- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Courtenay—Alberni
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $148,159.67
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I have heard Conservatives talk about selling 6,000 buildings and 15% of public lands. We only need to look at Ontario, where the Doug Ford Conservatives did a deal for the greenbelt; they sold public lands and put $8.3 billion into the pockets of developers. In my home province of British Columbia, the B.C. Liberals sold private lands to benefit their friends, who were donors to the B.C. Liberal Party.
What policies and framework would the member like to see put in place to protect Canadians from Conservatives, their friends and their donors?
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Madam Speaker, I know that when it comes to the Conservatives in Ontario, it is the developers who are benefiting when it comes to housing, which is the conversation of today.
We have heard the federal Conservatives talk about selling off government land and government buildings. As New Democrats, we would see benefits in leasing those lands and working with the developers and non-market housing groups to develop housing. My question to the member is this: Is the Conservatives' model more like a Queen's Park, Ontario Conservative, Doug Ford greenbelt model, or would their model actually have safeguards to protect the public from developers and their friends?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for calling out and asking for good ideas. We saw the Conservatives in Ontario try a land giveaway of the Greenbelt that was going to put $8.3 billion into the pockets of developers. We hear the Conservatives talking about selling public lands and public buildings.
I want to know if he thinks that what happened in Ontario was a good idea. What would the Conservatives do to make sure that does not happen again when it comes to federal lands? Public lands belong in public hands and not in developers' pockets.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for bringing up the Manitoba election. It gives me a chance to congratulate Wab Kinew as the new premier of Manitoba. He is the first indigenous premier in our country.
My colleague talked about a sham and sheer propaganda. Let us talk about that when it comes to housing. He did not talk about the 30% corporatization of the housing market that is driving up market forces. He did not talk about the profiteering that is taking place and that the free-market approach has not worked. In fact, he did not talk about the Greenbelt scandal in Ontario.
What are the federal Conservatives going to do differently than the Doug Ford Conservatives to ensure we do not have another Greenbelt scandal? They talk about selling off public lands and public buildings. What are they going to do to ensure that it does not end up in the pockets of developers? Public lands belong in public hands.
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Madam Speaker, I cited earlier the impact of corporate greed in our country. It is about $3.90 on a $100 bag of groceries. The carbon tax, which the Conservatives try to spin as the major contributor, is 15¢ on a $100 bag of groceries.
We know corporate profits are going into the pockets of Galen Weston. In places like Tofino, Hornby Island and Ucluelet, there are co-op grocery stores that give the profits back to their members. Does my colleague agree that we should charge an excess profit tax on corporate greed to fund co-op models when it comes to the grocery business?
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Madam Speaker, I am going to do a little fact-checking here.
The member talked about the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem. He said that the carbon tax, all of it combined, is contributing 0.15% to inflation. That is 15¢ on 100 dollars' worth of groceries.
What she did not talk about is corporate greed, which is costing $3.90 on 100 dollars' worth of groceries. We know why. It is because Conservatives are gatekeepers for the big grocery stores, for the Galen Westons.
They also do not want to talk about the fact that eight out of 10 Canadian families get a rebate. Why do they not want to talk about that? It is because the truth is they are really fighting for two out of 10 Canadian families, and they know it.
Will my colleague tell the truth that the Conservatives are really fighting for the two out of 10 families that are not getting a carbon tax rebate back and that they are actually just trying to distract from reality?
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the comment and we are on the same page: that we need a wartime-like effort. We need to use every tool in the tool box to deal with this. Right now, the government does not have a plan. It has no plan on how it is going to build 3.5 million homes, and this is what we need to do in this chamber. We need to have that conversation and bring forward ideas. Like I said, let us use some public land, but let us keep it in public hands, leasing and working with the private sector to ensure that we can build affordable non-market housing.
This free-market approach will not work. It has not worked anywhere in the world to solve an affordable housing crisis and it is not going to start working now. I want to work with my colleague because we need a plan and right now the current government is a rudderless ship. Removing the GST on rental housing is low-hanging fruit.
