- 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/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/21/24 2:30:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, not only does the incompetent finance minister not know the inflation target, she does not know that one locks in low rates when one has the chance.
Do members remember when the Prime Minister was saying to not worry, that we can double the national debt because, as he said, “Interest rates are at historic lows, Glen”?
The problem is that I told him at the time that they should lock in those rates for 10 years, or 30 years, with long-term bonds. It turns out that they did not do that, and now $400 billion of that debt will roll over into these higher rates, forcing Canadians to spend more on interest than on health care.
Why did he hire the worst mortgage broker in the world to be our finance minister?
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- May/21/24 2:29:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister does not even know that the target is 2%. Maybe that is one of the reasons she is missing the target; she does not know what it is.
The same goes for the interest rates we are paying on the national debt. The Prime Minister says that doubling the national debt is not a problem because the rates were very low. That is why I suggested locking in the rates with 10-year or 30-year bonds, when the rates were low, as it is done with mortgages.
That incompetent minister did not do that. Now we are going to pay more interest on the $400 billion that is going to be refinanced this year.
Why?
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- May/1/24 3:13:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we actually have the highest mortgage debt of any country in the G7, and by far. It is higher, as a share of our economy, than the Americans had during the mortgage meltdown. Now, interest rates are higher and families risk losing their homes. Government deficits push inflation and interest rates higher, and that makes the problem worse. Therefore, once again, how much would $300 billion of yet more debt add in mortgage payments for the average Canadian family? How much?
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- May/1/24 3:12:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of debt interest. He doubled our national debt, adding more debt than all previous prime ministers combined. Now, we learn in his new budget bill that he is going to seek another $300 billion of debt, money that he would borrow out of the economy. That is equal to over 10% of our GDP, which would surely put upward pressure on interest rates. How much would all this government binge borrowing add to the mortgage payment of the average family?
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- May/1/24 3:09:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, families are already living in austerity. The government is living in abundance. The people are poor, the government is rich. The more the government spends, the more Canadians pay. Interest rates are high, and the government's spending and borrowing are driving them even higher.
Have finance department officials briefed the Prime Minister on how much higher borrowing an additional $300 billion will drive up interest rates on families' mortgages?
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- May/1/24 3:06:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has already doubled the national debt by adding more debt than all the other prime ministers in our history combined, and all with the support of the Bloc Québécois, which, by the way, voted for a $500-billion budget. The Bloc Québécois leader has never voted against a single budget proposed by this Prime Minister.
Today, we learned that the Prime Minister will continue to increase the debt by another $300 billion, with the approval of the House of Commons. How much will that raise mortgage interest rates?
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- May/1/24 3:00:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is what the Prime Minister has been saying for nine years, and the results have been doubled rents, doubled mortgage payments and doubled down payments. Just this week, a survey showed that 72% of Canadians who do not own a home believe they never will.
Canada was not like this before the current Prime Minister, and surely, it will not be like this after he is gone. Can the Prime Minister comment on what it is like to be the only prime minister in history to deprive an entire generation of home ownership?
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- May/1/24 2:58:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, two years ago, after having doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments and doubled the needed down payment for a home, the Prime Minister promised, in his budget, that he would double home building. Here we are, two years later, and homebuilding is down 8%. His housing agency says that it will be down next year and the year after that. If it cost him $89 billion in programs to bring homebuilding down, how much would he have to spend to bring it up?
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- Apr/18/24 10:27:14 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
After nine years, he has doubled the cost of housing, doubled the down payment needed to buy a home and doubled the mortgage payment for an average home. Let us not forget that nine years ago, the average down payment was around $20,000. I remember because I was the minister responsible for housing at the time and it was possible to buy a home with a modest down payment of $20,000. Now, the down payment that is needed has doubled. Roughly 64% of the average monthly income is needed to pay the monthly costs associated with housing. That is nearly double what it was nine years ago. As a result, only the rich, only the children of the wealthy can buy a home right now.
“Do they want to live in a country where we make the investments we need in health care, in housing, in old age pensions, but we lack the political will to pay for them and choose instead to pass a ballooning debt on to our children?” I am quoting the Minister of Finance.
This Prime Minister is the one who doubled our national debt nine years after saying the budget would balance itself. He said he would run three small deficits totalling less than $10 billion. Now he has added nearly $700 billion to the debt, most of which has nothing to do with COVID-19 spending. He continues to rack up deficits of approximately $40 billion, three years after COVID-19. He can no longer say that the dog ate his homework and that the deficits are tied to COVID-19. He is choosing to go deeper and deeper into debt.
I would like to tell the minister that we do not want to live in a country where we leave our children with a growing debt, but that is the country we now live in after nine years under this prime minister.
