- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Parry Sound—Muskoka
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $125,505.29
- Government Page
- May/27/24 11:31:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was relieved, when this debate began, to hear the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing describe that we are in a housing crisis because, of course, a year ago, the Minister of Housing could not even use the word “crisis”; he could not be brought to do it.
Something obviously happened over the course of the summer, and the Prime Minister's Office woke up and recognized that we are in fact in a housing crisis and that the use of the word “crisis” does make sense. We know we are in a crisis because we see the results of what is going on. Rent has doubled in the last nine years. Mortgages have doubled in the last couple of years. Home prices have doubled. Mortgage rates have skyrocketed. Inflation is out of control. There are too few homes for too many people.
It is absolutely a supply crisis, as the parliamentary secretary mentioned. We see this with young people who are forced to stay at home and live in their parents' basements. They are not starting their lives as they normally would. The number of homeless people in this country continues to grow. We see tent cities in communities large and small all across Canada now. The cost of lodging, rent and mortgages is impacting affordability generally.
On top of that, there is the carbon tax. The carbon tax applies to the materials used to build homes, so the materials for homes are getting more expensive. Buying food and heating those homes are also getting more expensive. More people are struggling to maintain the homes they have.
We know that it is a supply issue, but it is also a housing affordability crisis. We have to think about what impacts the cost of a home. We know those materials I mentioned, like the two-by-fours and those kinds of things, cost more money. The carbon tax is applied to the production of those two-by-fours, to the delivery of materials to job sites and to everything.
There is a shortage of skilled trades and labour right now, which is adding to the problem as well. We need to make sure that we are attracting people to this country who can help us build homes. That is not really happening. The approval processes at the local levels are also slowing things down and are adding costs to the process of building homes. There are also taxes, fees and government charges.
Let us talk about that for a second. Who makes more money on housing than anybody else? The question is rhetorical, but Canadians would be horrified to know that it is not the big, greedy developers I hear the NDP talk about; it is government. In fact, between 2013 and 2023, the costs have gone up dramatically. The land value in this country has gone up about 34%, and that is due to the fact that we have a lot of land. We have a lot of land in this country, and there should be no reason that we have trouble building homes. Construction costs in that 10-year period have gone up 122%. That is the cost of materials. However, what have gone up the most are Government charges and taxes. From 2013 to 2023, government charges have gone up almost 250%. Those are charges at local levels. The HST charge on houses has gone up 221%. That means nobody makes more money on housing than governments. About 33% of the cost of the average home in this country is government.
What makes up those fees? HST is a big part of it; there is no question about that. However, municipalities are absolutely on the front lines of this situation, and they are also one of the biggest culprits of the problem. At the local level, we have infrastructure charges and development charges. Those are charged are per lot, and they can be staggeringly expensive. We have planning approval fees, parkland and parking fees. We often have school charges that are charged by the school board. We have density bonusing fees in some cases, building permit fees, and water and sewer connections fees. There are all kinds of fees.
At the provincial level, there are land transfer taxes when a home gets sold. There are sales taxes, like the GST and the PST. There is mortgage insurance, if someone cannot put down more than 20% on a home. These fees add up to over $200,000 on average. They are all government charges that go right to the bottom line of owning a house. Now we know why house prices just keep getting more expensive; it is that the government makes so much money. The beauty of the Leader of the Opposition's private member's bill, which is actually a very simple bill, is that it tells the municipalities on the front lines of this, which charge the biggest fees, that they just need to get the job done.
The Liberals are happy to talk about their housing accelerator fund, which I am happy to take a moment to talk about right now. The parliamentary secretary was hopeful that I would learn something from it. I have learned something from it. It is a joke. That is the truth. It is a $4 billion fund in the context of a government that is borrowing money. This $4 billion is borrowed money that it is giving to municipalities based on the promise that those municipalities will be better.
I asked to see the agreements between the municipalities and the federal government several months ago. I did not get them. The best I could come up with was searching through each of these municipalities' staff reports to council and some of the media reports, which have been very interesting. All of them have language such as “we will do this” or “we will do that”. They say that they will permit higher density, will look at ways to improve the process or will think about things. There is nothing definitive in any of the staff reports to council. They have been adopted, but not much of it has actually been done.
