- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Port Moody—Coquitlam
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $129,260.13
- Government Page
- May/27/24 11:25:38 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the firewall manifesto envisions that decision-making processes that affect people's lives and freedoms flow through premiers' offices. This is exactly what the leader of the Conservatives wants to do when he says he will use the notwithstanding clause to pass his laws. The NDP is here to stop him. This right-wing ideology of Conservatives imposing their will on women and all Canadians is dangerous and serves only the corporate class who have controlled federal governments since Confederation.
This reality is so obviously true in housing. Governments at every level have overseen the financialization of housing. Instead of protecting our social housing stock for people, they have encouraged upzoning and gentrification in the name of density. Density dreams belong to developers, who have made millions and billions of dollars off the displacement of low- and middle-income Canadians. The financialization of housing is only working for the wealthy and leaving people behind. The well-being of persons with disabilities and seniors is sacrificed to millionaire CEOs.
Liberal and Conservative governments have ensured that truly affordable social housing has been sacrificed to create an asset class for the wealthiest people and companies across the globe. Right now in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, hundreds of affordable townhomes and apartments are being emptied and are sitting empty. There are entire blocks of homes boarded up, ready for redevelopment, and some of these homes have been empty for years. Developers choose not to fill them so they do not have to spend one cent on maintenance or pay tenants out when the time comes to begin their 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 residents. High-end sales centres for luxury condos exist in every neighbourhood across this country, right beside where low- and middle-income Canadians have been displaced. These corporate density dreams are not focused on local buyers; they are marketing their luxury product overseas. When a traveller arrives in the international terminal of YVR, they are enticed by posters of luxury housing to attract international investment.
The current housing crisis is a crisis of negligence in protecting precious housing supply that people call home. I hear the calls for supply in the community, but this is not what this bill is talking about. I need to clarify what that supply call needs to be: affordable housing supply. The federal government must put a laser focus on maintaining what is left of housing co-ops, purpose-built rentals and not-for-profit housing in the country. It has to put that before investment. The federal government needs to immediately reinvest in social housing, not in capital loans, which it so feebly continues to bring forward, but ongoing stable operating funds to get people housed now.
The need to act cannot wait, and the solution is not Conservative gatekeeping. Conservative policies are the ones that caused this problem. We cannot have one more person lose their home because they have been displaced by corporate capitalism.
Let me reiterate how Canadians got into a situation where homelessness is growing, rents are skyrocketing and property purchase is out of reach for an entire generation. Conservative and Liberal governments encouraged the financialization of housing instead of protecting our social housing stock. They encouraged upzoning and gentrification in the name of density and profits. Density dreams are for developers. The financialization of housing is only working for the wealthy, and the most impacted right now are renters. We are losing rental homes at a rate of 15:1. For every new unit the government prides itself on building, an unaffordable new unit, it has not protected 15 other renters, who now have to find themselves evicted or demovicted from their homes.
The government must immediately act to end the financialization of housing before more Canadians lose their homes, before more children are displaced from their schools and their friends and before more seniors lose services as they are forced out of the community in which they live. I can guarantee that what the Conservatives have proposed in this bill would not do that. As a city councillor in Coquitlam, I saw how these types of policies played out, with the trading of density happening in the corner offices, while seniors, persons with disabilities and single moms were losing their homes.
I am going to tell the story about 500 Foster, a redevelopment in the city of Coquitlam. I went to see those folks before a public hearing, only to find out they received a letter from the developer, even before upzoning, telling them to start moving out. There was a single mother with a child who has a disability and a senior over 70, begging me to find him what he called an “old person's home” to move into. This is going on in every community of this country.
I will close by saying that New Democrats that know housing is a human right and that we will continue to stand up for people and block the harmful ideologies of the corporate Conservatives, who are attempting to roll back the clock so that the Leader of the Opposition can continue to act like a high school bully.
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Mr. Speaker, the government member just said that, since 2015, the Liberals have recognized that the federal government needs to be involved in housing. That is not true.
I am the representative for the NDP on HUMA. The housing minister of the very recent past refused to acknowledge that the Liberals have a market-driven lens on their take on housing. I can tell members that it has been damaging to my community of Port Moody—Coquitlam, and they are still doing it.
I think about the rents right now and the seniors in my community who are being displaced by the gentrification. There has been luxury condo after luxury condo that the federal government has loaned money for. It has not spent a dollar on operating, when it needs to subsidize and help those seniors stay in homes. We have seniors living in tents.
I am not going to let the Liberals take a victory lap on the work they have done since 2015 because they have done nothing.
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-31 is here at a very critical time for millions of Canadians. There are too many Canadians struggling with the rising cost of living and the challenge of keeping rent paid and food in the fridge. As the NDP critic for disability inclusion, I hear from the disability community of the realities of skyrocketing housing and food costs and how it is impacting them disproportionately.
Fifty per cent of food bank users are now persons with disabilities. This is unacceptable and the Liberal government has a responsibility to uphold the human rights of persons with disabilities and ensure that they have an adequate standard of living. That is why Bill C-22, the Canada disability benefit, cannot come fast enough for almost a million Canadians with a disability.
