- Member of Parliament
- Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Leader of the Opposition
- Conservative
- Carleton
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $61,288.13
- Government Page
- May/29/24 2:59:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister likes to talk about austerity. I think that the Barnfield family of four in Calgary can tell him all about austerity, because that is what they are living right now because of his housing hell, his carbon taxes, and his inflation. They said, “we're having to choose between paying a bill or getting food, and that can be really hard. It makes things really difficult.... And I just don't see any end in sight.”
Will the Prime Minister accept our common-sense plan to axe the tax, fix the budget and build the homes, so that the Barnfield family, and so many others, can eat, heat and house themselves?
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- May/29/24 2:49:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the question was not how quickly the Prime Minister could read off talking points written for him by his staff. The question was whether he is going to break yet another housing promise. Remember, he promised he would lower housing costs; he doubled them. He promised he would double the number of homes built; they went down.
Now the Prime Minister is promising 3.9 million new homes by 2031. That means 550,000 new homes this and every year. Will he keep that promise, yes or no?
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- May/29/24 2:47:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was a wonderful history lesson, except it did not answer the question.
The Prime Minister promised he would lower housing costs in 2015; he doubled them. He promised he would double homebuilding; it actually went down and is still dropping. Now he is promising 3.9 million brand new homes by 2031. That means he would have to build 550,000 this year and every year.
Once again, will the Prime Minister keep his promise to build 550,000 homes this year, yes or no?
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- May/29/24 2:42:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, housing costs have doubled since he became Prime Minister. They were half when I was housing minister. Housing costs have gone up 40% faster than wages, a bigger gap than in any other G7 country. Why is that? It is because the Prime Minister is building bureaucracy and not homes.
Why will he not accept my common-sense plan to require municipalities to permit 15% more building, sell off 6,000 federal buildings to build homes and cut taxes so builders can build?
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- May/29/24 2:41:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, actually the number is closer to 200,000, but the Prime Minister has never been very good with numbers. The Prime Minister cites government-funded bureaucrats and Liberal academics to bolster his approach, which has doubled housing costs in just nine years, partly because he gives money to politicians and municipalities like Winnipeg, where they just blocked 2,000 homes right next to a government-funded transit station built for those homes.
Why will the Prime Minister not accept my common-sense plan to give bonuses to those municipalities that permit more building and penalties to those that stand in the way?
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- May/29/24 2:39:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I was housing minister, we built almost 200,000 houses and apartments, with the average rent being $973 for a one-bedroom apartment, but the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled nine years after he and the NDP took power. What is he doing about it? He is giving half a billion dollars to the Mayor of Toronto, who has just jacked up homebuilding taxes by 20%.
Why does the Prime Minister reward local government gatekeepers who block the homes that Canadians need?
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- May/29/24 2:38:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I was minister, we built nearly 200,000 houses and apartments. The average rent was $973. That is half of what it is today.
Meanwhile, he is working in partnership with municipal officials to double the cost of housing. My common-sense plan requires municipalities to allow 15% more construction per year. If they exceed that percentage, they will receive a bonus. If they do not, they will be penalized. Why not pay for performance?
Will he vote for more bureaucracy or for more homes?
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Mr. Speaker, when I was the minister responsible, the cost of housing was half of what it is today.
The Prime Minister has not only doubled the cost of housing, he is spending money on growing the very bureaucracy that is blocking construction. I have a common-sense plan in Bill C‑356, which we will be voting on this afternoon. We are going to cut construction taxes, sell federal land and buildings to build housing, and offer big bonuses to municipalities that allow more and faster housing construction.
Will he vote for more housing?
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- May/29/24 2:35:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the Liberal mayor of Montreal, the wait time for a building permit has doubled and rents have tripled.
In Ville-Marie, where the mayor is also in power, it takes 540 days to get a building permit. What is the Prime Minister doing? He is handing out another $95 million to build his bureaucracy.
Why not impose financial penalties on municipal politicians who block housing starts?
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- May/28/24 2:26:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my common-sense plan to build homes would reward municipalities that speed up permits and punish the politicians who get in the way. The Prime Minister's approach has not only doubled housing costs, but built up Toronto City Hall with monstrous financial transfers so that it can block construction.
There have been 50 new tent encampments added in the city of Toronto in six weeks. There are 250 tent cities in Toronto alone. Is that his plan, to block homes and put up tents?
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- May/28/24 2:25:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I was housing minister, we built 200,000 homes in one year, rent was only $900 and mortgage payments were half of what they are today.
Fast-forward to the present, and the Prime Minister has given half a billion dollars to Toronto City Hall to jack up new taxes on homebuilding. It is no wonder. When the president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, Richard Lyall, was asked whether the Prime Minister would keep his promise for 3.9 million new homes by the end of the decade, he said, “Not a chance.”
Why does the Prime Minister not stop funding bureaucracy so that we can get out of the way and build homes?
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- May/28/24 2:23:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, because of the incompetence of the Prime Minister and the Liberal City Hall in Toronto, rent there has more than doubled over the last nine years. What is worse is that the Prime Minister's so-called housing accelerator fund has given half a billion dollars to Toronto, and only months later, the politicians in that city hiked up homebuilding taxes by 20%. Now 30% of all homebuilding costs are government taxes alone.
Why does the Prime Minister keep sending our money to build bureaucracies that block homes?
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- May/28/24 2:22:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, everything the Prime Minister said is false.
When I was the minister responsible for housing, we built 200,000 new housing units. In Montreal, the average rent was $700 a month. Now it is $2,000. What is more, the wait time for construction permits has more than doubled.