I will focus on something very specific. The Minister of Housing is incredibly proud of this housing accelerator fund. He is proud because he is focused very much on allowing four residential units as of right in any zone across the city. That means you could turn your single-family home into a fourplex without having to go to the municipality to get approval to do it. He thinks this is some kind of silver bullet, I guess, because the City of Windsor said it was not going to do that, but it had a proposal to do higher density around transit, where it made sense. It had a proposal to permit fourplexes around the university, for example, and things like that. It would have permitted thousands of units, but that was not good enough because the government wants fourplexes as of right.
The City of Toronto has had this rule in place now for just over a year, having fourplexes as of right. This is the great panacea the Minister of Housing is so proud of, having fourplexes as of right everywhere. Since May last year, when the government adopted this, there have been 74 applications in the City of Toronto, so clearly that is not the silver bullet the Minister of Housing thought it was. However, the Liberals sure have gone all over the country doing photo ops and press releases, being so proud of the $4 billion they are going to spend on the promise of doing better, when they are not getting the job done.
On top of the affordability issues we face, the housing accelerator fund money is going to cities that are increasing their charges. Can members imagine, in an affordability crisis, that the Liberals are sending money to cities that are increasing charges? Case in point, the City of Ottawa is going to get $178 million. It just approved an increase to its development charges by 11%. It will now cost an extra $55,000 on a house in Ottawa. The City of Toronto got $471 million. It increased its development charges this year by 21%. It is making housing more expensive in a housing affordability crisis, and what it got out of the Liberal government is a cheerleading squad.
The Leader of the Opposition is not proposing to tell the cities how to plan what kind of housing they need, nor how to do their municipal zoning and approvals process; rather, Conservatives are saying that government needs to get out of the way. We will deliver that kind of result by tying federal infrastructure money to cities with results. It is the fundamental difference between a government that is long on photo ops, talking points and being proud of its parade, and a government in waiting that would deliver results and would pay for those results. There would be no more promises. Canadians deserve results; they are tired of the photo ops and the vacuous grandstanding. They need results. If the Leader of the Opposition becomes prime minister, they would get them.
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- Jun/13/23 10:09:57 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, presented to the House on Wednesday, October 19, 2022, be concurred in.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill.
We have a housing crisis in this country. To restore affordability, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has reported that we need 5.8 million homes by 2030. That works out to 760,000 new homes per year until 2030 for us to restore affordability. The best we have ever done in Canada is to build about 260,000 units of housing a year.
We are now faced with this massive undertaking and all the challenges that go with it to get these units built, whether it is the labour shortage, the skilled trades shortage or, of course, dealing with all the different levels of government involved in the housing space. Municipalities are on the front lines of the housing crisis, and the provinces are very much on the front lines as well.
As for the federal government, some years ago, the Prime Minister, with great fanfare, launched this national housing strategy, describing it as a transformational housing plan and saying the federal government was back in the housing business. All we can see today is that rents have doubled, home prices have doubled and mortgage rates are skyrocketing. People's variable rate mortgages, and I happen to be one of them, have skyrocketed in a year. There are an awful lot of Canadians who do not have a variable rate mortgage who will be going to the bank maybe this summer or fall, and they are going to find out they cannot afford their house anymore. That is all in the midst of a housing crisis where we need to build 760,000 units a year to restore affordability.
We have a government that is long on talking points and long on photo ops but very short on delivery. We do not see a lot of ribbon cutting for new housing. Frankly, we do not need to see any ribbon cutting to know that the situation is only getting worse. Members could ask a student in Toronto if they can find a place to live. Covenant House Toronto reports that a huge number of people living there are students at local universities and colleges. That is completely insane in a country like Canada.
We have heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about young people being stuck in their parents' basements because they cannot find a place to live. They have done everything right, they have a good job and they cannot find a place to rent or maybe even buy one day. We need literally all levels of government working together to solve this crisis, and we need to hold those on the front lines accountable for what they are or, in most cases, are not doing to make housing more affordable.
We have heard the Leader of the Opposition talk about holding municipalities to account. He talks about firing the gatekeepers. He is absolutely correct. As a former mayor, and before that the chair of the planning committee in Muskoka, I am quite used to dealing with vested interests on expensive waterfront properties, but also vested interests in the urban towns of Muskoka. Pushing for higher density in some of these smaller communities is not always easy. I talk a lot about the challenges we see in larger centres, but they also happen across the smaller communities in this country.
