44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 18, 2024 10:00AM
- Apr/18/24 12:12:57 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his quasi-scientific speech about the budget. I truly enjoyed it.
I know he wants to get to the bottom of things and uncover the truth. Here is what I am especially curious about. We know Ottawa promises a lot of money, but that money is never spent because it does not take regional realities into account. Funding for housing does not reflect the reality of regions where conditions differ from those of the greater Toronto area. It is the same thing with indigenous peoples: Year after year, there is so much money that goes back into the treasury when that money should be going into the pockets of those who need it, so they can do things such as build housing.
In my colleague's opinion, how does that impact budgets and the real deficit? When it comes to a challenge as big as housing, how could Quebec do better than Ottawa if it were independent?
164 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/18/24 12:13:51 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and for sharing his outlook with us. I agree with him completely.
Before I talk about housing, I will speak to infrastructure. The municipalities are asking us whether Ottawa is finally going to renew the gas tax and Quebec's contribution program, or TECQ, and distribute the funds, with no strings attached, on a per capita basis. When the dollars get out the door, municipalities can get projects done quickly.
In the recent budget, Ottawa is proposing infrastructure programs that require agreements because interference is at issue. It takes one, two, three or four years to reach an agreement, and years more before the funds are disbursed. The needs are there, but the money is not.
It is the same thing when it comes to housing. With regard to the rapid housing initiative, or RHI, Ottawa let Quebec choose which housing it wants to fund. The money was allocated quickly. In all of the other programs, it takes years for Quebec to get a single penny, for a single shovel of dirt to be turned. The government is passing the buck. Money that we voted on, money paid by Quebec taxpayers is being held up here in Ottawa for ideological and bureaucratic reasons.
It is the same thing for indigenous people. Once again, the money is there in the budget, but at the end of every fiscal year, the money has not been spent. That is again because of bureaucratic management. Needs are growing and the money was approved, but it is not being spent. That needs to change. We need to tell Ottawa to cut the red tape and to stop creating obstacles by dictating conditions. Local governments are the ones that know what is good and where the needs are. The federal government needs to transfer the money and get out of the way.
315 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/18/24 2:03:45 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Ottawa, our national capital, is a must-see destination for people from here and abroad, who come to visit Parliament, the National Gallery of Canada, the Rideau Canal, the Canadian Tulip Festival and even the Byward Market.
Tourism is one of Ottawa's key economic drivers. Ottawa Tourism has worked with more than 450 tourism-related businesses to profile Ottawa and all of its cultural gems.
This National Tourism Week is an opportunity to celebrate Ottawa's tourism economy, which employs more than 43,000 people and generates more than $3 billion a year for our region.
The Ottawa tourism sector creates good jobs, shares cultures and grows our economy. Last year, under the tourism relief fund, almost $1 million was received by Ottawa—Vanier businesses, helping them develop new attractions and grow their businesses.
That is why we will continue to invest in it. A thriving tourism sector means a thriving Canada.
157 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/18/24 2:58:14 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal budget does not just mark the end of respect for jurisdictions. It also marks the end of competent policy management.
Ottawa is imposing its priorities everywhere, without even knowing whether that is a good idea. It is calling for the construction of 40-storey apartment buildings next to schools in neighbourhoods where it has never set foot. It is meddling in the training of construction workers without knowing anything about that. It is imposing long-term care standards for seniors that it has never taken care of.
Why not let the competent people handle the files that fall under their jurisdiction?
105 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/18/24 4:31:58 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Ottawa Centre, it is a great pleasure for me to speak to this budget: “Fairness for Every Generation”. I have 10 minutes and I can probably speak for hours in terms of things that are in this budget document that support members of my community here in Ottawa Centre.
We announced things like a national food program. That is going to help thousands of children in my riding. It is significant. The expansion of the $10-a-day child care is another. I continue to hear from parents about how the reduction in fees is helping them. Now we are reinvesting more money to create more spaces. That is going to help more families and more children. We have the Canada dental care plan that is going to help so many seniors in my community of Ottawa Centre. We have also announced pharmacare that will allow women to be able to access contraception for free and provide insulin for those with diabetes.
I can go on and give individual speeches on all the benefits to my community on each issue. However, I am going to use my remaining time to talk about the housing plan that has been outlined in this budget. It is extremely important to my community. In fact, I am going to home in further on the initiatives to develop public land to build more housing, for people to both own and rent.
My community of Ottawa Centre is primarily made up of the downtown community just outside this beautiful building, the House of Commons. Like many downtown areas across the country, ours has gone through a really challenging time as a result of the pandemic. In fact, when it comes to Ottawa's downtown, it was really built upon a model of Monday to Friday, nine-to-five businesses, because of the federal government.