Why does the Prime Minister not follow my common-sense plan, which involves penalizing Montreal politicians by giving that money back to Quebec municipalities that are accelerating housing construction?
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- May/27/24 11:56:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after nine years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled since he took office. It is hard to believe, but on my last day as housing minister, in November 2015, the average rent in Canada's 10 biggest cities for a one-bedroom was $973. Can members believe that? It is now $1,893.
The average down payment needed for a new home then was $22,000; it is almost quaint. Now it is almost $50,000. The average mortgage payment needed on a brand new home was just $1,400. It is now almost $3,500. It took about 39% of the average family paycheque to make monthly payments on the average home. That number has now risen to 64%, a record-smashing total, meaning that one would not be able to eat, clothe oneself, own a vehicle or do anything other than pay taxes and one's mortgage if one is the average family buying the average home.
The Prime Minister did not care much about any of this until he started crashing in the polls, and then he panicked and appointed a big-talking housing minister to take the helm of the ministry of housing. This minister had already, according to Liberal admission, caused immigration to run out of control. Since that time, we have seen a flurry of photo ops and new government programs designed to generate media headlines. However, predictably, these headlines have not reduced housing costs or increased home building. Home building is down this year. The federal housing agency says that it will be down next year and the year after that. Rent and mortgage payments continue to rise.
That is because the government, under the Prime Minister, is building bureaucracy rather than homes. My common-sense plan is the building homes, not bureaucracies act. It seeks to provide exactly what it says: less bureaucracy, more homebuilding.
In a nutshell, here is my common-sense plan to build the homes: First, we would require municipalities to permit 15% more homebuilding as a condition of getting their federal funds; second, we would sell off thousands of acres of federal land and buildings, so they can be used to build homes; and third, we would axe taxes on homebuilding. In this plan, we would get rid of the carbon tax, the sales tax and other taxes that block homebuilding.
This is a fundamentally different approach than what we see from the current Liberal government. What it currently does with its so-called housing accelerator program is to fund box-ticking. It puts together a bunch of boxes that municipalities have to tick for procedural and bureaucratic reforms. Once the boxes are ticked, the money is sent and we move on. The problem is that, even if those are the right boxes to tick and the municipality ultimately ticks them, when the feds turn their backs, the city can then put in place a bunch of new obstacles. For example, municipalities such as Ottawa and Toronto have actually jacked up development charges after getting federal housing accelerator funds. The City of Winnipeg got federal funding and then blocked 2,000 homes right next to a federal transit station.
That is why trying to manage process will get one nowhere. When one pays for bureaucratic box-ticking, that is what one gets. However, people cannot live in a box ticked by a bureaucrat; they have to live in a home. That is why my plan would pay for results. It simply requires that municipalities permit 15% more homes per year. If they hit the target, they keep their federal money. If they beat the target, they get a bonus. If they miss the target, they pay a fine. They are paid on a per completion basis, just as a realtor or a home builder is paid per home built. We want to pay for keys in doors and families sitting in a beautiful new kitchen, enjoying their dinner. We want families to be housed, healthy and safe, with money in the bank. That is the result we are going to pay for. Now let us bring it home.
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- May/22/24 3:00:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, housing inflation in Canada is the worst of all the G7 countries. Among the nearly 40 OECD countries, Canada ranks second last.
However, the question was about the inflationary and centralist spending that the Bloc Québécois keeps voting for.
The Bloc Québécois has become a socialist party that wants to expand the government, but its main focus is the federal government. That means a bigger federal government and less autonomy and money for Quebeckers.
What is happening? Are the Conservatives the only ones standing up for Quebeckers?
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- May/22/24 2:58:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled because of his inflationary spending and because the bureaucracy he is funding is blocking construction.
In today's edition of Le Soleil, we learned that, since mid-May, panic has been starting to set in for those who have not yet found a place to live. One worker has warned that a large number of people may be forced to camp outside.
After doubling the cost of housing, is the Prime Minister's plan to provide tents for those who will be forced to camp outside?
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- May/22/24 2:48:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that, after eight years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled. Today, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a damning report that showed that after the Prime Minister promised he would eliminate chronic homelessness, it has actually gone up 38%. The number of people living in unsheltered locations is up 88%. This is after he spent half a billion dollars on homelessness programs.
If it costs half a billion dollars for him to drive up homelessness, how much would it cost to drive it down?
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- May/8/24 2:49:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of housing, which has doubled across Canada.
The crisis is now more urgent than ever in Quebec. Non-profit organizations report meeting people who are contemplating and planning suicide because they have no idea how they will pay their rent next month.
Will the Prime Minister finally stop his radical plan to fund more bureaucracy instead of more homes?
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- May/8/24 2:30:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is absolutely right that we did not waste the billions of dollars that he has now put into his programs, but here are the results.
The average rent for a one bedroom when I was the housing minister was $973, and we built 80,000 apartment units at that low rate. Now the cost has more than doubled. Meanwhile, Stats Canada reports that incomes are down $17,000 per family.
Why are Canadians making $17,000 less to pay double the price for a home?
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- May/8/24 2:29:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is more proof that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost. He tells Canadians they have never had it so good. He doubled the debt, doubled housing costs and forced two million people to a food bank. He brags that he spent $87 billion on housing programs, and what did it get us? It got us the worst housing inflation of any country in the G7, the second worst out of nearly 40 OECD countries.
Why does the Prime Minister always spend the most to achieve the worst?
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