successor and the Prime Minister, so the member opposite should stop using that source. If you want to know, Madam Speaker, how many affordable homes were built when I was the minister, we completed 92,782 apartments, and the average rent was $973.
Can anyone tell me where we can find $973 per month rent after nine years of the Liberals?
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- Apr/18/24 11:32:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, until recently, the only questions the Conservatives asked in French during question period were about the carbon tax. For months, that was all they talked about. Finally, they had an epiphany and realized that it does not apply to Quebec, which goes to show they could understand the concept easily enough once it was explained to them over and over again. They figured they had to find something else to hammer away on during question period. They came up with federal interference in Quebec's jurisdictions, and they have been getting some good mileage out of that for the past few days.
Now, I hear the Conservative leader talking about housing. He says he is going to tell the cities what to do, but without encroaching on their areas of jurisdiction. However, when any cities disagree with him, he is quick to insult the mayors. Basically, he insults them respectfully. There was a time when Harper promised to eliminate the spending power in order to respect jurisdictions. The only way to truly respect jurisdictions is to make unconditional transfers.
Will the leader of the official opposition commit to making unconditional housing transfers to Quebec if he ever takes power?
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- Apr/18/24 11:33:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there will be no conditions. There will be results. I will simply tell the municipalities that they will be paid for the number of homes built. That is not interference. That is results.
The Bloc Québécois agrees that the government should make housing transfers. We simply disagree on the formula. The Bloc Québécois is proposing that money just be injected in building up local bureaucracies. I am proposing to pay the municipalities for the number of homes that they allow to be built. They can do that in several ways: fast-tracking permits, selling land, using any strategy that works for them.
What we want to fund is the result. For its part, the Bloc Québécois wants to fund bureaucracy, especially the federal bureaucracy that it voted for in order to finance the spending of this Prime Minister's centralist government.
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- Apr/18/24 11:34:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member likes to talk about single moms, so let me talk about Brianna.
Brianna is a single mom with five kids who benefited from the life-changing interim dental benefit that the NDP negotiated. She got $1,300 per child to help them get their teeth taken care of, just like the member's children do, from taxpayer dollars by the way. However, this is something the Conservatives voted against.
Now, we learn, as the member said yesterday in French, that under a Conservative government, a dental care program that allows everyone to go to the dentist does not exist. Can the member repeat this in English, so that Brianna and all Canadians know where the member stands on the right of every Canadian to have access to dental care?
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- Apr/18/24 11:35:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it does not currently exist after nine years of this Prime Minister and roughly two years of the NDP joining the federal government. What we have is a promise that it will eventually exist, and we do not know when and if that promise will ever be fulfilled. We know that already there are many dentists who are refusing to participate because the program is so badly run, and we know that this and other programs are being run through hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts to profit-making insurance companies, once again with the support, ironically, of the NDP.
This NDP member has betrayed his constituents to support the Prime Minister doubling the housing costs, quadrupling the carbon tax and forcing two million Canadians to a food bank. He should go back and talk to that single mother and all single mothers and apologize to them for increasing their food, gas and heating bills and making it impossible for them to ever own a home.
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- Apr/18/24 11:36:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government gave the oil and gas industry $18.5 billion in corporate handouts last year and $65 billion over the last four years alone. This is an industry whose top five companies made $38 billion in record-breaking profits in 2022, while fuelling the climate crisis.
I understand that the Leader of the Opposition, if I am hearing him right, wants to reduce government spending. He also seems to like yes or no questions, so my question for him, yes or no, is this: If he were in government, would he end this $18.5 billion in corporate handouts to an industry that is already making record-breaking profits?
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- Apr/18/24 11:37:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will end corporate handouts to all industries. I do not believe in corporate handouts. We are the only party that stands against corporate welfare. We believe businesses should make money, not take money. We believe in the free market, not state capitalism.
It is the NDP and the Liberals who continually stroke these monster cheques to businesses that have not earned the money. Ironically, they are always angry at businesses that make money by selling things that consumers choose to buy, but they are never upset to take money by force from working taxpayers and hand the money to large corporations who have very skilful lobbyists.
I want an economy where businesses make money, not take money, where they make profit based on the quality of their products, not the quality of their lobbyists, where they please customers rather than pleasing politicians. It is called the free market.
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- Apr/18/24 11:38:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know that Canadians are going to be footing the bill from this massive Liberal spending. We are now going to be paying more in debt servicing charges than we pay on health care. How does the hon. Leader of the Opposition propose that we fix the budget?
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- Apr/18/24 11:38:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we will fix the budget with a dollar-for-dollar law and run our finances the way single moms and small businesses run their finances, which is by finding an equal amount of savings for every new expenditure. That is the scarcity with which every single creature in the universe must live, except for the politician, who simply externalizes the scarcity through more inflation, more debt and more taxes for everybody else.
By internalizing the scarcity within the operations of government, we will force the bureaucrats and politicians to go hunting in their own backyard for savings, rather than forcing more austerity on Canadian families and entrepreneurs through higher taxes. It is common sense. It is how we will balance the budget to bring home lower prices, lower inflation and lower interest rates.
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- Apr/18/24 11:39:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Members cannot intentionally mislead the House, and I am afraid that the leader of the Conservative Party did just that when he knowingly made the assertion that when he was the minister of housing, he was responsible for building tens of thousands—
Some hon. members: Debate.
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: This is not debate.
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- Apr/18/24 11:40:25 a.m.
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First of all, the mic is off. I did not ask for the mic to be off. I will finish hearing the point of order, and I will determine whether it is debate or not.
The hon. parliamentary secretary.
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- Apr/18/24 11:40:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think this is really important, because I believe he is intentionally misleading the House. He was the minister responsible—
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- Apr/18/24 11:40:57 a.m.
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If the hon. member is in disagreement with what is being said, he can raise that in debate.
The hon. Leader of the Opposition also has a point of order on this.
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- Apr/18/24 11:41:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we can put the matter to rest.
I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for me to table in the House of Commons data from the Statistics Canada website, which shows that 92,782 apartment units were built at an average price of $973 per month—
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- Apr/18/24 11:41:39 a.m.
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Is that agreed?
Some hon. members: Nay.
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- Apr/18/24 11:42:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the Leader of the Opposition just confirmed that he misled the House, because he was the housing minister from January until the election in 2015, so for roughly eight months. He said he built 92,000 apartment units, but there were only 190,000 new starts in all of Canada for the entire year. He just misled the House, because he implied that they were affordable units, and now we have found out that they were not.
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- Apr/18/24 11:42:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if the Speaker might check the Standing Orders to find out if $973 a month is considered affordable today. Most communities would consider that to be affordable. Do you have an answer to that?
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- Apr/18/24 11:42:59 a.m.
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That would be a point of debate.
On another point of order, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.
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- Apr/18/24 11:43:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, going back to my original point of order, on which there was no ruling made, at that time I raised the issue that the leader of the Conservative Party had intentionally misled the House. That is what I am asking for a ruling on. I was—
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- Apr/18/24 11:43:24 a.m.
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Based on the information that has been provided, I will table this ruling, which is that this is a point of debate about the facts.
I would just ask members to please use the period for questions and comments to put their disagreements forward through the debate process.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Joliette.
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