- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Port Moody—Coquitlam
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $129,260.13
- Government Page
- Oct/26/23 10:03:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, entitled “Financialization of Housing”.
Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.
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- Oct/23/23 3:11:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the City of Coquitlam has had to foot the bill to save affordable homes because the federal government is missing in action. Renters in my community are being displaced at alarming rates as their homes are being sold off to for-profit developers. Homelessness in Coquitlam is soaring. We cannot afford to lose more co-ops and rentals. The Liberals are turning their backs on local governments that are doing their best to protect low-income renters.
How many more people need to go homeless before the Liberals take this housing crisis seriously?
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- Oct/18/23 3:15:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, homelessness in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody is up by 86%. Community leaders from the Tri-Cities Homelessness & Housing Task Group are calling for political courage. I agree. People being unable to find a home is past the point of a crisis, and with colder weather on its way, action is needed, but the Liberals are out of touch, and their lack of concern is appalling.
What are the Liberals going to do to get people into affordable homes before the winter?
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- Oct/17/23 12:41:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for bringing up today the impact the housing crisis is having on women. I had a visit yesterday from some members of Parliament from the United Kingdom, and they were saying that the mortality rate of children is on the rise in the U.K. because women cannot find housing, so I just wanted to ask the member a question.
In 1993, Brian Mulroney ended all new federal funding for social housing construction. Does the member agree with that decision?
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- Feb/7/23 1:19:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the speech from the member today. I want to talk about some of the items that are top of the list of budget expenses in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam: housing and child care. I will talk specifically about housing.
Today, we are having a conversation about carbon tax, but really, relief on any carbon tax would affect very few people. However, relief on affordable housing is something huge. I wonder if the member would not mind sharing some of the solutions the Conservatives have brought to the table to fight the crisis of a lack of affordable housing, because we desperately need more affordable housing in this country.
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Mr. Speaker, there are people living in tents in this country and not by choice. There are people living in tents in urban centres and rural communities in this country. I do not think it is the time for the Liberals to be taking a victory lap on housing, because the Prime Minister had no choice but to make these very large investments, which, as the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques said, we have not seen hit the ground yet.
I have been on the front line of housing for eight years, and there is no scenario where the Liberals should be taking any victory lap on getting us to the point where Canadians need to live in tents.
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We have all heard the heartbreaking stories in our communities of those who have gone to the hospital for help and have not been able to make it in time or have decided not to go at all with fatal consequences. The government must invest in care workers immediately and increase the health care transfers the provinces have been calling for.
One in five people in this country work in the care economy, and those professionals, personal care workers, nurses and doctors have been exploited. That exploitation comes from discrimination. Gender discrimination has kept wages low in nursing. Nurses, teachers and child care workers are all disproportionately women. The government has not invested in their wages or their pensions, yet it expects them to carry the burden of an overloaded and underfunded economy and underfunded system.
The care economy is underpinned by the exploitation of immigrants as well. More often they are women without secured status. This is unacceptable. Immigrants deserve better. They deserve investment and support. New Democrats will continue to force the government to respect the workers in the care economy by paying them properly, giving immigrant care workers immediate permanent status and giving long-term care workers the protection they deserve with legislation.
We need workers in this country. Labour shortages are happening in every industry. This is a real problem that the government has not brought any solutions to yet. When we think about the labour force, we know that unaffordable housing is exasperating this problem. Workers cannot afford to live where they work. The Conservatives under the Mulroney government and then the Liberals under Chrétien axed housing programs in this country. In fact, the Liberals outright cancelled the national affordable housing program in 1993. That was almost 30 years ago. That is why we have a housing crisis before us.
Bill C-31 has a $500 housing subsidy that is coming for renters. This is a small, good gesture. This housing benefit is a one-time $500 payment to Canadians who qualify. Specifically, it will help families who earn a net income of less than $35,000 a year. There are many people in Canada who earn less than $35,000 a year in this environment. That is 1.8 million Canadians. This renters' benefit will make a real difference at this critical time.
Financialization of housing needs to be addressed immediately. It is contributing to unaffordability. The Conservatives will say that they are there for people on housing, but they do not talk about the need for affordable housing and the right kind of housing. This is not just a supply issue. One in five Canadians are paying more than 30% of their total income for their housing and that is not sustainable. At the same time, for every new unit of affordable rental housing, 15 units are being lost. There are 15 units lost for every new one, and we wonder why we are seeing homelessness on our streets. This is affecting the most marginalized people in the country, pushing them every day to the brink, to a tent pitched in a street.