As mayor and as chair of planning, I always fought the good fight and made sure that we had more density and more homes built. The Leader of the Opposition, and hopefully the soon-to-be prime minister, will challenge all municipalities and all cities in this country to make decisions to increase density, particularly when the federal government is on board and assisting larger centres with massive investments in transit infrastructure, for example. It is insane to me that the federal government is happy to support municipalities with transit infrastructure, with dollars for new SkyTrain stations and new subway stations, but it does not require the land around those stations, the land around the multi-billion dollars transit infrastructure, to be pre-emptively rezoned for high-density residential housing.
This makes sense. It makes sense for the public investment of federal dollars. It makes sense for the public investment of municipal dollars as well. It is a green way to live, as higher density is better for the planet. Frankly, it is better for the municipalities as well.
A lot of people do not realize that single-family detached residential homes do not actually pay enough tax to cover the cost of the services the families who live in those homes demand. Municipalities need higher density residential housing. It makes more sense fiscally. It is more sustainable. As the Conservative Party, we are calling on municipalities to get on board and for everybody get on the same page to work together to increase the density of our urban centres for the sake of the planet and for the sake of young people who are desperate to get started in their lives and maybe start a family one day.
The housing spectrum is a continuum, and people move through that continuum as their needs change and adjust. Right now, the biggest gap or the biggest blockage in that continuum of housing is purpose-built rentals. We know that purpose-built rentals have not been constructed in a meaningful way since the late seventies. That is because the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau had an ideological problem with the tax treatment for the construction of rental units, as it thought it was making landlords rich. As a result of that change in policy, purpose-built rentals stopped getting built. Members will notice, if they go around any of the larger centres such as Toronto or Vancouver, or even smaller cities such as Winnipeg and Halifax, those purpose-built rentals are starting to get pretty old. We need some major investment in those rentals because they are all over 50 years old now, and they are getting pretty tired.
Therefore, along comes the condo construction business because the developer does not have to carry the capital costs of a rental building, so condo owners start buying up condos and they start renting those out. CMHC changed the rules so people can put 5% down, not just on their first home but maybe on their second and third as well. In many ways, we should be really grateful, frankly, that this happened because the vast majority of landlords in this country now are families who maybe bought a second property and tried to fill a gap. However, it is not enough. We need more purpose-built rentals in this country, and we need a federal government that is working with provincial governments and municipalities to make sure that the private sector is incentivized to build specifically what we need.
With trillions of dollars of investment required in the housing space in this country, there is no way government can do it all on its own. Every nickel of government spending at this level should be focused on those most vulnerable in our society, and we should get the private sector on board to build everything else. The biggest gap is purpose-built rentals, so a federal government working with provincial governments and municipal governments could work with the private sector stakeholders to direct them to build those purpose-built rentals.
Freeing up space in rentals would free up movement within the housing continuum to bring the market back into equilibrium. People could then move through. Adult children would not have to live in their parents' basement anymore. They could go through this transition more naturally into a rental property and then maybe buy their first home. Then folks who are aging and do not really want to stay in their big house anymore, as they need something smaller, would have something they could move to as well. The flow of people moving through housing in this country can happen again.
However, it is not going to happen without federal leadership, which we are not seeing from the current federal government. We have a Minister of Housing who does not really believe that the situation is a crisis, and we have a Prime Minister who loves photo ops, announcements and speaking points, but none of them really seem to know how to get the job done.
That is why Conservatives are focused very much not only on talking points, but also on real results, and on making sure that municipalities are working in lockstep with the provinces and the federal government to ensure that we close the gap with purpose-built rentals and make housing more affordable again. Once we fix housing in this country, we can literally fix everything. The absolute foundation of our society and our economy is housing, and we are failing right now. I am sorry, but the federal government is failing right now.
Therefore, as Conservatives, we have proposed some very common-sense ideas. It is common sense for the common people to hold other levels of government to account to make sure that every nickel of public investment is creating results, not just photo opportunities.
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- May/11/23 3:02:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, maybe the minister should come with me as I criss-cross the country talking to community groups whose members have given up. They come to me in tears because of the disastrous housing policy the government has presented.
