- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,314.06
- Government Page
- Oct/3/23 3:34:54 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, that is yet another answer that is completely disconnected from reality.
Families who have to renew their mortgage soon are headed for a cliff. Negligence by the Liberals and the Conservatives has resulted in the loss of one million affordable housing units in the country. In the meantime, the government has given the Bank of Canada the mandate to increase interest rates without any regard for how that will impact people. That is the Liberals' record: families worried about losing their home. It makes no sense.
Why did the Prime Minister not give the Bank of Canada a clearer mandate to avoid this crisis?
106 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/23 2:46:34 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is one of the neighbourhoods hardest hit by Montreal's housing crisis.
However, the Liberal member for this riding, who is also the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Housing, refuses to meet with the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve housing committee. Not only that, but she has not provided the organization with any Canada summer jobs positions that would enable it to help renters in the parliamentary secretary's riding.
The Liberals claim that solving the housing crisis is a priority, but their actions say otherwise. When will the Liberals address the housing crisis with the urgency it deserves?
101 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Sep/27/22 11:52:34 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I want to take this opportunity as I rise in the House to talk about what is happening in another part of the world. It deserves our attention and it is important to note. Since the brutal murder of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, a widespread grassroots feminist movement has been rising in Iran. These people have the exceptional courage to stand up for freedom and democracy. I want to commend their courage. I am extremely worried about their situation, and I hope that the federal government will use every political and diplomatic tool it has to stand up for human rights, especially the rights of women in Iran.
Today we are discussing a Conservative Party motion. It is the first motion moved by the new Conservative leader during an opposition day. I thought a new leader would bring in new ideas and renewal and that we would finally talk about other things; but no, the new Conservative Party leader wants to talk about the carbon tax. For 10 years that is all the Conservative Party has been talking about, incessantly. They are absolutely obsessed with this. When they do not know what else to do, they talk about the carbon tax. I just want them to know that it is over, case closed.
The carbon tax is a good tool that works. It is not necessarily a cure-all. It will not solve every issue, but it works well in terms of putting pressure on the market so that companies and consumers adapt and change their behaviour to reduce their carbon footprint.
It is rather funny to see the Conservatives today doubling down on this obsession yet again. This is actually a market mechanism, so I do not understand. They love the free market and capitalism, and this tool relies on supply and demand, on prices and costs. However, they do not support it.
The Conservatives are also missing the point by thinking that suspending or cancelling the price on pollution is really going to make a difference in people's lives. There is no doubt that we are currently facing inflation and a rising cost of living. We see it with housing, heating, gasoline and groceries. The prices of some products are going up 12%, 13%, 15%, and sometimes even as high as 30%. The carbon tax is not responsible for that and getting rid of it will not change anything.
As my colleagues pointed out earlier, it makes no difference whatsoever to Quebeckers, because the federal carbon tax does not exist in Quebec. Where were the Conservative members from Quebec when there party was planning its opposition day? Maybe they were asleep at the wheel of their gas-powered car, pun intended.
The NDP wants to help people in tangible ways, so it forced the Liberals to take action on a number of fronts that will produce results. Bill C‑31, which was introduced when we came back to the House, is proof. The bill includes some very interesting provisions that we have been pushing for for a long time. The NDP caucus secured major gains for people, starting with the $500 rental housing benefit top-up. No, that will not change the entire housing market overnight, but it will provide some relief and may help people. In Quebec, 580,000 Quebeckers will collect that cheque because they are already on the list of people who need the federal housing benefit.
The second measure doubles the GST tax credit. Millions of people in Canada will benefit from that over the next six months. It can range from $250 to $500 per person. This is intended for the most vulnerable people in our society, those who need help the most. It is not an inflationary measure, since the proposed measures are not uniform. This is not intended for people who earn $70,000 or $100,000 a year; this is for people who are really struggling to pay for groceries or housing right now. The NDP made this happen. The leader of the NDP demanded this for six months, and he finally got it in Bill C‑31.
