- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Kelowna—Lake Country
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,412.70
- Government Page
- Oct/30/23 3:41:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government, Canada is in a housing crisis that the Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government are responsible for creating based on their decisions and policies. They want Canadians to forget how bad housing has become during their time in government. Red tape, bureaucracy and soaring costs have slowed down builders' construction of new homes when Canadians need them most.
Since 2015, house prices have doubled in Canada. Monthly mortgage costs have more than doubled and are now over $3,500 a month. It takes over 60% of Canadians' income to cover the cost of owning a home. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Canada's 10 biggest cities is $2,314 a month, compared to $1,171. Nine out of 10 young people in this country who do not own homes believe they never will.
According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, housing starts are dropping dangerously across the country. Housing starts are down 25% in Ontario and 10% in Toronto. In my home province of British Columbia, Vancouver is down 17% on a seasonal basis. Before the current government, it took 25 years to pay off a mortgage; now it takes 25 years just to save for the down payment.
We increasingly see stories in British Columbia of people returning to the rental market because they cannot afford their mortgages. According to UBS Group, Toronto is ranked as the world's worst housing bubble; and Vancouver is the third most unaffordable housing market on earth. We built fewer homes last year than we did in 1972, when our population was half the size; however, we see $27 million in bonuses at the CMHC, while it fails to fulfill its own mandate of affordable homes.
Conservatives have offered a plan to help Canadians in the building homes not bureaucracy act, a private member's bill tabled by the leader of the official opposition. If made into law, this common-sense bill would require big, unaffordable cities to build more homes and speed up the rate at which they build homes every year to meet our housing targets. It would reward municipalities eliminating costly gatekeepers and roadblocks based on the number of housing units completed, not just started. It would ensure that more housing units are constructed around public transit stations. It would cut the bonuses and salaries of those at CMHC if it is unable to speed up approval of applications for housing programs to an average of 60 days. It would list 15% of the federal government's 37,000 buildings and all appropriate federal land to be turned into homes people can afford. Finally, it would remove GST on the building of any new homes with rental prices below market value.
Removing the GST for rental with prices below market value is of particular importance; this would help build more affordable and attainable units for residents in my community and across the country. The Liberal members opposite know that, under their GST plan, the exemption will be used to construct luxury apartments instead of affordable units. It is simple: Canadians need homes, and builders want to build them. However, the Liberal government's failed policies are stopping them every step of the way, which has led to higher inflation and higher interest rates.
When builders are struggling to start new housing construction, the Prime Minister increases the cost to build by not having a softwood lumber agreement, making the cost of wood used for construction higher in Canada. His deficit spending has increased inflation and caused high interest rates. The Canadian dollar being consistently low compared with the U.S. dollar means that all the goods purchased for home construction, whether raw materials or refrigerators, cost more for Canadians. We can easily go across the border to the U.S. and find comparable houses at half the price.
Interest rates are higher than ever in a generation, which means higher debt costs and less money to put toward construction costs. Over 60% of the price of a home in Vancouver is due to delays, fees, regulations and taxes. Why would any person want to build new homes when the high debt costs, increased construction costs, fees and regulations seem to be never-ending? It took the government eight years to roll out its accelerator fund as part of its national housing strategy, but there is no clear, direct correlation between this fund and the total objectives of all its programs to build the 3.5 million new homes needed in just seven years, by 2030. This is the number the CMHC has given that would make housing affordable once again in Canada.
That is the legacy of the Liberals' national housing strategy. Today, my Conservative colleagues and I had the opportunity to question the president and CEO of the CMHC at the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, or the HUMA committee. My colleague from Parry Sound—Muskoka explained that, according to the Governor of the Bank of Canada, inflation and shelter prices are running above 6%. Part of this is due to mortgage interest costs, following Canada's increases in interest rates. Because of the structural shortage of housing supply and higher rents, inflation is becoming a more persistent issue in Canada.