They have handed out $26 million in bonuses. How many homes could we build with an extra $26 million?
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- May/2/23 10:38:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, having a place to call home should not be merely a dream in Canada. It should not be a distant memory from generations past. It must be an achievable reality for all Canadian families. Canada cannot reach its full potential until everyone has a safe bed to sleep in and a welcoming place to come home to at the end of the day.
I have had the privilege of visiting many communities in Canada, and there is a despair that too many Canadians are feeling, an emptiness that many of our fellow citizens are dealing with as the dream of having a home of their own slips further and further away from their grasp. Canada needs leaders who will turn rhetoric and words into real tangible action to get shovels in the ground now.
The housing situation in Canada is in crisis, and times of crisis require bold action and real leadership.
I have spoken in the House before about Kim Doughty. She was the catalyst who motivated her husband Claude and me to get an emergency shelter in Huntsville, six beds of emergency shelter and 10 units of transitional housing. The community rallied to the cause and we got the project built. We were justly proud of the accomplishment. We also knew it was just one step, that much more to be done.
After I was elected as mayor, I met with Kim again, and some of her housing colleagues, and she told me some heartbreaking stories about suffering and struggle. Most of it was in hiding right in our picturesque Muskoka.
What Kim told me that day years ago is the same thing we hear today in our communities all across the country. Housing is more than economics. It is more than shovels, dirt and wood. For too many, it is literally life and death. If the leaders of all levels of government took up the cause of combatting this crisis, we would do more than just make our communities more affordable; we would literally save lives.
At that time, our council and administration set to work to change policies. We made land available to developers to build, and so did the community take up the cause.
The Table Soup Kitchen was working hard at the time to open a shelter for men in Huntsville. It was very near completion when an issue arose over the fire code and access and entry points, so we were not quite ready to open it. In the midst of all of this was a young man named Paul.
Paul had his struggles, but he was a joyful fellow and well-liked in the community. He requested to stay in the shelter one night, but he was turned away because it did not have its occupancy permit yet. Therefore, he stayed in his old beat up Volkswagen van that night. When police later found Paul's van, their investigation concluded that the candle he lit, presumably to create a bit of warmth on that cold November night, had tipped over as he slept.
Huntsville lost Paul that night, and our community was devastated, as was I. I received emails from residents who were shocked and angry, some charging that Paul's blood was on my hands. Paul's father later wrote a letter to our community to thank us for welcoming his son and for making Huntsville the place Paul called home, quite proudly. He assured us that Paul's death was not anyone's fault, that Paul made his own choices and that no one was to blame. Yet, were we not? Was I not, just a little?
What more could I have done to resolve the occupancy dispute? What mental health supports were not there that should have been there? Are any of us in leadership doing enough right now?
Tragically, Paul's story is not unique. It is one that is repeated in every corner of our country.
On average, in Toronto, three homeless people die a week. The vacancy rate for rentals in Canada is 1.9%. That means there is nothing to rent. Rental rates have doubled in the last eight years of the current government. Home prices have doubled in the last eight years under the government. For the 35-year-old living in their parents' basement unable to start a family, the entrepreneur thinking of moving to another country or the company passing off the opportunity to grow in Canada because it simply cannot find a place for their workers to live, the problem is getting worse.
It is a crisis. It holds our country back from economic opportunity and prosperity. It holds Canadians back from being able to achieve their dreams. It stops us from building communities. In many cases, it is life and death.
The problem is that we do not have enough supply. Years of bad policy have left our country without enough homes for Canadians. We are not building fast enough to keep up with the rising levels of immigration. The result is that too many of the homes we have today are too expensive for too many of the Canadians who live here.
The solution is to get more shovels in the ground and build more homes faster. We must make it easier to build, easier to get permits, easier to source the skilled labour and building materials needed to get the job done. We must make it harder for the NIMBY activists and politicians who hold development up to stop them from doing that.
Unfortunately, what we get from the government is a lot of talk and no real results. We see a Minister of Housing who attends a lot of announcements, but not a lot of ribbon-cuttings, groundbreakings or grand openings. In fact, a few weeks ago, I asked the Minister of Housing if Canada was in a crisis, something his provincial counterparts, economists, housing experts and his own officials agree upon. He rambled on about political talking points and spoke about his government increasing their ambition.
