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Context: House Hansard - 313 - May/10/24

May/10/24 11:55:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after nine years of this Bloc-Liberal government, the housing crisis is reaching unparalleled proportions. This July 1 will go down in history, but for all the wrong reasons. The crisis is not limited to large urban centres. It affects the regions as well. An article published in this morning's La Presse says that Quebec's association of police chiefs has noticed a significant rise in homelessness. This sad state of affairs results from insufficient housing and a rising cost of living. When will this government, backed by the Bloc Québécois, stop announcing programs that simply add to the bureaucracy instead of ensuring that housing gets built in the regions too?

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Context: House Hansard - 313 - May/10/24

Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC)

May/10/24 11:56:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, rents were half as expensive then. It took nine years for this government to get its act together. After nine years of this Bloc Québécois-backed government, they voted for $500 billion in centralizing, inflationary spending that is driving up prices across the board, pushing more people into homelessness across Canada. The Liberals' inability to control their spending is the cause of all these problems. Add to that a carbon tax, and we can see where that got us. When will this Prime Minister, supported by the Bloc Québécois, stop his wasteful spending so Quebeckers can afford decent food and shelter again?

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Context: House Hansard - 313 - May/10/24

Mr. Jamil Jivani

May/10/24 12:32:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand the Liberal government is very sensitive when people draw attention to its numerous failings. The Prime Minister's housing minister, across the street, said that his national housing strategy has exceeded its objectives. Maybe the Liberal member opposite is confused as to how he could have said such a thing, but he did. It was on video. He said it to put a positive spin on policies that are obviously failing the people of Canada. While the housing minister is sitting in Ottawa saying that his national housing strategy has exceeded its objectives, in my home community of Durham, the Clarington Municipal Council voted unanimously, calling for urgent action from the federal government and homelessness. In my home community of Durham, just like in many others across this country, there is a growing crisis of people without homes. Consequently, we have a growing crisis of homeless encampments being established so people have somewhere to sleep at night. We are concerned in Clarington about this problem, but we are also concerned because we have seen in our neighbouring community of Oshawa a similar challenge. While the Prime Minister's housing minister is sitting in Ottawa trying to put a positive spin on the government's failed national housing strategy, there was a homeless encampment in Oshawa on fire. Smoke could be seen all across Durham region. In fact, one could see that smoke from Whitby. Maybe some of the Liberal members should be talking to each other about what is going on. Why do we have a growing homelessness problem in Durham? Why are there a growing number of our brothers, sisters, friends and neighbours having a hard time finding an affordable place to live? It is obviously a complicated problem, but one of the contributing factors is that the cost of housing in Toronto, just to the west of us, is skyrocketing to an outrageous degree. I know my friends in Toronto have had a hard time the last couple of weeks. We had to see the Leafs lose. We had to see Drake get trounced by Kendrick Lamar. Now we can go on to see ad listings for housing in Toronto. At the end April, I saw a bunk bed in Toronto for $600 a month. It is not even a full bed. One has somebody sleeping above them, for $600 a month. The listing said that eight or 10 people maximum could fit in that studio apartment in Toronto, and for $600 a month, one does not get hot water, heating, air conditioning, a smoke alarm or a carbon monoxide detector. These ads show the desperate situation in Toronto that many young people are in. This is the disconnect. It is why I say that, in this economy, there are Liberal elites and everybody else. What the Liberals have produced is an obscene situation, where they can come here to Ottawa, put their high-deficit and high-tax budgets forward and claim to be doing good things for people, and meanwhile, every time we go home, we see the consequences of what they are doing here. The last and probably most egregious example is one my buddy Rex Murphy, may he rest in peace, used to write about quite a bit. He used to write extensively about the carbon tax and how it is an exemplary policy of Liberal elitism and bizarre ideology in action. I sit in this chair every day, and I hear Liberals telling us that the carbon tax is helping people, that people are getting more money back and that it is good for our economy, yet I go home to Durham and I hear and see the complete opposite. I knocked on many doors in the by-election campaign before I came here, and one of the recurring themes was the carbon tax. I would go to a family farm and they would produce a tax bill, just like the one that I have in my hand right now, and I would see that family farms are paying thousands and thousands of dollars in carbon taxes and then being charged a tax on top of what they are paying for the carbon tax. That would then increase the cost of food for us in Oshawa, Curtis and Bowmanville. We could see within our own local community how the carbon tax is making it harder and harder for people to pay their bills. When the Liberal government comes here to say that this carbon tax is good for us and good for our economy, that we should continue to pay more taxes and the cost of everything goes up to fill their coffers, it is just the latest example of Liberal elites and everybody else.

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