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Member of the Board of Internal Economy Deputy House leader of the government

Mark Gerretsen

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the Board of Internal Economy Deputy House leader of the government
  • Liberal
  • Kingston and the Islands
  • Ontario
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $112,228.33

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 302 - Apr/18/24
Mr. Mark Gerretsen
  • Apr/18/24 1:58:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I outlined this very clearly. We had an example earlier today, during this budget deliberation, when the member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, specifically tried to mislead the House. He said, “If [the member] wants to know how many affordable homes were built when I was the minister, we completed 92,782 apartments.” He did not do that. Those were housing starts throughout the entire country, housing starts that were built by developers in spite of his government, not with his government's policies.
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Context: House Hansard - 302 - Apr/18/24
Mr. Mark Gerretsen
  • Apr/18/24 1:50:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the good news for the member is that I will be asking to unanimously table something as well. The whip and the people in the Conservative lobby better send some people in now, and tell them to say no. I am giving them a heads-up. The member for Winnipeg North specifically rose on a point of order to call to the attention of the Chair that the Leader of the Opposition was misleading the House. Then the Leader of the Opposition stood up and said the following, basically what we just heard a Conservative member say. He said, “from the Statistics Canada website, which shows that 92,782 apartment units were built.” The Leader of the Opposition acknowledged the fact, when he stood up again later, that he was not actually talking about the affordable homes his government built, he was talking about the total number of apartment starts, all but six that came from private development. I would probably say that the private sector was building these homes in spite of the previous government, not in line with it objectives. That is a reality of what is going on. Here is the irony behind all of it. The Leader of the Opposition was the housing minister from February until October 2015. I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Let us say that he was the housing minister for all of 2015. The reason why we know, and where we are getting the number six from when we keep saying that he only built six affordable homes, is from an OPQ. For the people in the gallery and at home, an OPQ is an Order Paper question that can be tabled by a member to get a response from the government. The OP question, and this was under the previous government, was about the number of units built in 2015. The response was only a total of six. Six total affordable housing units were built in 2015. With the consent of the House, I would respectfully request to table this so the public can see the Order Paper question I am referencing.
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