- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Board of Internal Economy
Deputy House leader of the government
- Liberal
- Kingston and the Islands
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,228.33
- Government Page
- Apr/18/24 1:56:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, affordable housing has a huge spectrum. It can be anything from somebody's rent that is geared to their income right up to helping people get into home ownership. Affordable housing is everything between those two points. Of course, we cannot focus on just one side or the other side. We have to ensure we are helping the entire spectrum of affordable housing.
We have introduced a number of programs, like our national housing plan. We have introduced measures to assist younger individuals getting into home ownership. At the same time, we are building housing. I can name 12 projects in my riding alone, like on Cliff Crescent, Princess Street, Curtis Crescent and Wright Crescent. I will name the rest, if I have time. The point is that this federal government has been there to build housing.
I was mayor in Kingston and a city councillor during the time that Stephen Harper was the prime minister. Members do not have to take my word for it that the Conservatives built nothing; there was an Order Paper question that I tried to table today. It asked what the Leader of the Opposition did when he was housing minister. He was not building housing.
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- Oct/30/23 5:26:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek.
I will start where that last question left off. I find it very unfortunate to hear that the Leader of the Opposition would make such a claim when it comes to co-operative housing. As I indicated in my question, co-operative housing, at least from the limited experience that I have had in seeing the operations of it, is clearly one of the best ways of delivering affordable housing.
If my Conservative friends need some education on it, I welcome them to come and tour Kingston Co-operative Homes in Kingston with me. We have different individuals living together. Some are paying market rent. Some are paying below market rent. Some are contributing in hours toward the co-operative.
For the co-operative to be successful, it genuinely needs people contributing to it in different manners. We need people paying market rent. We need people who are contributing in other ways, like through the hours being contributed to the co-op. It is wildly popular, at least from my perspective, as a form of delivering affordable housing.
I heard the member who spoke before me make the comment that the federal government is not advancing co-operative housing. That is incorrect. I took some time, after I first heard her make that comment earlier, to look into this, and the truth of the matter is that this government is making the largest investment to promote and expand co-operative housing in over 30 years, with $1.5 billion to expand and promote co-ops. Included in this investment is the launch of the new co-operative housing development program. Not only are we putting money into this, but we are developing a program for co-operative housing specifically.
It truly is one of the best forms of affordable housing, from my perspective. My first introduction into politics, before I was even a city councillor, was when the City of Kingston put together an affordable housing development committee. Ironically enough, that was set up as a result of the provincial government in Ontario having to go it alone in supporting housing and building affordable housing because at the time, the Harper Conservative government had completely abandoned any investment there.
Let us go back and talk for a second about that, because I find it very interesting. Usually when a concurrence motion comes forward, I speak at great length as to why Conservatives do that. We know why they are doing it. They are trying to delay the government's agenda. Even my NDP colleague pointed that out earlier. It is a matter of fact. If members want to hear why, they can review one of my previous speeches on this to get all of the details.
I will focus my comments more specifically on this particular committee report. The mover of the motion, the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka, was very critical of the government. He was very critical of the government investing in affordable housing, but a number of projects have already happened in his riding. I will tell members about those projects again: $23 million from the national housing co-investment fund, $3.6 million from the on-reserve shelter enhancement program, $2.6 million from the the second stream of the rapid housing initiative, $6.7 million from the SIF and legacy programs and $2.7 million through the various different subsidies going into his riding. A lot of money has been spent in Parry Sound—Muskoka.
I cannot help but wonder how the Conservatives invested in his riding when they were around. Of course, Tony Clement pops into my mind. One of the most notorious things about Tony Clement, for all of his contributions to the House, is that unfortunately part of his legacy is the building of a gazebo. That gazebo was from redirected money. According to the Auditor General, he had misled the House in indicating where that money was coming from.
The other one was a fund set up regarding what was the G8 at the time. It was a $50 million fund that was intended to go toward projects that had to do with the G8, which was taking place in Canada at the time. Somehow, Parry Sound—Muskoka ended up building a gazebo in the member's riding with money that was not intended to go to that. I do not know if the G8 leaders went and sat around the gazebo, and that was one of the events, but it clearly was not a project that was intended. That is not to say that Stephen Harper did not invest in infrastructure in the riding of the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka; he certainly did. He invested in gazebos, which were apparently more important than actually building affordable housing.
As we look to and specifically talk about the work we are doing, the government has put forward policy and real money behind building housing and expanding housing opportunities throughout the country. There is no doubt that there is more work to be done. That is obvious, and it is something that continually gets brought up in the House.
The concurrence motion we have, which was sent to the Minister of Housing, received a reply from the minister. I read the reply while we were entering into this debate. If they took the time to read the reply, members would probably not be surprised to see that there are a number of initiatives the report had identified that the minister and the government agreed with. Specifically, these relate to supporting vulnerable populations. The minister agreed with the committee on the critical importance of prioritizing the needs of vulnerable populations through the national housing strategy's program.
He indicated:
Though the [national housing strategy] addresses needs across the housing spectrum—including the need for more housing supply overall—housing for those in greatest need is identified as one of the priority areas for action of the NHS. When it launched in 2017, one of the NHS goals was to reduce chronic homelessness by 50% by 2027-28. Budget 2022 went further and committed to ending chronic homelessness by 2030. This will require an all of government approach. Much of this work is undertaken in partnership with the provinces and territories ... through bilateral agreements under the Housing Partnership Framework....
When we talk about housing and solutions, as I have heard from some of my Conservative colleagues during this debate, it is not just about the federal government but also about how we work with the various different partners and municipalities specifically. We would love to work with provinces, but at least in my province, we know that there is very little interest from Doug Ford's government in doing that. That is why we are seeing the government actually going right into communities. This is the federal government dealing directly with mayors and city councillors, talking about how we reduce the Nimbyism, as was mentioned earlier by one of my Conservative colleagues, and deal with the fact that there is too much red tape in the process of building more housing. Ultimately, we see real agreements coming forward and real action being taken directly with municipalities. We have seen where a number of municipalities are coming to the table. Most recently, last week, there was Brampton, but there were a number before that as well,
Conservatives offer nothing in this regard. As a matter of fact, all they are doing is taking the housing accelerator program that I just announced as a partnership with municipalities and trying to rebrand it as though it is something they would do. It is literally something we are already doing. The idea here is that the municipalities will deal directly with the federal government, which will reduce red tape, encourage growth and encourage more housing. As a result, the federal government will help them to make sure the process can happen even quicker and faster through various different monetary incentives.
I really hope that, after we get to the end of this debate and vote on this, we can get back to the government legislation we were supposed to debate today before the concurrence motion was brought forward.
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- Jun/7/22 8:01:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the intervention by the member today and I find it quite fascinating that previous Bloc MPs have risen and said that we are not moving fast enough with various things, in particular in relation to green infrastructure.
The Infrastructure Bank is funding so many of these projects. We just have to go online to see that, but the member is now complaining that municipalities and the provinces are asked to submit their plans and their applications for 10 months from now. I was a mayor of a city and a city councillor and I know very well that if a municipality has a project on the go or is interested, 10 months is more than long enough to get council approval to proceed with an application and put together the basic framework for an application to submit.
I am curious if the member can comment on one or two municipalities that he knows for which 10 months would not be long enough to put together a plan for that application.
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