The president of CMHC explained that in order to achieve housing affordability in Canada, we need an across-the-board increase in housing supply. He also said that CMHC recognizes that the private sector is the biggest player in supplying and building affordable housing in Canada; Canada requires private sector capital, and governments must create economic conditions that incentivize this private sector investment in housing; and innovation and addressing the skilled labour supply will help create these conditions.
Instead of demonizing the construction industry and all private sector housing providers for the lack of affordable housing, government must be focused on lowering the cost and time to build through reforms at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, ending the inflationary deficits that are driving up interest rates.
In meeting number 48 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, in the study on the national housing strategy, the chief economist at CMHC said the following:
The “financialization” of housing is a word we hear a lot. The reality in Canada is that about 95% of the rental market is provided by the private sector, so financialization is something that exists by design in our rental market.
Conservative members believe that the private sector is not only critical but also essential to solving the housing crisis. No government can spend its way out of a housing crisis, but the government needs to provide incentives and, most importantly, taxation regimes and policies that will help keep costs and interest rates down.
At the HUMA committee today, my Conservative colleague from Simcoe North asked the CMHC president how much additional cost will be imposed through the NRCan and the National Research Council's national building code. She said that the CMHC is doing a study on this and it may have an impact; this building code has been around for about three or four years now. However, CMHC is also just now doing this study.
These are costs that are borne by the developer or the homeowner, if they are the developer, of the home or the units. Ultimately, the owner of the unit will pay the price. Some studies are suggesting that this code will cost $30,000 to $50,000 a unit.
The Liberals' record on housing has resulted in rents that have doubled, mortgage payments that have doubled, an ongoing and worsening housing supply gap and housing starting to decrease. In addition, the Liberals have no idea whether the billions spent on reducing homelessness has made any difference. The government is simply not worth the cost.
Therefore, I would like to move the following amendment:
That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following:
“the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, presented on Monday, June 12, 2023, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities with instruction that it amend the same to include reference to recent Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation data indicating housing starts are decelerating quickly, with housing starts in Vancouver on a seasonal basis down 17% in just the last month, in Toronto housing starts in September have dropped 10% when comparing September 2023 with September 2022, Canada's national numbers show an 8% decrease in September 2023 compared to September 2022, and on a provincial level, Ontario and British Columbia continue to be hit hard, and September 2023 saw a 24% drop in Ontarian housing starts, with British Columbia showing a 26% drop from September last year, roughly 4,000 less homes than were begun last year in just Canada's two least affordable provinces; and accordingly, that it recommend that the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities take responsibility for the extent of the failures of the National Housing Strategy, the scale of the housing crisis, and the Liberal record on housing since 2015, and further recommend that the government bring in measures to address the housing crisis including measures similar to the proposals contained in Bill C-356, Building Homes Not Bureaucracy Act.”
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- Sep/29/23 11:38:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, 97% is the percentage of shared income a household would need in order to cover home ownership costs now in Vancouver. This is from a new RBC report, which says that housing affordability in most major Canadian cities is near all-time worst levels.
The Prime Minister also holds the all-time record for incurring more debt during his eight years than all other prime ministers combined. Housing is less affordable than ever. The Prime Minister is just not worth the cost.
Will the Prime Minister finally stop his inflationary spending so Canadians can keep a roof over their head?
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the residents of Kelowna—Lake Country.
Just as a reminder, I am splitting my time with the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek.
I will lay out some of the issues with the Liberal child care bill, Bill C-35, that will need to be addressed.
I thank those who work in the child care system and who look after our children.
To be clear, this is not a child care strategy. In my province of British Columbia, a 2019 survey found that the greater Vancouver area, represented by several cabinet ministers in the Liberal government, had only enough child care spaces for 18.6% of children in the metro region. That is bad enough in urban areas of our country, but in many rural regions of Canada large child care centres do not exist at all. This bill offers rural parents or those who need flexibility nothing. Again, it chooses to ignore the simple fact that low-cost child care is not possible if child care resources are not accessible to begin with.