“Do they want to live in a country where those at the very top live lives of luxury but must do so in gated communities behind ever-higher fences using private health care and private planes because the public sphere is so degraded and the wrath of the vast majority of their less-privileged compatriots burns so hot?” I am again quoting the finance minister.
That is the country that we are living in now after nine years under this Prime Minister. Yes, the wealthy, like him, have private planes. He uses his private plane more than anyone else, while he is forcing single parent mothers who dare to drive their Toyota Corolla to pay a carbon tax. He is spending taxpayers' money to take illegal vacations on private islands. He and his cronies are the ones benefiting from this, while things on our streets and in our neighbourhoods are worse than they have ever been. It is complete chaos. Auto theft has become so commonplace that the police are telling people to leave their keys next to the door so that the thieves will have an easier time of it. That is the country that we are living in after nine years under this Prime Minister.
Minister, do we want to live in a country where we can tell the size of one's paycheque by their smile? No, but that is the country we live in. Do we want kids to go to school hungry? No, but the government says that is the country we live in now. Do we want to live in a country where the only young people who can buy a home are those with rich parents? No, but that is the country we now live in after nine years of this Prime Minister. Do we want to live in a country where our children are saddled with more and more debt year after year? No, but that is the country we now live in after nine years of this Prime Minister. Do we want to live in a country where the rich, like this Prime Minister, can travel around the world in private jets, while the majority live in the chaos and hell of our crime-ridden cities? No, but that is the country we now live in.
We do not want that kind of country. That is exactly why we need an election to elect a new common-sense government, a government that will deliver the country we love for all Canadians.
Just for a minute, let us talk about the myth that they are very rich. Nine years ago, members will recall, the Prime Minister said that he was going to spend, spend, spend, that it would not cost anyone a cent, and that some rich guy on a hill was going to pay all the bills. Where is he?
After nine years of this government, the rich are paying less than ever. After nine years of this Prime Minister, and for the first time in our history, owning a home is beyond the reach of an entire generation. After nine years of this Prime Minister's promises to help the so-called middle class, the middle class no longer exists. The middle class is poor.
If anyone thinks I am exaggerating, I have one simple question: Can a middle-class person afford to buy a house today? It is mathematically impossible for a middle-class person to buy an average home. I am not the one saying it. According to the Royal Bank of Canada, it takes 63% of the average family's pre-tax income to pay the average costs of a home today. It is a mathematical impossibility. Nine years ago, it took 38% of a monthly paycheque to pay the mortgage. Now, it takes twice as much.
If someone cannot buy a house, they are not part of the middle class. One in four families cannot feed their own children—one in four, and that is from the government's own statistics. That family is not part of the middle class either.
Yesterday's budget tabled by the Finance Minister was a major admission of failure. She admitted that after nine years of her government, life is hell for the so-called middle class. Middle-class Canadians have become Canada's poor. This Prime Minister has presided over the worst decline in middle-class quality of life in the history of our country. Things may even be worse than during the Great Depression. That is not me saying this, that is the minister herself and the Prime Minister.
When the Prime Minister talks about the condition this country is in, he describes it as a living hell for the poor and for workers. He describes a hell for the children who do not have enough food to eat. He describes a country where the elderly cannot pay their bills.
It is as though he has not been Prime Minister for a decade. Waving a magic wand, he tries to convince us that this is his first day on the job. After nine years, the Prime Minister is right: Life is hell for the middle class, and it is because we have a Prime Minister who is not worth the cost.
Fortunately, it was not like that before this Prime Minister and it will not be like that after this Prime Minister. We will replace him with a common-sense government that will lower taxes, build housing, fix the budget and stop the crime. I will explain how we will do this.
First, Canadians pay more in tax than they spend on food, housing and clothing. That is how things are after nine years of this costly government. That is why the trend must be reversed. Spending must be brought under control so that taxes can be lowered and Canadians' paycheques can go farther. Workers, businesspeople and seniors must be allowed to keep more of their hard-earned money.
Second, more housing must be built. After nine years of this Prime Minister, we have less housing per capita than any other G7 country. That is because we have the worst bureaucracy. Our bureaucracy prevents housing construction, adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to the cost of each home and causes years-long delays. Among OECD countries, Canada is the second slowest to issue building permits. This adds $1.3 million to the price of each new home in Vancouver and $350,000 in Toronto. The City of Montreal prevented the construction of 25,000 homes. The City of Winnipeg prevented the construction of 2,000 homes next to a public transit station built specifically for these future houses. That is absurd. The federal government should not be sending $5 billion to municipal governments for them to build bureaucracies that prevent home building.
On the contrary, we must begin to encourage municipalities to allow more construction by freeing up land and authorizing construction more rapidly. Real estate companies are paid for each house sold. Builders are paid for each house built. We should pay municipalities for each housing unit approved. My common sense plan will require municipalities to allow 15% more construction per year and authorize the construction of high rise apartment buildings near transit stations funded by the federal government. That will be the condition to meet to receive this money.