As for dental coverage for children, many people told us during the last election that it would be great if teenagers, seniors and children had access to coverage for essential dental care, which is obviously not aesthetic. We tried to get a real dental care program for this year, but it was too hard to get it up and running in time.
Therefore, as a first step, we are offering a compensation cheque. This is a temporary step, an interim step, but still a significant one. People who do not have supplemental insurance and who wish to take their child to the dentist must keep the bill so they can receive a maximum amount of $650 for this year, as well as a maximum amount of $650 for next year. We are then talking about a maximum amount totalling $1,300 per child.
I think that while waiting for next year, this can provide significant assistance to middle-class families who do not have supplemental insurance. Next year, we will be able to offer a program that will enable people to go to the dentist and to receive immediate payment or get their bill reimbursed. Next year, we will extend the program to include teenagers, people with disabilities and seniors aged 65 years and up in Quebec and across Canada.
Just because the NDP secured this win, it does not mean that it will stop working hard or putting pressure on the government to do more, because a lot more needs to be done. However, we think that the measures being implemented and what we asked of the government are real solutions. The tangible actions we forced the Liberal government to take will provide real benefits to the lives of ordinary Canadians. In contrast, the Conservatives' solution is extremely ideological and, in reality, it will not help all that many people. In fact, it goes against all the efforts we should be making to combat climate change.
They present the carbon tax, which is a price on pollution, as a bad thing. Are the Conservatives saying that polluting should be a right? Are they saying that pollution should not cost anything and be free of consequences? Systematically, year after year, under the Conservative government and, now, under the Liberals, we have missed our greenhouse gas emission targets, which is extremely worrisome. Canada lags behind most other countries. We continue to subsidize oil companies that are currently making record profits. We do not have the spine to tax them more, while the CEOs keep pocketing millions of dollars.
Now the Conservative Party is presenting a 25-year-old idea, one that is outdated. Furthermore, it comes at a very odd time when eastern Quebec, the Magdalen Islands and a good part of the Maritimes have just been devastated by hurricane Fiona.
This motion from the official opposition completely disregards the true urgency of the climate crisis, and that these disasters, hurricanes, droughts, floods and forest fires will occur with greater frequency and intensity. We will be increasingly unable to control the planet's climate and temperature and people will suffer more, infrastructure and homes will be destroyed and villages and roads will have to be moved. That will come at an enormous cost. The Conservatives never talk about the cost of inaction in the face of the climate crisis. Even people who are not what one would call big bad socialists are worried. Insurance companies in Canada are worried because they know it is going to cost tens of billions of dollars in the coming years.
The Conservative Party is completely disconnected from this reality and is suggesting that we get rid of the one measure that sort of works. I will come back to this, but even though this measure more or less works, we should be doing more. The Conservatives' motion is completely irresponsible and shows no regard for future generations or for the people who will suffer and are suffering from climate disturbances and the increase in so-called natural disasters. We must do more.
I now want to talk about what the Liberal government is not doing. Not only does it refuse to eliminate oil subsidies, but it has also failed to develop a plan for a just transition. We need to come up with a strategy to support the industries and the unions that represent all of the workers across Quebec and Canada to ensure that we make this energy transition, not only for the sake of the environment and the climate, but also to save jobs and create new ones in renewable energy or find new ways of working in existing sectors.
This is 2022. In 2019 the government promised to introduce a bill concerning a just green energy transition that respects workers. It has yet to do anything, even though this objective is spelled out in the mandate letters of the Minister of Natural Resources and the Minister of Labour. We are still awaiting such a bill.
I hope it comes soon because we need it. We need it if we want to solve this problem, meet our targets and respect Canada's commitments on the international stage. It is quite unsettling: Canada cannot seem to make good on the promises it makes out there. Canada signed the Paris Agreement and made commitments. The Canadian government signed the COP26 declaration, but it does not act in a consistent way.