However, the rural-urban divide is not the only issue with this legislation. There is a serious concern about the complete lack of focus on ensuring that child care spaces go to those most in need instead of creating advantages for the already well off. After all, affordable child care should be prioritized for those who otherwise cannot afford it.
There is no means test. Under the current Liberal proposal, someone who works on Bay Street with children already in day care will get access to $10-a-day child care the same as a lower-income family. People who do not need to work have the same access as a family who needs to work.
There is no flexibility for families who are not working the weekday office job hours and who currently have different types of child care options that work for their shift work or their schedules. That is because this legislation dogmatically preferences not-for-profit and government child care over operators working and running child care centres in the private sector. These are people, most often women, who work in their homes, who have small businesses and who often have young children.
When my son was a baby I found someone to come into my home part time. That was back when maternity leave was only six months, and it was hard to work with such a young baby. Having someone come in was expensive, and I was not making a lot at the time. However, it was the only option I had at the time as few child care centres took infants that young or would allow me flexibility with part-time needs and hours. Christina became like family.
Anyone who has this type of scenario would not be applicable in this legislation. When my son was a toddler he was in the home of a wonderful woman, Pauline, who had a group of kids. Because I needed flexibility in child care due to the type of contract work I was doing at the time, the larger, structured child care centres did not work for what I needed.
The scenario of in-home small business child care does not meet the priorities of the government's legislation. Instead of giving parents freedom to determine what child care works best for their children and their lives, the government has opened the door for a two-tiered framework of child care. Under the government's plan, only not-for-profit and government child care spaces have open access for parents to utilize the Liberals' program as the legislation states is the priority. That is not universal access and the legislation does not include strategies to address spaces or labour.
We know there are labour shortages. About a year ago, in Kelowna, it was announced by one centre that they had to say goodbye to about 24 children, because they could not find the staff to meet the government licensing requirements. That left families scrambling with little ability to find a new location with waiting lists being long.
A Vancouver operator of 300 spaces said, “In the past two years, we've had to close programs temporarily, whether it's for a day or two, or shorten hours for a week”. A report on child care recruitment published in January 2023 found that in British Columbia, 45% of child care centres are losing more staff than they can hire, and 27% of child care employers turned away children because of a lack of qualified staff.
To adequately staff the Liberals' proposed plan in British Columbia, they found that 12,000 new child care employees were required. Still, current recruitment and retention programs are failing with several thousand employees behind target.
When the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development put this bill forward, she said its purpose was to enshrine the Liberals' record on children and family into law. However, their record on this file is something that they are not strong champions of. Canada was once ranked 10th among the OECD for the well-being of children, but under the present government, Canada has fallen sharply to 30th place.
We will work on this side of the House to try to make this legislation better and more accessible to parents who want and deserve the freedom to decide what kind of child care works for their family. Looking beyond this, a future Conservative government will work hard on ways to increase child care workers and spaces and to ensure there are stable, good-paying jobs for families to keep more of the money they earn in their pockets.
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- Oct/26/22 2:40:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again Canadians have been slammed by another punishing interest rate hike of 0.5%, bringing interest rates to 3.75%, all brought in to combat the inflation caused by this Prime Minister.
Residents know it has never been more expensive to buy a home in Canada than it has just become under the Liberal government. Housing prices have doubled during the Liberals' seven years in power, with a typical single-family home in my region hovering around a million dollars. Nationwide, the average Canadian now spends 60% of their income on home ownership costs alone. Under the Prime Minister, Toronto has become the number one housing bubble in the world, where it is more expensive to buy a home than in New York, Hong Kong or San Francisco. Vancouver is not far behind, as the sixth highest.
It is not just homeowners who are struggling to make ends meet due to the Liberal inflation. The average rent in Canada is now over $2,000 a month, a yearly increase of over 15%. This is not sustainable.
We have a plan, as a Conservative government, to take action to address this housing crisis.
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