We will do this by entering into agreements with the provinces, fully respecting their areas of jurisdiction and allowing them to achieve these results as they see fit, without federal interference. Then we are going to sell 6,000 buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to allow for more construction. We will also reduce taxes on housing construction to accelerate construction. This is a common-sense plan to return to a situation where housing is affordable, as it was nine years ago, when I was the minister responsible for housing.
Third, we are going to fix the budget by imposing a dollar-for-dollar rule. For each new dollar spent, my government will find a dollar of savings somewhere else. That is how we cap the cost of government to allow taxpayers and the economy to grow and reduce the size of the government relative to the country.
It is a decentralizing and responsible approach. This is how we will eventually balance the budget, reduce interest rates and bring down inflation.
I find it very ironic that the Bloc Québécois has voted more than once to increase the size of the federal government. It voted in favour of $500 billion in centralizing, inflationary and discretionary spending by the current Prime Minister. I am talking about the kind of spending that increased the size of the government and the number of federal employees by 40%. The Bloc Québécois voted to double spending for external consultants, who now cost $21 billion, in other words, $1,400 in taxes for each Quebec family just for consultants.
We understand why this Liberal centralist government would want to do that, but we do not understand why a so-called sovereigntist party would vote for such an increase and concentration of powers and money at the federal level. It makes no sense. It is because the Bloc Québécois does not want to free Quebeckers from federal costs. It wants to implement a leftist ideology born on the Plateau Mont-Royal. It just wants a bigger role for government, whether federal, provincial or municipal. The Bloc Québécois's leader is obsessed with more government, more costs for workers. We Conservatives want a smaller federal government for a bigger Quebec. We want less control by Ottawa and more power for Quebeckers. A smaller federal government for a bigger Quebec is simple common sense. We are the only party that will be able to do it.
At the same time, we need to eliminate inflation, which widens the gap between the rich and the poor. A monetary system of printing money naturally favours the wealthy. It is something the Prime Minister borrowed from the United States. The United States' monetary policy causes inflation year after year to inflate Washington's spending and to inflate shares on Wall Street. It is an alliance between Wall Street and Washington, between big companies and big government. Of course, it favours the wealthy. The people who live in Manhattan and Washington are the richest people in the country. This is due in part to the fact that the United States prints a lot of money to help both groups.
Here in Canada, for the first time, a Prime Minister tried to copy and paste that approach by printing $600 billion to finance his own spending. It caused the worst inflation since the time of his father, who did the same thing. What are the consequences? Those who have shares or investments in land that is ripe for speculation, in gold, or in exclusive luxury wines get richer. The value of their assets is inflated. Conversely, people who rely on a paycheque or pension get poorer. The value of their paycheque diminishes. It is a transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest, and it is a benefit that often goes untaxed.
It is a benefit the Prime Minister keeps adding to day after day, causing this inflation. I would add that the people who receive these big financial gifts from governments often pay no taxes at all because they never sell their assets. They borrow money by using their assets as collateral to purchase more assets, whose value swells more with inflation, and then they use those assets to purchase even more assets, and so on. Wealth becomes concentrated in the hands of the infamous 1% or 0.1% of the population. This trend has been accelerating since the Prime Minister came to power, because it helps the wealthiest Canadians and also allows his government to indulge in uncontrolled spending. Both sides get what they want. The Prime Minister can spend the money he prints out of thin air, and the wealthiest benefit from the inflation of the value of their assets and their wealth. It is always the working class that ends up footing the bill for this irresponsible approach.
I will put an end to that. I will restore the Bank of Canada's mandate, which is to keep inflation low and the dollar higher. We will make sure that we do not print money just to spend it, because that is an inflation tax. It is an unjust and amoral tax. I will axe the inflation tax by fixing the budget. I want people to bring home more powerful paycheques.
Speaking of home, home is more dangerous after nine years of this Prime Minister, who automatically releases criminals on bail or allows them to be sentenced to house arrest, the “Netflix sentences” that he implemented with bills C-5, C-75 and C-83. These laws have allowed people to be released mere hours after their arrest so that they could commit more crimes. That is why street crime is surging all across Canada.
Yesterday we heard reports of a major shootout in downtown Montreal. There has been a more than 100% increase in the number of car thefts in Montreal, Toronto and other major cities. My common-sense plan will keep the most dangerous criminals in prison by making those with dozens of convictions ineligible for bail, getting rid of “Netflix sentences,” forcing car thieves to serve their sentences in prison, and not going after our hunters and sport shooters. If someone has a gun they bought legally after going through an RCMP background check, receiving training and passing tests to prove that they are a safe, responsible person, they will be able to keep it. However, if they are criminals, we will stop them from having guns. We will strengthen the border and our ports. We will scan containers to make sure that no weapons or drugs enter the country and that no stolen vehicles leave. That is the common sense needed to stop the crime and make our communities safe again.