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Madam Speaker, the Governor of the Bank of Canada said the impact of the carbon tax is 0.15% of inflation. However, we look at oil and gas companies, which are having record profits; these big grocery stores are having record profits; and the big banks are having record profits. We can look at other countries, like Britain, where the Conservatives are in government, by the way; they have an excess profits tax on oil and gas. We cannot even get Liberals in Canada to do that; never mind Conservatives. We do not need lobbyists for oil and gas here on the Hill because the Conservatives are the lobbyists for oil and gas and that is the truth. It is a diversion.
The reality is that we need an excess profits tax on these industries that are runaway, causing inflation and really harming Canadians every day with the costs that are being downloaded on them. We really need to have an honest conversation and not this diversion method of deterrence.
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Madam Speaker, let us face it: the Liberals' and Conservatives' free-market developer-style model has not worked. I sat in local government and if they actually put money on the table for non-market housing, that would get gobbled up in a heartbeat. Municipalities want to be partners, but they do not have the resources. They have been downloaded on and downloaded on since 1992 by Conservatives and Liberals consecutively. They need resources for non-market housing. They will deliver it. The municipalities will work with the private sector. There is an opportunity to work together, but it does not mean giving up public lands. It means that we can work together in leasing out projects and working with the development community in that way.
The current method of Liberal and Conservative policy when it comes to the developer-driven model is not going to work. It has never worked anywhere around the world that an affordable housing crisis has been solved by the private sector and a free-market approach.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise today to speak to Bill C-56, an act to amend the Excise Tax Act and the Competition Act.
We know that the bill calls for two important aspects: to remove the GST from construction costs on new rental units and to enable the Competition Bureau to conduct better investigations, while also removing efficiency exemptions during mergers to improve competition.
With respect to the removal of the GST, the New Democrats have been calling for this, but it will not meaningfully reduce rent payments or create social and co-operative housing effectively, and we absolutely need that. However, the bill would be part of a bigger comprehensive approach that we want to move forward to address the affordable housing crisis.
With respect to the Competition Act, the bill is a start at reining in and regulating monopolies, but it would not go far enough to support Canadians on their desire to control these monopolies and the impacts they have on our economy.
We know that in the eight years the Liberal government has been in power, it has been the New Democrats who have been bringing forward solutions to get help for people, like this GST removal on housing, although it would not go far enough or have enough restrictions to deal with competition.
I am going to speak about a couple of things. We know the bill is a little too late with respect to the housing crisis, but I will speak to that first.
Le us look at the impact of housing. I am the critic for the NDP for mental health and substance use. We know that the cost of housing is escalating. There is a lack of affordable housing and the available occupancy rates are at historic lows. This is having a huge impact on people's mental health and stress levels, and this is a long-standing issue
When there was a minority government in 1972, the NDP worked with the Liberals to create the national housing strategy, which developed 18,000 to 25,000 units a year until 1992. In fact, I am one of the many Canadians who grew up in co-op housing, so I am a beneficiary of that housing. I lived first-hand the experience of having safe and secure housing for my family and my parents. I saw what that could do. In fact, I can go back to that co-op today and see many of the people with whom I grew up. Their kids and their grandkids are living there as well.
However, since the Liberals pulled out of the national housing strategy in the early 1990s, both the Conservative and Liberal governments consecutively failed to dive back in. As a result, we have lost between 18,000 and 25,000 units a year for over 30 years. Now our non-market housing availability is at 3.5%, and we do not have to look far to see what 3.5% looks like.
If we go outside the doors of the House of Commons, we will see homeless people. I can go to Port Alberni, a medium-sized city in my riding, or a small city in my riding, and I will see homelessness. We can go to any big city and we will see homeless people everywhere. However, we can go to Europe, where places like the Netherlands is at 35% non-market housing and Vienna it is at 60%, and we will not see the scale of homelessness that we see in our country.
We know it is so much more expensive to not provide people housing. There is the cost to hospitals, a cost to all our systems. It could eventually impact our prison system, as we know.
Ben Perrin, the former public safety adviser for the Stephen Harper Conservatives, hosted an event the other night. He has a new book called Indictment, about the reform of Canada's justice system. He talked about how the lowest cost approach was to put people in proper housing. That would cost a fraction of what it would cost if we did not, in terms of the prison system, hospital system and health care system. We need to get back into affordable housing.
