44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 6, 2024 11:00AM
- May/6/24 12:24:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague just talked at length about housing in his speech. In 2017, the Liberal federal government launched its major national housing strategy, which would span a decade and cost $82 billion. It should have addressed all the housing needs of Canadians. Today, the latest CMHC reports say we need to build 5.8 million homes in Canada by 2030.
Over the three weeks leading up to the budget, the Liberal government made daily housing announcements. Across Canada, the Liberals announced new programs and new spending. However, we noted substantial interference in provincial jurisdictions, to the tune of some 50 pages in the budget on housing—which we welcome. Does the fact the budget contains 50 pages on housing not constitute an admission of failure with respect to the $82-billion decade-long national housing strategy?
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- May/6/24 12:28:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that the member for Winnipeg North, the parliamentary secretary, recognizes that we are in a housing crisis.
Back in budget 2022, there was a funding stream called the rapid housing initiative. It allocated $750 million a year over two years so that non-profits could apply to build non-market housing. Obviously, it was not enough. As a result of the crisis we are in, we need to see the government go further and faster.
Non-profits in my community, from the YWCA to the House of Friendship and The Working Centre, are looking to this budget expecting dollars for them to build non-market housing. What do we see in budget 2024? It is down to $195 million a year, from $750 million. The $750 million was not enough, and this year's budget cuts it dramatically.
Why does the parliamentary secretary think this is going to be enough to address the housing crisis we are in?
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- May/6/24 12:29:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important that we look at it from a holistic approach. At the end of the day, as a national government over the last seven or eight years, we can say that no government in Canada's history has invested more into housing, and we have done it in different ways. In this budget, we continue to amplify the need to get homes built as quickly as possible. That means, for example, working with the municipalities. I referred to the city of Winnipeg. I think it was around $192 million back in December, when we had a major announcement to try to speed up the processing of permits and so forth.
Sometimes the money that is allocated benefits not only for-profit, but also not-for-profit organizations. I know that I, for one, continue to want to promote and encourage more development in the whole housing co-op area.
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- May/6/24 12:45:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to my Conservative colleague's speech, and I would like him to set the record straight regarding the housing crisis we are experiencing. I heard him say something that I thought was simplistic, about letting builders build and letting buyers buy.
Does he think that it is fair to rely solely on market forces in a housing crisis of this magnitude? Does he think that the market will respond to the urgent need for social and affordable housing? What measures does my colleague's political party intend to adopt that will truly prioritize social and affordable housing?
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- May/6/24 12:47:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as always, I am honoured and proud to stand in this place and speak on behalf of the constituents of Niagara West.
I want to start by reading a quote. It states:
One of the biggest pressures on people right now is housing. Young Canadians – particularly Millennials and Gen Z – are being priced out of their communities. Families are finding it difficult to get a good place to settle down. Rising rents and the high cost of buying a home are making it more difficult for younger generations to find a place to call their own. We need more homes in Canada, and we need to keep them affordable.
Where did I find this quote? In one of the government's news releases last week.
After nine years of bungling the economy, inflation, taxation and housing, the government finally has acknowledged that what it has been doing is not working. It is acknowledging that it has done generational harm to millennials, gen Z and other younger folks. It is that simple and it is written down. The government has admitted it in that very statement.
What the Liberals say after are their usual promises about to be broken. By the way, they are recycling their promises from nine years ago. If they have not been able to get things done in nine years, who is going to believe that they will be able to get things done now? Absolutely no one.
At this point, Canadians no longer believe the Liberals. Millennials and gen Z do not believe them. Why? According to reports, nearly 60% of retirees are supporting their adult children financially. What does this do to the finances of their parents? Of course, it is having a negative impact.
Whether younger or older, the Liberals are making everyone poorer. How much poorer? The average Canadian family is poorer by $3,687. Families that used to donate to food banks are now going to food banks for themselves. We have record visits to food banks, two million visits in a single month.
To make matters worse, Canada will spend $54.1 billion to service its national debt: $54.1 billion is a lot of money to pay just on interest; $54.1 billion is more money than the government is sending to the provinces for health care. This was entirely self-inflicted. The Liberals will blame the world, they will blame Conservatives and they will blame everyone and anyone they can think of. They call them horrible names. We know the Liberal playbook and Canadians are wise to it as well.
It is time for the government to take responsibility for the financial mess it has created, a mess that many Canadians can no longer endure. People are leaving Canada. Immigrants come to our country and realize it is impossible to afford a life, and oftentimes leave and take their skills elsewhere.
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- May/6/24 12:50:08 p.m.
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The Liberals admitted their failures in a statement, so there is no backtracking anymore. It has been nine years of abject failure on the housing file and many others. Young folks cannot afford to buy a home. Most have given up and think of owning a home as only for the rich. Eight out of 10 believe that owning a home in Canada is now only for the rich. This is a staggering statistic.
