- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Dufferin—Caledon
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,309.03
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech; it was great. There was a question raised by a Liberal member, who said that this bill, this legislation, this trade agreement is going to help Ukraine rebuild. The rebuilding of Ukraine is going to require concrete, steel and heavy equipment. All these things are very carbon-intensive.
If the Liberals actually wanted to help Ukraine rebuild, why would they have put a carbon tax into a trade agreement for the first time ever? Does my colleague think this is actually going to help with the cost of rebuilding Ukraine after it wins the war?
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- Oct/31/23 6:45:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the last time I was here, I asked a question about housing, talking about the Liberal government's absolutely abysmal record on housing. When one looks at the problem with housing, what one sees is that there are actually two elements. There is the building of units, and we know that building starts are down. They have announcements where they say they are going to build something, but no one can actually live in an announcement.
What they actually do at these announcements is find homes that are already going to be built and say that they will partner with the municipality and that the municipality will get a little extra money if it says they somehow contributed.
Their building homes strategy is a big nothing burger. It is an absolute failure.
Let us look at cost because cost is the other part that is making housing so unaffordable. We know that housing prices have doubled under the government, but let us look at interest rates. We know that interest rates are sky-high. The Governor of the Bank of Canada has said, many times, that the government's inflationary spending is like putting the foot on the gas pedal, as the Governor of the Bank of Canada tries to ease inflation by raising interest rates.
Interest rates are at absolute highs and this has tragic consequences for builders; they cannot build the units because interest rates are so high. It makes the cost of building them even higher. It drives up the cost of building and makes it even less affordable for Canadians to buy them.
Let me just give one little example. Right now, we have $186 billion worth of mortgages coming up for renewal in 2024. Let us say that one had a $600,000 mortgage coming up for renewal and an interest rate of 3%, which was not a great interest rate up until recently but is a very good rate compared to now. On a $600,000 mortgage, one's monthly payment until now would have been $2,500. Today, it is almost $4,000. That is a $1,500-a-month increase. These are the kinds of things that are crushing Canadians.
This Liberal government has done the impossible on incompetence. If one does not have a home, one cannot afford a home because the cost of a home has doubled. If one is renting or looking to rent, one cannot afford that either, because rent has doubled. If one has a home and one works so hard to save and actually have a home, when one's mortgage comes up for renewal, one cannot afford to keep one's home.
This government has somehow had the amazing incompetence to do two things: make it impossible for young buyers to buy a home and make it virtually impossible for people who have a home to keep the home. This is stunning incompetence on housing.
What makes it worse is that household debt in Canada is the highest in the G7. Remember that the Prime Minister said that they were taking on borrowing money so that Canadians did not have to? Well, they have had to because their inflationary spending has driven up interest rates so high that Canadians now have to borrow just to survive.
The most frightening stat I have seen just came out: 31% of Canadian households are having to find extra income just to make ends meet.
Look at what is going on in this country after eight years of this absolutely incompetent Liberal government. One cannot buy a home. One cannot keep one's home. One cannot make ends meet. People are actually having to take on side hustles to pay the bills. This is the catastrophic record of a tired, corrupt Liberal government after eight years.
I do not have time to get into the corruption. That would be an entire other late show, but let me say that housing and affordability is a disaster.
The government is responsible. Why does it not, instead of puffing up its chest and saying what a great job it has done, just apologize to Canadians for the mess it has made?
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Madam Speaker, I am in agreement that we have to do more to get more houses built, but I think our plan is better. There is a great number of federal buildings that are underutilized. We should convert those units. I think our plan says we are going to allow 15% to be converted into housing, which is better than coming up with some random number and having the government build it.
Let us remove the gatekeepers, unleash the private sector, turn those buildings over and get them built into all kinds of units, like affordable rental units and other units. That is the path forward.
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- Oct/3/23 3:50:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is amazing, with a government that has accomplished so little, for the minister to be so proud. What he talks about is 5,000 units that are going to be built. CMHC says we need to build three million more units than we normally build. That 5,000 works out to 0.0016%, and he stands here bragging like he has accomplished something. The Liberals' lack of action has consequences and they are not worth the cost. Paula from B.C. is 71 and retired, and she is saying she is facing a 75% increase in rent.
If Liberals cannot actually do anything to fix it, will they get out of the way so the Conservative leader can fix what is broken?
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