In a crisis, we devote every possible resource to addressing an issue. It means bringing every single partner to the table and taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to face the challenge head on. Not surprisingly, the minister has not done this, because he does not seem to be aware of the magnitude of the problem.
Canadians deserve better than that. They deserve a country where if they work hard and play by the rules, the dream of owning a home will always be in reach. Our country deserves a government that will work hard to get shovels in the ground, as those Canadians who work hard every single day, saving and sacrificing, do their part to build a brighter future for them and their families.
This crisis is real, and the solutions we put forward must be bold. The old way of doing things simply does not work anymore. For years, housing providers from social housing, co-op housing, community groups and market-based developers have found it nearly impossible to access CMHC programs. Its procedures are convoluted, its decisions often do not even make any sense. The Auditor General's has reported that they are not entirely sure if what it is doing is having any impact. Canadians do not need the Auditor General to tell the truth. The fact of the matter is that it is not working.
Just last week, the CMHC raised insurance rates on multi-unit purpose-built rentals. It raised those premiums by almost 200%. The government's out-of-touch housing policies will continue to drive up the rent on the most vulnerable Canadians and further stall the construction of new units.
However, there is good news. The Conservatives are ready to clean up the government's mess. We are going to get the big government inaction out of the way and ensure that the federal government is no longer a barrier to getting more homes built. We are going to make available a minimum of 15% of underutilized government properties and clear the way for homes of all kinds to build on land that the government has not been using.
While we are at it, we will stand up to the NIMBY activists and cowardly politicians who plague our system, the folks who fight tooth and nail against new homes being built in our communities. The Conservatives understand that if we are ever going to ensure that the next generation, that new Canadians and that young families have the same opportunities that every person in the House has had, then we cannot allow the NIMBYs, the naysayers and the critics to stand in the way anymore.
That is why we are going to tie federal funding on all infrastructure projects for municipalities to how quickly they can clean up their act and get homes built faster. We will require that any major transit project to receive federal funding must have the land around that transit ready to go for high-density housing immediately.
Let me be clear that the Conservatives are loudly and proudly saying yes to building more homes in Canada's backyard. The days of municipal councillors being able to hold up projects and vilify homebuilders must come to an end. The days of talk, delays and deferrals must be a thing of the past.
Come the next federal election, the days of having a Minister of Housing who does not even have the courage to admit that Canada is in a housing crisis, let alone take the actions to fix it, will be done too.
As a former mayor, I can tell members that homes do not get built without leaders who have the courage, the fortitude and the conviction to make the tough decisions, some decisions that are not popular but must be made.
From coast to coast to coast, the housing crisis is claiming lives and shattering dreams. Canadians are living out of trailer parks and taking on crippling levels of debt. Sadly, too many are dying in the streets of our communities, big and small. It is time for bold action and tangible results. Working with all levels of government, trade unions, the private sector and community organizations, we will get things built.
I ask every Canadian who has ever dreamed of having a place to call his or her own, the single mom working relentlessly to build a better future for her children, the entrepreneur thinking of leaving Canada, the new immigrant dreaming of coming to Canada, the young people locked out of the housing market, the parents with young people still living in their basements, to not lose hope because we hear them loud and clear and help is on the way.
After the next federal election, the Conservative government will hit the ground running and work on day one to ensure that having a place to call home at the end of the day is not just the privilege of a few, but the reality of every single Canadian from every walk of life. A home of one's own in this magnificent Canada must no longer be just a dream; it must be a reality. The Conservatives will get our country building again. The Conservatives will bring it home.
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- Apr/27/23 2:48:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have news for the minister. I have read his national housing plan, and it is not working. It is making the situation worse. Every member on this side of the House can be very proud of the fact that we did not write a blank cheque for Liberal failures when we voted against it. The housing minister does not seem to even understand that we are in a housing crisis. The Liberals' expensive schemes are making the situation worse and worse.
My question is simply this: When will the government learn that in a housing supply crisis, photo ops and talking points simply do not get more homes built?
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- Apr/21/23 11:53:15 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, “we see the interest rate increases over the course of 2022 leading to lower housing starts this year.”