Inequality is rising at an exponential rate in Canada and, while grocery chains are bringing in billions of dollars in profits, everyday Canadians are falling further and further behind. Corporate greed is increasing. This crisis of corporate greed is driving inflation and it is affecting everyday Canadians. It affects some more than others. It especially affects persons with disabilities, single mothers and fixed and low-income families. These are long-standing issues. With the current greed inflation, crises are happening now all across communities in Canada and people need help immediately.
Many of them are renters. That is why the renters component of Bill C-31 is so important and why it needs to get out as soon as possible. This housing benefit is a one-time $500 payment for Canadians who qualify, specifically families who earn a net income of less than $35,000 a year. People are already asking me when this will become available.
This payment will help 1.8 million Canadians with the cost of living, and it will make a real difference in their lives. It is something that the government should have brought in months and months ago. Too many renters have had to rely on rent banks throughout this pandemic. Too many people have already lost their rental housing. They are living in their cars, in tents or are couch surfing. This is the reality in communities across Canada. Tents, and I spoke of this yesterday, are now homes for more and more Canadians as they search for stable, affordable rental housing
I want to take a moment here to talk about payday loans. We have so many in my community of Port Moody—Coquitlam who are having to pay their rent through a payday loan, and we know that those interest rates are out of hand. I just want to point out that there is a bill from my colleague here from New Westminster—Burnaby on reducing those interest rates. The interest rates, for the most vulnerable who use payday loans, are criminal.
The need to act cannot wait. We cannot have one more person lose their home because they cannot afford their rent. The NDP is committed to ensure that this legislation gets through quickly, so that people can get this payment by the end of the year.
Let us not forget how Canadians got into a situation where rents are unaffordable. Conservative and Liberal governments 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 are for developers. The financialization of housing is only working for the wealthy and is leaving people behind. The most impacted are renters in need of low- to mid-income affordable homes.
We are losing affordable homes at a rate of 15:1. For every new unit this government prides themselves on building, it has not protected 15 other renters who now find themselves evicted or demovicted from their homes. Truly affordable social housing has been sacrificed to create an asset class for pension funds and for the wealthiest people and companies across the globe.
Even after Bill C-31 passes, the government must immediately act to end the financialization of housing before more Canadians lose their homes, before more children are displaced from their schools and their friends, and before more seniors lose services, as they are forced out of the community in which they raised their children.
The second part of this legislation is related to the cost of living as well, and it will have profound and long-lasting benefits for millions of Canadians. It is transformational and will make a difference for generations to come. It is dental care.
New Democrats have always known that everyone, no matter their income, should have access to basic health care, yet ever since the Canada Health Act was first passed, it has been a project incomplete. It has been a vision unfulfilled. Aspects of our health were not included in the legislation that created universal health care. Things like our eyes, mental health, which we are recognizing this month, and dental care are integral to our concept of health and to our health outcomes. They must be included in Canada's universal health care.
Today, with Bill C-31, we take the next step to universal health care by adding the long-awaited dental care. Thirty-five per cent of Canadians lack proper dental insurance and that number jumps to 50% when we are talking about low-income Canadians. Seven million Canadians avoid going to the dentist because of the cost. It is shameful. It is something that has to change. Canada's most vulnerable face the highest rates of dental decay and disease, and the worst access to dental care. There is something wrong here. It needs to change and New Democrats are going to make sure it changes.
The legislation in front of us begins with getting uninsured children of low- and modest-income families the care they need. Kids deserve it. The most prominent day surgery in hospitals among children is dental care. Shamefully, tooth decay remains the most common, yet preventable, chronic childhood illness in Canada because too many families cannot afford a visit to the dentist's office. It has taken 50 years to protect all children with this dental care plan. We are here now, so let us make it happen.
In closing, New Democrats are in a position to use their power to force the government to immediately make life better for people by providing rent support now and essential dental care in the long term. However, let us not forget why we are here in need of these emergency benefits. It is because of bad policies put forward by successive Liberal and Conservative governments, policies that put corporate profits and tax protections for the ultrawealthy before the social fabric of Canada.
Both the Liberals and the Conservatives turned their backs on investments in housing and health care in favour of a private market-driven model that is not working. In fact, it is hurting people. This decades-long lack of government investment in people is why we need Bill C-31, but make no mistake. It is just the beginning of building back necessary social supports so that all people can thrive. New Democrats will continue to lead that charge and use our power to work for Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, I did want to share something similar on the encampments.
In my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, there has basically been a gentrification. I met an EA, a woman in her sixties, on the street a couple of weeks ago. She is afraid that she is going to lose her home because she is being lobbied weekly by these large real estate developers. They want to be sold the land. They want her out of her home, and she does not actually own that home. She rents the basement suite.
It is the Wild West of real estate right now. I think that it starts with a moratorium on REITs. We are losing co-op housing and affordable rental housing to REITs. We need to start with that moratorium, and then we need to move on to, yes, more taxes.
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