As we know, when the pandemic hit, all of us had to work from home to keep all of us safe, to manage the spread of COVID-19 and to protect not only ourselves but our respective families. That has caused a lot of challenges for downtown Ottawa, particularly for our small businesses, which relied on the workers who came to the downtown core.
As we are coming out of the pandemic, we know that hybrid work is here to stay. We saw that trend coming before the pandemic. Of course, during the pandemic, working from home became a norm because we all had to work and to stay safe. Now a lot of workers are choosing to have a hybrid format to how they work.
In my community, as a result, we are having many conversations as to the kinds of things we need to do to revitalize our downtown. As a member of Parliament, I initiated the downtown Ottawa revitalization task force, which started in 2022. We brought in partners from indigenous communities, small businesses, large landlords, for-profit housing developers, not-for-profit housing developers and tourism stakeholders.
This was all done from the perspective of coming together to share not only the challenges but most importantly the solutions that we can champion that would allow for people to work, to live and to visit our downtown. I strongly feel that Ottawa is a unique place, given it is a G7 nation's capital. If our downtown Ottawa thrives, not only is the entire city of Ottawa going to do well, but it is also reflective of our country on the international stage.
There are too many members of the committee to name, but I want to thank every single one of them for their incredible work. They were all volunteers who had full-time day jobs, but for the love of their community, they spent time consulting with others online and in person. After about a year and a half of work, toward the end of last year in 2023, we issued a report outlining a vision to revitalize downtown Ottawa. It is worth looking at it. It is on my website at yasirnaqvimp.ca, if anybody is interested in it.
What it does is it presents many ideas as to how we can help revitalize downtown Ottawa. One of the key areas in that is using public lands. We have a lot of federal buildings in the downtown core. Some have already been deemed surplus buildings, which means that the federal government has decided that they do not have a need for them, so they will be put on the market to be sold.
Some of them are in a place where they can be converted from a commercial building to residential. We have already seen those projects happening in downtown Ottawa. In fact, I must say, Calgary is a shining example of that. I had the chance to visit Calgary about a year or so ago to see the kinds of conversion projects that are taking place. We are trying to copy that model right here in Ottawa as well.
As the local member of Parliament, I have been advocating with the federal government on a few things, such as how we make these public lands more available and accessible, and how we can make sure that the properties that have been deemed surplus can be disposed of in a relatively shorter period of time, so that we can find ways to be creative, so that, if it is possible, we can convert those buildings from commercial to residential, for people to live in.
I am really happy to see that the advocacy my community and I have been doing is reflected in this budget. This budget devotes a significant amount of time to talking about how we can make better use of public lands and buildings, whether to sell them or to lease them, so that we can use them at a far more faster pace, which is an incredible opportunity. The budget actually speaks of conversion of unused office spaces as well, and it has given the responsibility both to PSPC and Canada Lands Company, which is a federal Crown corporation, to find ways to expedite that process.
There are various programs that have been announced, such as the apartment construction loan program in this budget, which will allow for these projects to take place at a faster pace. I am also thrilled to see the creation of an acquisition fund that was also a very specific recommendation in the downtown Ottawa revitalization task force report, which will allow not-for-profits like Ottawa Community Housing or CCOC in my city to be able to buy smaller buildings that allow for affordable rents and to protect those affordable rents and make sure that the people living in them continue to live in their homes.
All of these measures added on, and there are many more, create a tremendous opportunity for communities like mine, in a practical way, to really take the next step, postpandemic, as we rebuild our community.
It is an opportunity to be able to use excess, surplus federal buildings like the ones we have in Ottawa Centre to create more homes and bring more businesses into the community. We also have federal lands in my community such as Tunney's Pasture and LeBreton Flats. It creates opportunities to use them as well to build more affordable housing, not just to rent but to own as well.
As I hope members can hear in my voice, I am really excited about what is in this budget, because it really is addressing a real need that has been identified by my community here in Ottawa Centre as something that is going to help us build a better community.
For that reason, I am supporting this budget and I urge all members of the House to do the same.
1315 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Apr/18/24 4:41:38 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, my colleague represents a downtown riding. I represent a downtown riding in another part of this country, but when I am in Ottawa, I stay in his riding, where my apartment is. I will tell him that his riding, in the four years I have been here, has become more and more of a disaster. It is practically a dead zone when one walks down Bank Street now, and more and more people are lining up in the streets, living in the streets, as a result of the policies of his government.
This city is getting worse and worse under his government's watch: drugs, destitution, homelessness. The other day, I was walking down Bank Street and there was another building and a whole bunch of low-income people who were cast out on the street. His policies and his government's policies have clearly made this city worse than when they started.
How does he reconcile that with the words he just put on the floor of the House of Commons?
174 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