The Liberals are extremely good at patting themselves on the back and bragging about their targets on the world stage, but they are unable to follow through. Now is the time to act.
1635 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/10/22 11:54:34 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. I am very eager to hear what he has to say about the motion we are debating today.
My speech is divided into two parts. First, I will talk about how important state neutrality is for all leftist men and women and for all progressives. The role of the state is not to promote a particular religion or belief. It must even respect non-believers.
On a personal note, I have been a member of Parliament for 11 years. I have the honour of representing the people of Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I must admit that, when I first came to the House, to Parliament, and I heard the morning prayer before the start of the day, I was a little surprised. I did not think there was a prayer. I did not think it was still current practice. There is a very clear religious connotation. It begins with “Almighty God” and ends with “Amen”. For an atheist like myself, there is a Christian connotation that can come as a shock to members of the House who are non-believers. It is an important message, since it links the Canadian parliamentary institution with religion, and with one religion in particular.
I am old enough to have had religion classes in school. There was a Catholic school board and a Protestant school board. I am very glad that the Parti Québécois government took religion out of the school boards in 1999. I think the separation of church and state was important for the neutrality of institutions. The NDP differentiates between institutions and workers. We can discuss that subject some other time.
Important things have been done. In his first inauguration speech, President Barack Obama acknowledged the presence of non-believing Americans for the first time. I thought that was an important gesture. It was an important symbol. Symbols are important. We agree on that. The separation of church and state is a major symbol.
Is this a topic worth spending an entire opposition day on? That is a valid question. It is a question worth asking. If the Bloc Québécois wanted to raise this perfectly valid question, it had a variety of tools to choose from. I think the motion makes sense, but our time in this institution is precious and limited. A unanimous consent motion takes about a minute after question period. My colleagues in the Bloc Québécois often take advantage of that procedure. A unanimous consent motion has the same effect as an opposition day motion. It is a declaration of Parliament's intent. If the Bloc Québécois wanted to talk about the matter at hand, it could have moved a unanimous consent motion.
If it wanted to change the House's internal rules, it could have addressed this matter to the Board of Internal Economy. The board meets after every election to review and revise the House rules. It should be meeting between now and mid-June. We could have had this discussion to determine whether we want to continue reciting the prayer or to replace it with a moment of reflection. With a view to a clearer separation of church and state, we could have had this discussion and potentially reached a consensus among all members.
We are taking a whole day to discuss something that may make me personally uncomfortable, but that does not change much in the lives of the Quebeckers and Montrealers I represent. I more or less agree with my colleague, the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. I have been an MP for 11 years, and no one in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie has ever mentioned the prayer to me. I may have an opinion on the subject. I may think it is important. I may not want to enter the House because I am uncomfortable during the prayer. I wait in the lobby and I enter once the prayer is finished. The prayer is not even televised, so it is not public. This is an internal administrative matter, so we should discuss it among ourselves.
In the House, we should discuss things that have an impact on families' lives. Right now, we are talking about ourselves. We will spend an entire day talking about ourselves to find out whether we agree or disagree, feel comfortable or uncomfortable.
A lot of people in my riding are asking for things. They are suffering, they are hurting and they are desperate because the federal administration is not working or because the wrong decisions are being made. I wrote to the employees at my Montreal office this morning and asked what people talk about when they call in.
There are a number of things we could have discussed today in order to find solutions, but the first thing callers talk about these days is the huge mess with EI. The processing times for EI cheques are horrendous right now. Dozens and dozens of people call the office to complain. These are not small delays. People who have just lost their job apply for EI because they need money to make ends meet, to pay their rent and and pay for groceries, but they are being asked to wait three months, three and a half months or even four months. What kind of agreement can someone make with their landlord if there is no money coming in for four months?