We keep hearing this from the Conservative Party. We heard the leader of the Conservative Party talk about divesting, selling off 6,000 government buildings and the divesting of 15% of public lands. What would that look like? We just saw what happened in Ontario with the Conservatives under Doug Ford. It looks like profiteering, profits for developers. In fact, a handful of developers would have made $8.3 billion almost overnight, donors of the Doug Ford government. This is what it looks like when Conservatives divest public lands. Public lands belong in public hands, not in the pockets of developers.
The B.C. Liberals, who have now rebranded themselves as B.C. United, did the same thing. They sold off $493 million worth of public lands to the private sector, to donors of their party. That was worth $860 million just a couple of years later.
The Conservative ideas of selling off public lands ends up in the pockets of developers. We need to fix this. I am bringing forward a plan to do that. We know we need 3.5 million homes just to meet the demand by 2030. This is going to take a wartime-like effort to do that. We have to work together in the House if we are to achieve that. We have to remove barriers, and we need to provide guidelines and regulations so we do not have another Greenbelt or the scam like we saw in British Columbia, when the Conservative and the right wing get into government.
We need to ensure a regime is put in place. I put forward a motion at the government operations and estimates committee to do just that, to look at selling or leasing. We should not ever sell public lands. That should never, ever happen. We should only lease public lands. Public lands belong in public hands. I cannot say that enough.
If we do lease or use government buildings, it should be done with free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples whose lands we live, work and reside on. Also, they are the most impacted when it comes to homelessness, overcrowded housing and housing needs. They have to be part of the conversation; they cannot be left out.
I urge all of us to work together to provide regulations so that we never see a Greenbelt-style divestment of housing or government lands. That is not going to create affordable housing. That is not going to solve our housing crisis.
We heard from Leilani Farha, former special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, regarding this bill, which lacks a lot. She said, “I thought we were worried about affordability for tenants not developers! Average rents in Canada are now more than 2,000/mos. If the GST waiver is going to make a difference it must be conditional on building affordable units. Public value for public dollars.“ I want to thank her for that comment.
When I talk about how 3.5% of our housing is in non-market housing right now, over 30% this year is in corporate interests in REITs. We have seen corporations buy up a large amount of our residential housing stock. That needs to stop. We need to get to the opposite. It should be 30% non-market housing and 3.5% corporate housing. That is the problem. It has to get flipped on its head.
I will speak quickly, because I only have a couple of minutes left, about the Competition Act. Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro had $3.6 billion in profits, and that went in the pockets of the owners. The co-op in my hometown of Tofino had $12 million in sales in groceries, $16 million at the gas bar, $28 million in overall sales, and they gave back a 5% dividend to their members. They kept 0.5% for capital costs and improved services.
We need to ensure we have an excess profit tax on these excess profits for grocery store owners, and use some of that profit to support models like the co-op model. We know that that 5% went back into the hands of the people in my community. With the private sector, that money went into the pockets of people like Galen Weston. That needs to be discouraged. We need to find a better way forward.
We hear the Conservatives talk about the impact of the carbon tax. It is 0.15% of inflation, according to the Government of Canada. Eight in 10 families get it back. What they do not want to talk about is that they are fighting for the two in 10. It is a diversion tactic. The Conservatives do not want to talk about who they are really fighting for. If we do not do anything and put a price on carbon, then it is shouldered by the eight in 10 of all Canadians. If we do nothing, then there will be a carbon adjustment at the border, but the Conservatives do not want to talk about that. That would cripple industry in our country.
The truth is that grocery store prices have had a 56 times increase than the carbon tax impact on food and services, and 26 times in terms of the corporate greed and profit when it comes to grocery stores. I want to put things in perspective.
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Madam Speaker, first, I want to congratulate my colleague on his election.
One thing I did not hear in his speech was about corporate profits when it came to grocery prices. We know that corporate profits are contributing over 25 times the impact than the carbon tax, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada. He cites that the carbon tax is 0.15% in terms of its contributions to the overall impact of inflation.
I would like to hear whether my colleague believes there should be an excess profit tax on the big grocery stores like Sobeys, Metro and Loblaws, which had a $3.6-billion profit just last year alone. We saw grocery prices skyrocket. I hope my colleague can talk about the corporate greed and the impact that is having on inflation.
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