Those are the words of a market analyst at the CMHC. Excessive Liberal borrowing and spending caused a spike in interest rates and will stall new housing construction. CMHC has also said that we need to build 5.8 million homes by 2030 if we have any hope of restoring affordability.
Why, then, is this costly coalition so determined to block the construction of the homes Canadians so desperately need?
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- Mar/20/23 11:23:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House on behalf of the people of Parry Sound—Muskoka to talk about the issues that matter to them. Obviously, the affordability of life is a key issue in Parry Sound—Muskoka. Trying to find a home is a big issue. Housing is probably the number one issue in Parry Sound—Muskoka. It is not just the big cities of Toronto and Vancouver where the tent cities are growing; it is in small cities and small rural communities as well. People cannot find homes to live in.
A few weeks ago, I spoke to a business owner in Huntsville who had just hired a new welder. He was excited about this, but that welder quit a few weeks later because he simply could not find a place to live in Huntsville within his budget. It is a story I hear over and over again. People are making the right choices. They get a good education, work hard and pay their bills, yet because of the housing crisis, they struggle to put a roof over their heads in the places they want to be and need to be. Yes, in case there is any question, it is a crisis.
Motion No. 59 recognizes the need for special consideration for some of the most vulnerable in our society, individuals with non-visible disabilities. It calls on the government to work with stakeholders to improve access. Conservatives support this, and we do so happily, but with some cause for hesitation because we have watched the government's record for eight years, particularly when it comes to housing. The housing situation, after eight years under the government, is now worse than ever. House prices have doubled and rent has doubled. After eight years of the government and the promise of a transformational national housing strategy, the housing situation in Canada has never been worse.
The CEO of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Romy Bowers, had this to say at the Affordable Housing Summit hosted by Scotiabank:
Things are at a crisis point for the middle class, but also particularly for vulnerable Canadians. Inflation is still not under control, the Bank of Canada is increasing interest rates and many economists are forecasting a modest recession for the first half of 2023.
Many households, especially first-time buyers, are taking on debt that is excessive. That’s a real concern, especially during an economic downturn because when people are highly leveraged, it creates a lot of instability in the economy, but also pain for households.
I do not know why the Minister of Housing will not acknowledge what his officials seem to acknowledge, that there is a crisis. They even acknowledge that inflation is still out of control and interest rates continue to rise. Of course, this has real-life consequences for Canadians. High interest rates, made worse by Liberal inflationary borrowing, mean that too many Canadians are paying higher mortgages but not paying down any of the debt. Many Canadians going to renew their mortgages this summer or fall may find out they cannot afford their houses anymore.
That is not how it is supposed to work. That is not the sunny ways that Canadians were promised. That is not a transformational housing policy. Canadians were promised that, if they work hard, go to school, get an education and pay their bills, they will get ahead, but that is not what is happening. Too many Canadians cannot afford to get into homes.
Now we have a government that has announced a housing accelerator fund. The Minister of Housing seems to have figured out that it is a supply issue. He said, in fact, “We recognize that the key to increasing housing affordability is to boost the supply of homes available to Canadians.” That is great after eight years. For eight years now, the government has been subsidizing demand with $500 rent subsidy cheques and a savings account that actually, for first-time homebuyers, make things more expensive. All of this borrowing drives historic inflation and historic interest rates, which puts homes further and further away for Canadians.
The accelerator fund is supposed to create 100,000 new units for the cool price tag of $4 billion. Let us put that into context. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says that Canada needs 5.8 million new housing units by 2030 to make homes affordable again. If we spread 100,000 units across this entire country, it is a very tiny drop in what I see as an ocean-sized bucket, so forgive me if I find this program just a little insulting. How can we expect the government to get this right when it has had eight years and has not gotten it right yet?
When NIMBY local councillors here in Ottawa blocked 80 new units from being built, the minister did not lift a finger. He does not want to take on the NIMBYs and he does not want to challenge municipalities. He does not want to hold them accountable either. He may think touring the country and announcing a few dozen units here and a few dozen units there is solving the problem, but Canadians know the truth. It is not.
Now we are to trust the new transformational housing plan, but of course the Liberals' first one made things worse, and they are already failing Canadians who have disabilities when it comes to housing.