I would have liked to talk about that today, because that is a priority for people in Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie right now. That is what they are concerned about this morning as we speak. They are desperate and they are panicking. That is not to mention the wait times for passports and everything to do with immigration, such as student visas, work visas, permanent residency, and citizenship. Wait times have soared in the past two years. It is crazy. People are living in uncertainty. They are being told that they will get a decision in two or three months but, in some cases, two or three years go by and they still do not have an answer. We recently learned that it can take 10 years to get the official document stating that they are allowed to build a life here in Montreal or Quebec. Right now, the federal government is conspicuously absent. For Canadians, not getting an answer can have serious consequences. Where will they live? Will they have to go back to their country of origin? Are they allowed to work here or not?
However, the Bloc members do not want to discuss these things. They want to talk about the prayer. They do not like the prayer, and neither do I, but that is not what Quebeckers talk to me about in real life, on the ground. They talk about their living and working conditions.
Let us discuss EI. We are still awaiting EI reform. Let us not forget that the program was dysfunctional even before the pandemic. We knew it was ineffective. We need to prioritize EI reform, because most workers who pay into the program cannot get a cheque because the number of hours needed to qualify for EI benefits is too high, and it is even worse in some regions and in the case of seasonal workers. Workers who pay into EI cannot get a cheque, and that is not taking into account those who are not even entitled to contribute. Self-employed workers, freelancers and gig workers do not have a social security net and cannot even participate in the system, even if it worked, which it does not. I would have like to able to discuss this, to be able to say to the government, “This is the reality for workers and the unemployed in Quebec. How can we make it better?”
Let us talk about housing. There has been a housing crisis in Montreal and Quebec for years, and it is only getting worse. For both individuals or families, rent is always the largest household expense. During the election campaign last fall, people constantly brought the subject up in the streets, in parks, and when I was going door to door. They said they were afraid they would have to leave their beloved neighbourhood because they could not find housing that would not plunge them into debt or stretch their finances to the limit. A growing number of people are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. In my riding, there are people spending more than 50% of their income on housing. Until recently, the definition of affordable housing in Montreal, according to the Liberal government, was $2,225 a month. Fortunately, the NDP was able to get the definition of affordable housing changed. For Montrealers, affordable housing will cost a maximum of $730 a month. That is going to change people's lives. We changed the definition. It is established and paid for by the CHMC. That means $1,500 less per month for people to have access to these housing units. These are investments in the rapid housing program. There is a shortage of housing units on the market, and we negotiated with the government to change the situation.
There is a lot more. We succeeded in getting money for housing co-operatives. This had not happened for 20 years. Housing co-operatives are an excellent system because the housing units are not affected by the market, market logic or profit. These are initiatives that make a difference in people's lives and that we would have liked to discuss, because there is still so much work to be done.
I could also talk about the climate, the climate crisis, the cost of prescription drugs or the safety of cyclists in Montreal and other cities. There are a lot of things I would have liked to discuss today instead of talking about my discomfort in certain situations.
1697 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/9/22 2:28:55 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, while people are paying more and more for necessities, there is a bunch of bad apples lining their pockets.
In the seven years that this government has been in power, becoming a first-time homeowner has become an impossible dream, and it is getting harder and harder to find decent housing at an affordable price.
In the meantime, the housing market is overheating and there is a growing number of renovictions. Just yesterday, the federal housing advocate, Marie-Josée Houle, told us that Ottawa could address the crisis by combatting the financialization of housing. Will the Liberals listen?
102 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/9/21 11:55:41 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to hear him say those words. My colleague proved that I was wrong and that the Conservatives can say the words “social housing”. However, they cannot commit them to paper because they forgot to put them in their motion. The problem is only partly solved, and there is still a long way to go.
If my colleague is concerned about truly affordable social housing, co-operatives and an indigenous housing strategy developed for and by indigenous people, I hope that he will act accordingly and vote in favour of the NDP amendments.
99 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/9/21 11:53:57 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, the member is looking at this all wrong.
The problem is not the amount of land. The problem is that people are spending too much money on housing and living in poverty. I am less interested in the 12% or 19% of available lands than I am in the 23,000 Montreal households on waiting lists for social housing.