We are going to implement a common-sense plan that will rebuild the country that we want, a country that is the opposite of what the Minister of Finance described in her speech. It will be a country where it pays to work, where everyone who works hard can afford to buy a home and put food on the table in a safe neighbourhood. That is what Canadians are entitled to and deserve, and that is what they will have with a common-sense government.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/17/24 2:54:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in 2015, Emily had a home with a mortgage payment of $2,000. Now she has an apartment with a rental payment of $4,000.
How can he possibly suggest she is better off paying twice as much to rent a place than she was, under Conservatives, owning one?
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- Apr/17/24 2:51:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says that this is all about fairness. I am going to take him at his word and read the story of Emily, who told the Toronto Star that she could afford a home in 2015 with a mortgage of $2,000, but after the Prime Minister's inflationary deficits ballooned mortgage rates, she lost her home and now she rents a small apartment for $4,000. It is so small, she says that she can smell her own neighbours.
Has the Prime Minister been fair to Emily?
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- Apr/15/24 2:22:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we cannot see the value of homes and food that do not exist after eight years. The Liberals have a food program that, after eight years, has no food, and an affordable housing program that has doubled housing costs. They are not worth the cost, and now their deficits are driving up the interest obligations for the average family. For a family with a $500,000 mortgage, deficits are adding 10 grand in additional interest payments per year. When will they realize that, after eight years, this NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost?
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- Apr/15/24 2:21:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. This Prime Minister is not worth the cost of interest.
According to Scotiabank, the Prime Minister's deficits are adding two full percentage points extra in interest costs for the average family. That works out to about $6,000 for a modest mortgage of $300,000. That is six grand in extra mortgage payments from these deficits alone. Will they finally wake up to the fact that this NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost?
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- Apr/8/24 2:26:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister caused the housing crisis. Under his role as housing minister, the amount of a paycheque necessary to make payments on an average mortgage has gone up to a record-smashing 64% from 38%. He is the only one, along with the Prime Minister, who wants to raise taxes on homebuilding with a massive carbon tax on the building materials that go into assembling homes.
Will the Prime Minister, instead of hiking the tax, accept my common-sense demand to axe the tax on farmers, food and houses at the same time?
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- Apr/8/24 2:23:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, while the common-sense Conservatives want to fix the budget to bring down inflation and interest rates, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost of mortgages.
According to Scotiabank's chief economist, this Prime Minister's inflationary deficits are increasing interest rates by 2% and preventing the Bank of Canada from lowering them. Canadians could lose their homes because of big multi-billion dollar announcements of inflationary spending. Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that this spending and these mortgages are not worth the cost?
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- Feb/7/24 3:13:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the results speak for themselves. When I was the housing minister, rent was $950. It is now over $2,000. When I was the housing minister, the average mortgage payment on a newly purchased home was $1,400. It is now over $3,500.
My common-sense plan would require cities to permit 15% more homebuilding as a condition of getting federal money. It would require that they build housing around transit stations rather than having empty fields there. It would require the sale of 6,000 federal buildings and thousands of acres of federal land to build.
Why will the Prime Minister not build homes instead of building bureaucracy?
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- Dec/13/23 3:11:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Maclean's magazine reports, “Two jobs, no money: How mortgage rates have pushed one Toronto father to the brink”. Two years into their mortgage, their biweekly payments have reached $2,268, now paying more than $5,000 a month to live in a 900-square foot townhouse, and $3,500 of that goes to interest.
All of his spending programs have doubled the cost of housing and, according to the Bank of Nova Scotia, have boosted interest rates another 2%.
Will he realize the damage he is doing in causing Canadians unsupportable, unsustainable mortgage payments?
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- Dec/6/23 2:28:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what Canadians know is that the Prime Minister has doubled the housing costs, doubled the rent, doubled mortgage payments and doubled the needed down payment. After eight years, our housing costs have worsened at a greater rate than all but one OECD country.
Yesterday, a senator asked the head of the Prime Minister's own housing agency if there is a federal government plan to eliminate the 3.5 million home deficit that we have in Canada. The answer: No. It is not me saying that; it is his own housing agency. Given that he does not have a plan, why does he not watch the common-sense housing documentary I put forward so that he can see a common-sense plan to cut bureaucracy and build homes?
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- Dec/4/23 2:20:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for the first time in 60 years, rents are rising faster than wages, according to the Bank of Montreal. That is the reality after eight years of this Prime Minister, who has doubled rents, doubled mortgage payments and doubled down payment requirements.
Will the Prime Minister finally watch my groundbreaking, hard-hitting documentary to see a common-sense plan to get rid of the red tape and taxes and build homes people can afford?
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