I will give an example from Parry Sound—Muskoka. Community Living South Muskoka supports over 400 individuals and their families living with developmental disabilities in the south end of Muskoka. It dreamed of building a housing complex to support families, to support these folks, with wraparound supports. It was going to put a roof over their heads and help them live healthy, active and engaged lives in the community.
It had a beautiful piece of property and had the drawings done. It had the municipality on board, and the zoning was done. It had the District of Muskoka's support and even had private support. Then it got to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the endless applications, the delays and the red tape. It gave up. It quit and sold the land. It had a dream of helping Canadians living in south Muskoka with development disabilities, and the bureaucracy crushed it because the organization just could not get through the quagmire of bureaucracy.
Covenant House Vancouver built a beautiful new building. It received $12 million from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. It raised a lot of money privately. It had the support of the local municipality, private donations and even a celebrity endorsement from Ryan Reynolds. Of course, it cost it $1 million in consulting fees to get $12 million from the CMHC. Imagine that, for an organization like Covenant House Vancouver, with all those resources, a prime ministerial endorsement and a celebrity endorsement, it still cost it $1 million. There is no hope for small community organizations like Community Living.
Health care workers are living in tents. Students are living in homeless shelters. It costs $2,500 a month to rent a one-bedroom apartment in Toronto. Government delays, permits and red tape add over $600,000 to every single residential housing unit in the city of Vancouver. We have the lowest number of homes in the G7. Nine out of 10 young people who do not own a home in this country believe they never will.
In 2022, on average, three people suffering from homelessness died every week in the city of Toronto. We have a housing minister who is unwilling to call this what it is, a crisis.
Conservatives understand what is going on. We understand it is a crisis. We do not accept the status quo, because it is a failure. We do not accept the NIMBY city councillors who reject more housing. We do not accept young people being locked out of home ownership.
Conservatives reject the status quo. We embrace a pro-housing agenda, and we will deliver housing for all Canadians by leveraging federal funding to cities and holding them accountable to get the job done. We will incentivize the private sector by removing roadblocks that delay construction. We will push to densify our communities with the infrastructure dollars to support making that happen.
The Conservative plan provides the incentive and the accountability for municipalities to get the job done. We will withhold federal cheques to municipalities that give in to the NIMBYs and we will provide housing bonuses for cities that are committed and dedicated to streamlining approvals and boosting home building.
Conservatives say, “Yes, in my backyard.” Conservatives say yes to building more homes faster. Conservatives say, “We will bring it home.”
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- Nov/16/22 2:57:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister broke his promise to Canadians. In 2017, he launched his national housing strategy, calling it, among other things, a “life-changing plan” to get Canadians into homes and to keep them there. The minister even recently gave housing bureaucrats $48 million in bonuses for a job well done, but we all know the housing crisis has gotten worse under the government.
Will the minister please explain to the House and to Canadians why he gave $48 million in bonuses to bureaucrats for a job not done?
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- Oct/18/22 2:08:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is a housing crisis in Canada. Too many first-time homebuyers are giving up on the dream of ever owning a home. Market rentals are hard to find. Affordable rentals are impossible to find.
I have heard from housing providers and community groups all across the country that are so eager to help be part of the solution, but are continually stymied by NIMBY municipal politicians and special interest groups that create delays, add costs and often kill proposals for new homes. Worse yet are the community groups and housing providers that may have finally received their municipal approvals, but get stalled by the bureaucracy of the CMHC. Despite billions of dollars promised by the current Liberal government, it has created a system where there are too many forms, too many requirements, too much red tape and an Ottawa-knows-best approach that actually makes it almost impossible to get grants or loans from the CMHC.
We must say yes to building more homes. This crisis requires all levels of government and the private sector to work together to ensure that Canada becomes a country where everyone has the dignity of a home.
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- Jun/8/22 3:13:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is in a housing crisis. Too many families are unable to find a safe roof over their heads and many young Canadians are just being forced to give up on the dream of ever even owning a home. There is a simple solution, though. It is to build more houses and increase the housing supply. All we see the government do is pose for photo ops at spending announcements, but there is a curious lack of ribbon cuttings.
My question is simple: When is the government going to get off the sidelines, demonstrate leadership to end exclusionary zoning and say yes to building more homes for Canadians?
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