We have to take care of people first. If more land is needed after that, fine. The problem is the 1.7 million people in this country who spend more than 30% of their income on housing. The problem has nothing to do with physical space.
108 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/9/21 11:51:54 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, once again, it is the same thing. Is housing a problem for seniors in this country? Yes, it is. These individuals are often on a fixed income and they are seeing rents go up. It is a real problem.
However, the Conservatives offer no real solutions. If the federal land they want to free up is used by developers to build condos for the wealthy, that will not help impoverished seniors who are struggling and have very minimal resources.
In Montreal, the Peel Basin is federal land and it has potential. I hope it will be used for affordable social housing and not for a baseball stadium, which would be a waste of space. I at least hope that neither government, Quebec or Ottawa, puts a penny into that, because it would be madness.
137 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/9/21 11:41:10 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I want to start by saying that I will be sharing my time with my excellent colleague from Vancouver-East.
I feel compelled to follow up on the comments of my colleague from Longueuil, who very proudly represents the Quebec wing of the Conservative Party, by voting for a motion that is full of holes. I will, however, correct something he said when he stated that the Liberals took up the entire Island of Montreal. All of it? No, there is a little orange dot still holding out against the invader.
An hon. member: There is a little blue dot too.
Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: There is a little blue dot too, Madam Speaker.
We are debating a motion from the Conservative Party that identifies a real problem but offers a bad solution. I think it is important to have this discussion to actually see what the real solutions are for this housing crisis.
The housing crisis has reached catastrophic levels in many Quebec and Canadian towns and cities, particularly in Montreal, where housing prices have skyrocketed in recent years. People are struggling to find housing and are having to change neighbourhoods because they cannot afford to pay $1,400, $1,500 or $1,750 a month in rent. The Liberals have been promising strategies ever since they came to power six years ago, but we have not seen any concrete changes or results on the ground. On the contrary, the situation has only gotten worse following years of Conservative and Liberal neglect.
People who spend more than 30% of their income on rent tend to be poor and vulnerable. In Canada, that is the reality for 1.7 million households, which means the number of people is even higher. This means that 1.7 million families, couples or individuals spend more than 30% of their income on housing. That is serious. It is catastrophic. In Quebec, 38,000 people are waiting for social housing, for truly affordable housing. In Montreal, 23,000 people are waiting, and that number is growing.
I recently had the chance to take part in an event organized by the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain, or FRAPRU, which is well known in Quebec, as well as a coalition called the National Right to Housing Network.
We spent a long while listening to testimony from people who live in unsafe housing, who were victims of renovictions, or who are living in housing that is too small, ill-suited to their needs or poorly lit. All of this was detrimental to their mental, and sometimes physical, health. It was heartbreaking to hear these stories in a country as rich as Canada, a G7 country that could be doing so much better.
We heard stories about five people living in a one-bedroom apartment because it was all they could afford. Every night the parents would pull out the sofa bed to sleep, but it blocked the path the kids would take to go to the bathroom during the night. There were five of them in that one-bedroom apartment. We heard from people who have kids with disabilities but do not have the resources or the means to adapt the entryway for their child, who has to come in the back door. It is dangerous and not well lit. These people are living with mould, with fungi, and their health is affected. This, in turn, overwhelms our health care system, because people are living in unsafe conditions in inadequate housing. It is a big problem.
We were talking about the 1.7 million households that spend more than 30% of their income on housing in Canada. In Rosemont—La Petite Patrie, some people spend more than 40% or 50% of their income on housing. Then, when the price of groceries goes up, they are stretched to the limit. It makes no sense. Three thousand households in Rosemont—La Petite Patrie have to spend more than half of their income on housing. It is completely unacceptable. This has been a failure of the Liberal strategy for years.