As the NDP disability critic, I hear from the disability community of the realities of not being able to make ends meet with skyrocketing housing costs and the threat of displacement every day. Food costs are also becoming unmanageable. As they wait for movement on the Canada disability benefit, they are falling further and further behind. Bill C-22 needs to come back to the House immediately so that the long-term support that persons living with disabilities deserve, and should be legislated, can be passed in the House.
Almost one million persons with disabilities are living in poverty. It is a disgrace. It will only take the will of the Liberals and Conservatives, who could have supported the unanimous consent motion from the member for Kitchener Centre last week, to fast-track this benefit. The New Democrats are ready to do so.
Coming back to the cost of food, in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, a disproportionate number of food bank and food rescue recipients are persons with disabilities, and more children are becoming food insecure. Too many schools are having to feed the children of our communities. We are in a country full of natural resources and with a new bursting aspiration to make batteries for electric vehicles, yet we are not investing in food. If it were not for the not-for-profit sector, even more Canadians would be hungry right now.
Failed policies to give to the rich while taking away social safety nets, such as affordable housing, are hurting people in this country. A beacon of the Canadian social safety net is our health care plan. Thanks to the New Democrats, that finally includes a historical dental care plan, which is a profound and long-lasting benefit for millions of Canadians and will be transformational for generations to come. We have heard many times while discussing Bill C-31 that the number one surgery for kids in hospitals is for tooth decay. How is it possible in Canada that kids need to go to the hospital to be put to sleep to deal with their dental care?
With the heavy lifting of the New Democrats, the Liberals have finally taken the first steps to true universal health care by adding long-awaited dental care. It should not have taken this long, and the New Democrats will hold the current government to account for a full rollout to every Canadian who needs it.
I will take a moment here to speak about persons with disabilities and their dental care. There was a woman in my riding who was on disability benefits and had coverage for dental care. However, the clinic she was going to was charging $20 per visit, and she could not go for her second visit because she did not have the $20. It is not acceptable that this is the situation we are putting too many Canadians in.
We know that 35% of Canadians lack proper dental insurance, and that number jumps to 50% when we talk about low-income Canadians. There are seven million Canadians who avoid going to the dentist because of costs. It is shameful and something that has to change. Canada's most vulnerable face the highest rates of dental decay and disease and have the worst dental care. The New Democrats are going to change that. We will not give up until all Canadians have access to the dental care they need. This is health care, and we need to start with kids.
Lastly, when it comes to getting immediate support to Canadians, the New Democrats led the way on Bill C-30, which would double the GST credit. This rebate should have come a lot sooner. In fact, for over six months, the NDP has been calling on the government to double the GST credit. We have relentlessly pushed for this, and now we know that 11 million Canadians who need it the most would get some financial relief, likely before the end of this year. People in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam are asking when they can get it. They are desperately in need of any kind of financial support in these times.
Because of successive Conservative and Liberal governments, we do not have social safety nets to keep people in homes, keep food in the fridge or keep people healthy in this country. With much pressure on the Liberal government from the NDP, and with no help from the Conservatives, the House is in a position to make lives just a tiny bit better for people by providing these very small income supports immediately. New Democrats will always put people first, but the Liberal government needs to start making real investments in people and their well-being in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciated the speech from the member today about the uncharted territory. I would ask the member if he could share some thoughts on how he thinks the axing of the affordable housing programs back in the nineties by the Liberal government, and their not being reinstated by successive Conservative governments and Liberal governments, has really impacted affordable housing in the province of Quebec.
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- Dec/9/21 6:07:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the things I note, and some of my colleagues have also spoken about, is the need for not-for-profits, social housing and co-ops. I see that seems to have been forgotten or missed in this motion.
Why were the social housing, the co-ops and the not-for-profit opportunities not included in the initial motion?
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- Dec/9/21 4:25:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it looks like we may have some common ground on partnerships and potential social housing opportunities.
I would ask this again. Would the Conservatives consider an amendment to the 15%?That could be kept in public hands and used for social housing.
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- Dec/9/21 4:08:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the summary of the things being put forward by the Conservatives. I wanted to speak a little about using public assets for potential private development.
This happened at the provincial level in my very own riding with schools. What were considered to be excess school sites were sold off, but then, when development came around, we needed to buy land again for schools, so it is in my mind that I would not want that to happen to public assets.
