- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- New Brunswick Southwest
- New Brunswick
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,506.39
- Government Page
- May/2/23 4:26:37 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Kenora.
Homebuyers across Canada are confronted by two massive obstacles that they must work through as they try to buy and finance a home. First, families are struggling with the devastating impact of the Liberal government's economic mismanagement and its housing plans. To great fanfare, the government announced Canada's national housing strategy in 2017 to make housing, it said, more affordable and accessible. It has been an obvious and utter failure.
Canada's home prices have doubled since 2015. Today, the average home price in this country is an eye-popping $800,000. Ask any recent buyer or aspiring buyer if they are better off today than they were eight years ago, and the answer is a resounding, emphatic no.
The second obstacle is the cost of financing a home, which has skyrocketed. Thanks to the Liberal government's massive deficit spending, Canada's debt has doubled to $1.2 trillion. On top of that, the interest rates to service that debt have skyrocketed and will soon hit $50 billion every single year.
The indirect costs of that debt are significant. Reckless spending has fuelled inflation to levels Canadians have not seen in 40 years, and this has driven up interest costs. The result is higher mortgage payments. Today the average mortgage payment in this country has doubled to $3,000 a month. These two factors have made home ownership more expensive and pushed it out of reach for countless Canadians, particularly young Canadians.
The lack of housing and higher costs have also been ruinous to home and apartment rentals. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Canada's 10 biggest cities is now $2,213, compared to $1,170 before Canada's Liberals broke the housing market. Vancouver and Toronto are now the third and tenth most unaffordable cities in the world, outstripping places like New York and London.
Big city governments that delay permits and have excess red tape and taxes can add as much as $200,000 to the cost of each new home built in this country. No wonder people cannot afford to buy a home, with prices like this being driven up by the gatekeepers.
Owning a home and raising a family are the foundation of the Canadian dream, yet for many this dream appears to be slipping further and further away. It is out of reach because the Liberals are out of touch. Home ownership has become an impossibility for too many Canadians since the Liberals first took office. In Canada, it is considered affordable to buy a home if the cost is less than 30% of a household's before-tax income. It now takes 60% of Canadians' income to cover the cost of owning a home. Those who have scrimped and saved for years to afford their first home now find themselves questioning if they can ever achieve the Canadian dream.
This crisis did not happen overnight. It has steadily worsened every year the Liberals have been in office. The Bank of Canada's governor, as well as the finance minister, led people to believe that interest rates would remain low. Today, thousands of Canadians are grappling with the stark reality that those entrusted with governing and overseeing the nation's finances failed.
The Canadian dream was once a straightforward proposition: work hard; play by the rules; finish school; get a decent job; get married; save each month for a down payment; have a family; and one day retire, owning one's home. However, for many of my constituents in New Brunswick, those who have done everything right, this dream is unattainable today. That is, no matter how hard families work or how much they save, the dream of home ownership is a mirage.
The Liberals have failed to deliver affordable housing, and that was made abundantly clear in the Auditor General's report last November, which revealed that, despite spending tens of billions of dollars, and the Liberals are great at rattling off program after program and the mounds of money they have spent, when it comes to homelessness, the numbers keep rising.
The Auditor General says that the departments responsible, Infrastructure Canada and Employment and Social Development Canada, failed to even adequately track results, instead relying on outdated national shelter data to assess the effectiveness of their programs. In fact, the government's numbers, even using numbers the Auditor General said were less than reliable, indicate homelessness has increased nationally by 6.6% since 2018. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people who no longer have homes.
The Auditor General also underscored that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, which oversees the majority of the housing strategies under the government, has no idea who benefits from its initiatives. Low-income families are being priced out of the market by funding rental housing that is supposedly affordable, but proves to be unaffordable for working families. It is an absolute mess.
Housing is one pillar of the Canadian dream, and the other is raising a family, yet the high cost of living, driven by inflated housing prices, has further discouraged Canadians from that other joy of life, which is starting a family. The average household debt in Canada reached 183% of disposable income in 2022, limiting the financial freedom and security of many Canadians.
The risk of homelessness is also going up because demand for homes has surpassed supply. New Brunswick's many affordable units were purchased in the last couple of years in my riding. This has forced people out, as buyers either moved in or increased rents. Families have been forced to move elsewhere to work and live. This has had a twin impact on the labour market, as small communities now cannot keep young families, which tend to be part of the economic foundation of these economies because they provide work for businesses and start small businesses, and it is not always by choice. This is happening because they are being priced right out of their neighbourhoods.
For those who cannot move or find an affordable place to live, the result is sadly and frequently homelessness, and this has a devastating impact on one's mental health, as well as personal safety. For the most vulnerable, those who are on the edge of poverty or trying to break the cycle, there are nowhere near enough shelter spaces, supported housing for persons with addictions or disabilities, rental units, or even starter homes. It is imperative that we address the housing crisis at its core by scaling up and building more. No government program is going to solve this problem. We need to build homes for future families. The Liberals cannot, but Conservatives will get it done.
The CMHC has noted that, as of April 27, the housing shortage throughout Canada is going to worsen. The agency has predicted that there will be a 32% decline in home building this year, as the cost of borrowing remains high and building costs have risen by 20% in the past year alone.
How is the carbon tax working now? We said it was a tax on everything, and it is. It is driving up the cost of living in this country, especially on new homes. It is Canadians, despite the government insisting it is doing everything right, who are paying the price. A Conservative government would incentivize home construction across Canada.
Step one would be to fix Canada's affordability crisis is restoring credibility to Ottawa's budgets. We would restore the federal government's finances, which have contributed to inflation and higher interest rates on home buyers. We would impose penalties on big city gatekeepers for excessive obstruction of housing projects. We would require cities seeking federal funds to pre-approve zoning for high-density housing and employment on land surrounding transit stations and hubs.
Last, we will sell off at least 15% of underutilized federal buildings in its property to ensure these buildings become affordable housing for families.
We must make the dream of home ownership a reality for families again. This is the only way we can secure a brighter future for our nation, for our children and for the next generation.
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- Apr/27/23 11:26:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are becoming tiresome with their one answer to the affordability crisis. The affordability crisis in this country is not just for families with children who are facing struggles. It is about pensioners. It is about small businesses. It is about families throughout this economy, whether they are on a fixed income, whether they are earning a low or modest wage. The government needs a better answer to that as opposed to just ringing on about day care and its plan on that. This is the problem: Any senior who comes into their office is going to talk about the struggles they have in making ends meet.
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- May/17/22 1:06:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is what qualifies as not being honest in the House, apparently. One moment the member says that we cannot have affordable, cheap gasoline, and when he is called on it, he says that he did not say that. In fact, it is exactly what the NDP is saying.
What is the NDP's position? Does the NDP want high gasoline prices, which means Canadians are going to pay, or does it want gasoline prices to come down so that Canadians get a break and we have affordable prices?
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