It is the first time in Canada when young Canadians will be worse off than their parents were, and it is not just now. Unless a younger person purchases a home, they are unlikely to build significant equity. This would result in much smaller retirement savings down the road. Therefore, young folks may be worse off for the rest of their lives because of the Prime Minister and his policies. It was not this way when the Prime Minister was elected in 2015, and it will not be this way when he is gone. Let us be frank: If the Liberals caused it for the past nine years, they do not know how to fix it. It is very clear, and their record speaks for itself. It is a photo op government, but that is where it ends: at photo ops. Conservatives will be the getting-things-done government in due time.
Still on the topic of housing, interest rates are also a major factor as to why folks cannot buy homes. Last week at committee, the Governor of the Bank of Canada once again confirmed that the Prime Minister's spending is “not helpful” when it comes to bringing down inflation and lowering interest rates. That is just a toned-down way of saying he should stop the spending. That is what the Governor of the Bank of Canada really wants to say, but he cannot because of the political waves he would create. However, Canadians are wise and can read between the lines. The fact is that $61 billion in new spending is making inflation worse and causing interest rates to stay higher for longer. This spending is the equivalent of pouring fuel on the inflationary fire.
Folks watching at home should keep in mind that inflation is just another tax on them. It is not enough that the Liberals increased the disastrous carbon tax by 23% and will make sure to increase it every year on April 1. They cannot help themselves, and this will only make things worse with inflationary budgets.
If the government members do not believe me, they should listen to their fellow Liberals. What are some of their Liberal pals saying about how things are going? According to one article, former finance minister Bill Morneau said that this budget is a “threat to investment [and] economic growth” and companies will “think twice about investing in Canada.” Another Liberal, David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada, said that the budget is the “worst budget since...1982.” Former Liberal finance minister John Manley told the Prime Minister that he was pressing on the inflationary gas pedal with his spending, which ballooned interest rates.
I mentioned the carbon tax. Let us go back to that for a second. The carbon tax is the government's notoriously bad signature policy. Almost every provincial premier has publicly come out against it. The carbon tax makes everything more expensive without having any impact on the environment. What is happening with this? The government hiked the carbon tax, but emissions still go up. According to the government, if carbon taxes go up, emissions should go down. That is false. That is not the case, and that is not true. What is true is that the carbon tax is just another cash grab for the Liberals, and everyone knows it. The Liberals just refuse to admit it.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has also been very clear that the majority of Canadians will pay more of their money in carbon taxes than they will get back in rebates. In other words, the Liberals take more than they give back, and they expect Canadians to thank them for this rip-off. Canadians are wiser than the Liberals think. Seventy per cent of Canadians are against the carbon tax, because they see it for the scam that it is.
The Prime Minister and his party, though, through their disastrous policies of the last nine years, are playing with people's lives and do not seem to care that folks are hurting. They are hurting badly. The Prime Minister has doubled their rent, their mortgage payments and the down payment necessary to purchase a home. He is making Canadians pay higher taxes for food and heating, while doubling housing costs. Family budgets are broken. There is nothing extra, or even a negative amount, at the end of the month when all the bills are paid.
Conservatives have had three demands for the budget: axe the carbon tax on farmers and food; build homes, not more bureaucracy; and cap spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation. All three are common-sense policies. All three would make life more affordable for Canadians, but the Liberals refuse to do any of them.
Are Liberals too blinded by the ideology of big ballooning government gone out of control to see that what they are doing is hurting Canadian families and their wallets? They are also hurting small businesses, investment and productivity.
One knows that things have gotten very bad when, among Canadians who do not own a home, over seven in 10 say that they have actually given up hope on ever owning one. That is not the Canada I know.
Business insolvencies surged by 87% year over year in the first quarter of 2024, while consumer insolvencies rose by 14%. BNN Bloomberg reported, “The Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals...said that's by far the largest year-over-year increase in business insolvencies in 37 years of records.” The association's chair, André Bolduc, said, “A perfect storm of economic challenges is brewing, with high mortgage renewal rates, soaring rental prices, and elevated costs of everyday necessities”. He added, “The high cost of servicing debts is also compounding the financial strain for many Canadians and leaving them grappling with insurmountable debt burdens.”
What the government has given Canadians is consistently increased carbon taxes, high inflation, more taxes, more inflation, housing shortages, a housing crisis and a cost of living crisis. When does this financial debacle end? One thing is for sure: It will not end with the current government and the current Prime Minister at the helm.
Their disastrous policies have to end with an election, which would allow for a strong, stable majority Conservative government. We are ready to go on day one. There is a lot for us to fix. The government has created this mess, and it will not be easy to clean up, but we are committed. Our leader is committed.
I would like to add an amendment.
I move:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“the House decline to give second reading to Bill C-69, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 16, 2024, since the bill fails to implement a commonsense budget that would:
(a) axe the carbon tax;
(b) build the homes, not bureaucracy, by requiring cities to permit 15% more home building each year as a condition for receiving federal infrastructure money; and
(c) cap the spending with a dollar-for-dollar rule to bring down interest rates and inflation, by requiring the government to find a dollar in savings for every new dollar of spending.”