The motion before us speaks to this real housing problem and to the issue facing young families and young couples who want to buy their first home. It is becoming increasingly difficult. Condos and houses often sell for more than they are listed on the market for. This creates a kind of bubble of speculation that is completely crazy.
The Conservatives may be identifying a real problem, but they seem to be unable to say certain words. For example, they are unable to say the words “social housing”. It seems that social housing is on their lips. They just cannot say it.
The proposed solutions in the motion before us are extremely ideological.
That being said, some aspects of the motion make sense. The NDP is also against taxing capital gains on the sale of a primary residence, but the motion does not offer any real solution to this problem. Everything in the opposition motion is highly ideological and tied to market forces. If there is greater demand then we simply need to increase supply and, like magic, the prices will automatically drop.
Anyone who knows this file and works on the ground, including groups and organizations, knows full well that although part of the problem can be solved by the lucrative market, in other words the supply of profit-driven products, the most effective solution is indisputably more non-market housing.
Such housing does not generate profit. It is community housing, low-income housing, co-operative and social housing. This kind of social housing has to be incorporated in project plans. A developer proposing a project should be required to build social housing, and the federal and Quebec governments should have to provide money to get that social housing built.
There is no solution that does not include not-for-profit housing. Social housing is crucial. That is why the Conservatives' solution is flawed and fails to address what really needs to be done. The Conservatives have their ideological blinders on. They are all about capitalism no matter the cost, and nothing else is even worth considering.
Regarding non-market solutions, members touched on the fact that new co-ops are not being built. That is essential. I had a chance to be at the Montreal premiere of a documentary called Le coop de ma mère by filmmaker Rosemont Ève Lamont. The documentary made it clear just how well those solutions have worked. Co-operatives that were built in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are still around today, and they are great places to live. Anything considered profit is reinvested in maintaining and upgrading the co-op spaces for the people who live there.
This is also a lesson about working together, participatory democracy, and collective empowerment. The residents of co-operatives become collective owners of the co-operative, and that changes their lives. Without these co-operatives, these people would not be able to live in these neighbourhoods or in these communities. This is something that the NDP is calling for.
I would like to tell my Bloc Québécois colleagues, who seem to want to vote for the Conservative motion, that the NDP is going to move an amendment that I think is in line with the speeches we have heard. We want to add the following to the motion: investments for non-market, non-profit affordable housing; investments to create co-operatives; and the construction of 500,000 new homes, affordable housing, and social housing over the next 10 years. The Liberals are promising 160,000 social housing units, but the NDP is proposing half a million. We are also proposing to create a “for indigenous, by indigenous” housing strategy, which is not in the Conservative motion or in the Liberal’s national housing strategy action plan, even though they have been promising it for years.
These are concrete things that the NDP is putting forward in response to the flaws in the Conservative proposal. I really hope that there will be consistency between what is said and what is done, and that we can count on the support of the Bloc Québécois. These NDP amendments would make for a much more meaningful and logical motion, when it comes to practical solutions.
In this regard, as I spoke earlier with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing and member for Hochelaga, based on the rules in place, which were set by the Liberals, housing that is considered affordable is not affordable at all. We recently learned that, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, a Montreal home that costs $2,200 a month is considered affordable. People are being taken for fools.
We need to put our heads together and we need to consider the right to housing as a fundamental right for which someone could go to court when housing is inadequate. It is a life-changing thing, and I think that as parliamentarians we need to make a significant effort to invest in social housing and truly affordable housing. That is a priority for the NDP.
1558 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/9/21 11:02:02 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, my colleague and I are also riding neighbours, although we are not separated by a river.
I thank her for her speech, but it was just a long litany of projects, programs and figures, along with a whole lot of lip service. That is unfortunate, since there appears to be a disconnect between what she said and the realities of the housing crisis.
I would remind her that the Liberals' definition of “affordable housing” considers $2,225 a month to be affordable rent in Montreal. Would the people of Hochelaga consider $2,225 a month affordable? If not, what will the parliamentary secretary do to change the definition?
112 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