My question is around the 15%. These are public assets, including public buildings and public real estate. Do the Conservatives support the idea that they should stay in the public's hands and that they should be social housing or subsidized federal housing?
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- Dec/9/21 3:54:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as someone who was on the ground for almost nine years in a municipality struggling with affordable housing, I wish we had seen this passion from the government when we saw money laundering, the lowest incomes, those with the most wealth taking advantage of housing to earn interest and the gentrification of family neighbourhoods.
I want to ask a question about the rapid housing initiative. We know that under the initiative, many applications were denied. I wonder if the member can tell us how many of the rapid housing requests submitted by municipalities were denied. My colleague from Courtenay—Alberni had a community-sponsored one, and it was denied.
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- Dec/2/21 7:17:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I remember the minister coming to my community for an opening, for a photo opportunity, and the government came in at the very last minute, at the 11th hour of that project, with a loan. After almost five years of negotiation with local partners, with non-profits, with our city and with the taxpayers of the city of Coquitlam, who came forward with their own money, the government showed up at the 11th hour with a small loan.
This is not working for housing providers. The housing is just not getting on the ground at the speed that it needs to come. In relation to the rapid housing initiatives, that information did not come down to municipalities fast enough. There were so many problems and gaps with it. There were many, many projects denied, which did not get built.
We need solutions now. I understand there are plans. What can we be doing now?
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- Dec/2/21 7:09:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of talk in the House about housing supply.
Across the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, up to 25% of newly built luxury condos are sitting vacant and homes, including older housing co-ops and purpose-built rental apartments that have served our communities for decades are being bought up by developers at a rapid speed. Developers are buying them up, because government policies have turned the housing market into a stock market.
Governments at every level have overseen the financialization of housing. Instead of protecting our social housing stock they encouraged upzoning and gentrification in the name of density. Density dreams belong to developers. The financialization of housing is only working for the wealthy and leaving people behind. Truly affordable social housing has been sacrificed to create an asset class for pension funds and the wealthiest people and companies across the globe.
Right now in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, hundreds of older townhomes and apartments are sitting empty. There are entire blocks of single-family homes boarded up ready for redevelopment, and these homes have been empty for years. Developers choose not to fill them, so they do not have spend one cent on maintenance or pay tenants out when the time comes to begin redevelopment. This is wrong.
During this housing crisis, governments have allowed wealthy developers to hoard housing, allowing perfectly good homes to sit empty to protect the profits of corporations over the well-being of my residents.
There is also a problem with the marketing of housing. High-end sales centres for luxury condos exist overseas. Actually, when a traveller arrives through the international terminal at YVR, there are enticing posters of luxury housing to attract international investment. Even on the local front, developers begin marketing projects even before the municipalities rezone the land. It is disrespectful and it disregards communities.
The current housing crisis appears to be a crisis of negligence in protecting precious housing supply that people call home. I hear the calls for “supply, supply, supply”, and I need to clarify that call. What is needed is affordable supply. The federal government must put a laser focus on maintaining what is left of housing co-ops, purpose-built rentals, not-for-profit-run housing, in the country before it is all gone, and the federal government needs to immediately reinvest in social housing, not in capital loans, but ongoing, stable operating funds to get people housed now.
I want to share just a few of the things I have heard from social housing partners on the ground that are competing with corporate interests to keep the most vulnerable housed. For every one new purpose-built rental unit that is being built, we are losing three. The federal government needs a moratorium on REITs. The rate they are buying up co-ops and purpose-built rental housing is alarming and is contributing to disappearing rental stock. We need a social development acquisition fund in addition to the urban housing accelerator fund, so not-for-profits can buy housing.
What I hear from the not-for-profits is that right now they need to put up their own capital to secure funding for the rental housing incentives, and that does not work for them. CMHC is not nimble enough. The limitations at CMHC need to be fixed. It has not been able to deliver housing at the pace of the need.
I ask the minister again to get much-needed affordable homes to people now.
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- Nov/25/21 2:50:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after six years of the Trudeau government, one in three Canadians cannot afford to buy a home. In my riding, most of the new housing is luxury condos. A home should not be a privilege accessible to only the wealthiest. We need truly affordable housing, housing that is accessible to everyone, and Canadians need it now, not in five or 10 years.
Will the government finally commit to making truly affordable homes a priority in the upcoming budget?
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