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- May/6/24 12:59:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that the Conservatives would incorporate the issue of housing into the amendment itself. All one needs to do is take a look at the leader of the Conservative Party. When he was minister of housing, it was virtually a disaster. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, and I think six non-profit housing units were actually built during his term as minister. We have a government today that is bringing in budgetary measures and working with municipalities, provinces and different stakeholders to build more units.
What more does he believe the Conservative Party could actually do to see more houses built? Is he suggesting that we go back to the way it was when his leader was the minister of housing?
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- May/6/24 1:49:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I basically agree with my colleague that times are hard for many people in Canada, Quebec and elsewhere right now.
Let us talk about housing. It is true that this issue is the focus of the budget. However, the problem is the federal government's approach. It is interfering in provincial jurisdictions. Housing is not a federal jurisdiction and never has been.
Nevertheless, the government is creating more programs. It will have to negotiate with Quebec, and that process is going to drag on. When the government introduced the big national housing strategy, it took three years for Quebec to see a single penny. As for the housing accelerator fund, it took two years for a single project to be announced in Quebec. All of that is going to slow down the projects, when we need housing to be built immediately.
Why is the NDP supporting a budget that is basically only going to delay—
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- May/6/24 1:50:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, housing is in crisis in this country. Canadians in every community, including in the province of Quebec, cannot find affordable housing to buy or to rent.
In my view, it takes all levels of government working on this problem. We cannot solve the problem by leaving the federal government, which has the deepest pockets in this country, out of it. The feds, the provinces and the municipalities have to work together. It is the only way we are going to make progress.
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- May/6/24 2:20:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that the situation is difficult for renters and those who do not have any housing solutions.
That is why the government is holding discussions and negotiations to reach an agreement with Quebec to build affordable housing. With the money from the federal government, Quebec will be able to build up to 8,000 affordable housing units.
The Conservative Party's position is to oppose that. That is not good.
We are working with our colleagues in Quebec to build affordable housing.
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- May/6/24 2:21:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have a plan to build more housing faster, but the Conservatives voted against it. We have a plan for the green industrial transition, but the Conservatives voted against it.
I want to share some very good news with members, news that Canadians learned last week. Moody's has reaffirmed our AAA credit rating, the highest possible rating, thanks to our responsible fiscal policy.
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- May/6/24 2:31:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have put forward a budget that invests in the things Canadians need, first and foremost, housing. We are doing that by asking those at the very top to contribute a little more. The good news is that we are doing it in a fiscally responsible way.
People do not have to believe the partisans in any chair in the House. They can talk to the analysts at Moody's, who, last week, reaffirmed Canada's AAA rating, the highest that exists, with a stable outlook. It does not get better than that.
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- May/6/24 2:36:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are listening to a party that has no ambition, no vision and no plan. Canadians have a choice. They can choose to listen to a party that has no vision or a government that is investing in youth, investing in growth, investing in housing, and investing in science and research.
On this side of the House, we will continue to invest in Canadians, because, as my colleague was saying, confident countries invest in their people. That is exactly what we are going to do.
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- May/6/24 2:40:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are going to go far like that.
The federal government is blindly increasing its targets despite the House's calls to adjust the targets in line with integration capacity, despite the House's calls to begin this process within 100 days of meeting with the premiers, despite the negative feedback of the public service, despite the warnings from economists and despite the CMHC figures proving that the housing crisis is getting worse. Despite all of that, the government will not listen.
Why do the Liberals refuse at all costs to find out how many people can be integrated without depriving them of services or ignoring their basic needs?
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- May/6/24 2:43:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our colleague talks about reality, but the reality is that, during his term as minister responsible for housing, the Conservative leader created six affordable housing units, while Quebec municipalities are currently creating 8,000.
The Conservative leader is still calling Quebec's municipalities incompetent, however. He insults everyone. That makes six affordable housing units over his entire term, compared to 8,000 affordable housing units by Quebec municipalities.
Who is the most incompetent?
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- May/6/24 2:50:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it might be a good idea for the Conservatives to talk to the Government of Quebec and to the mayors of Quebec's municipalities, because we have an agreement with Quebec to invest in housing.
Quebec and the federal government both understand the importance of investing in housing and investing to help and support Quebeckers, but the Conservatives only understand austerity.
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- May/6/24 2:52:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the member thinks there is a housing problem in Quebec, why did he oppose the program to support the construction of housing in Quebec?
One, two, three, four, five, six. Six is the total number of affordable housing units built with the support of the federal government when the leader of the Conservative Party was the minister responsible for housing.
We are making investments to build affordable housing across the country, including in Quebec. I am having conversations with my counterpart to continue our collaboration and, at the same time, we are making investments to build affordable housing.
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- May/6/24 2:53:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to talk about housing with my colleague from Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. In his riding alone, 180 affordable housing units have been created in recent months. This is extraordinary. I congratulate him on that outcome.
The only problem here is that perhaps he could speak with his Conservative leader to ask him why, during his entire mandate as minister responsible for housing, he created only six affordable housing units across the entire country.
I am very happy for the member, but it may not have been the brightest choice to make a comparison with his leader's record.
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