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Dec/9/21 11:31:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent idea. The Bloc Québécois even suggested it in its election platform. That means we can conclude it is a very good idea. However, we must ensure that these lands will actually meet the needs of the most vulnerable. They should be used to build social housing, not office towers or condos. That is the challenge we face. The Bloc Québécois agrees with the idea of using surplus federal land. However, it really should go to the most vulnerable.

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Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP)

Dec/9/21 11:32:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I truly enjoy listening to my Bloc colleague's speeches in the House. They are always very vibrant and full of passion, and I sincerely believe that he comes to this place with a deep sense of caring for the housing situation we see in Canada. The situation is quite dire. In my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, we regularly see properties being overbid by $100,000. It is a real crisis. I agree with the member's comments on the election. It was an unnecessary election that cost $600 million. However, the fact that all the major parties spoke so eloquently and passionately about housing gave me some hope and optimism that it would be addressed in this Parliament. The motion before us today is a missed opportunity because the Conservatives do not make any mention of an indigenous housing strategy. They do not make any mention of giving aid to municipalities to help them with their land-use decisions. There is also no mention of building affordable non-market housing, which is so desperately needed. I am wondering if my Bloc colleague could expand on the missed opportunities we see in the motion.

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Mr. Denis Trudel

Dec/9/21 11:33:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. He is absolutely right. Getting housing out of the speculative market is the big challenge that we face when it comes to the housing crisis. There was actually a motion adopted here in 2017. It recognized that housing is a right, like health. As soon as we recognize it as a right, we must act accordingly. If we leave it up to the market to set prices, housing will end up costing $2,000 a month, putting it out of reach for the most vulnerable. We need to find a way to get housing out of the speculative market. That is the major challenge.

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Mr. Chris Bittle (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Lib.)

Dec/9/21 11:34:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member had a throwaway line in his speech about housing being an area of provincial jurisdiction, and the rest of his speech was focused on federal intervention. I think we both agree that there should be federal intervention, but as an Ontario MP, I have noticed the absence of our provincial partner, the Ford government. It has not been there on housing the way previous governments have been. The hon. member really glossed over what the provincial government is doing in Quebec. If this is a provincial area of jurisdiction and things are getting worse, is it time for the Government of Quebec to stand up? I think the Province of Ontario, the Ford government, needs to step up as well.

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Mr. Denis Trudel

Dec/9/21 11:35:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we must avoid partisanship when dealing with such an important issue. We need to take care of people. I know this issue falls under provincial jurisdiction, but I will not start judging what the Government of Quebec is doing, and whether or not it is enough. There are problems with housing, and mistakes have been made on both sides. However, I think that I made it pretty clear that the way the money is being spent by Ottawa is not working at all.

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Ms. Sylvie Bérubé (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, BQ)

Dec/9/21 11:35:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to commend my hon. colleague for his great speech. I would like him to explain the national housing strategy. The government is promising significant amounts of funding, but, in the end, those promises end up broken.

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Mr. Denis Trudel

Dec/9/21 11:36:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in 2017, Quebec was supposed to receive $3.8 billion under this national strategy, shared equally between the federal and the provincial governments, but nothing much happened for three years. There was money for renovations and for building new housing units, but as members have mentioned and as we have talked about a lot today, a lot of funding was earmarked for making housing more affordable. However, one of the big problems is the definition of the word “affordable”. Often, federal programs are loans that are based on the fair market value in a particular community or region, when really, they should be based on the ability of households to pay. That is the problem right now. The strategy was announced, we did not get any funding for three years and now we are making do. The crisis is acute, and the funding needs to be distributed more quickly.

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Mr. Stephen Ellis (Cumberland—Colchester, CPC)

Dec/9/21 11:37:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech and his passion for this issue. I would like to comment on the government's efforts, the action it has taken and the money it has spent. We have a plan for this, and I would like to know if the member will support this initiative.

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Mr. Denis Trudel

Dec/9/21 11:37:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was saying, this motion is not perfect. I think that everyone in the House agrees with the first part of the motion, which states that “the government has failed to increase the housing supply in Canada”. However, the motion does not go far enough. I wonder what the Conservatives would do if they were in power. Would they invest money, and if so, how much? That is what we want to know today. Anything that allows the House to improve the situation or at least address the matter is truly important. We support this motion, but it is far from perfect.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

Dec/9/21 11:38:31 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, is the member concerned at all about the fact that in the motion, it is not stipulated that when making federal lands available for residential development, they are to be for non-profit and social housing? Otherwise, that land could be made available for luxury condo developers, which I do not think is the purpose of what we are trying to do here.

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Mr. Denis Trudel

Dec/9/21 11:39:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is right. That is not specified, which could be risky. The devil is always in the details. If we do not force the government's hand and tell it exactly what to do with that land, it will give the land to the highest bidder, and the most vulnerable will end up with nothing, as usual. That needs to be clearer for sure. This is a major concern. During the municipal election campaign we just had in Quebec, one of the issues that came up most often was the availability of land. Organizations have ideas for projects, but they do not know where to implement those projects or how to proceed. In contrast, the federal government has land, and it has to make that land available to house our most vulnerable people. That is what needs to happen.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Dec/9/21 11:39:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am perplexed by the response from the Bloc. The member said a moment ago that they were supportive of this motion, but then agreed with the NDP that the motion is problematic because it suggests that these lands should be opened up to developers. Why would the Bloc support a motion that the member has identified has problems that lead to the concern raised by the NDP?

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Mr. Denis Trudel

Dec/9/21 11:40:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is trying to pit us against the farm team, but that will not work. We are not the farm team; the NDP is. They are the Liberals' midget AAA team. It is a huge problem and a huge concern. It is too important to fight over. We should spend a lot more time talking about the housing file before us today, and the government needs to do more now.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

Dec/9/21 11:41:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to start by saying that I will be sharing my time with my excellent colleague from Vancouver-East. I feel compelled to follow up on the comments of my colleague from Longueuil, who very proudly represents the Quebec wing of the Conservative Party, by voting for a motion that is full of holes. I will, however, correct something he said when he stated that the Liberals took up the entire Island of Montreal. All of it? No, there is a little orange dot still holding out against the invader. An hon. member: There is a little blue dot too. Mr. Alexandre Boulerice: There is a little blue dot too, Madam Speaker. We are debating a motion from the Conservative Party that identifies a real problem but offers a bad solution. I think it is important to have this discussion to actually see what the real solutions are for this housing crisis. The housing crisis has reached catastrophic levels in many Quebec and Canadian towns and cities, particularly in Montreal, where housing prices have skyrocketed in recent years. People are struggling to find housing and are having to change neighbourhoods because they cannot afford to pay $1,400, $1,500 or $1,750 a month in rent. The Liberals have been promising strategies ever since they came to power six years ago, but we have not seen any concrete changes or results on the ground. On the contrary, the situation has only gotten worse following years of Conservative and Liberal neglect. People who spend more than 30% of their income on rent tend to be poor and vulnerable. In Canada, that is the reality for 1.7 million households, which means the number of people is even higher. This means that 1.7 million families, couples or individuals spend more than 30% of their income on housing. That is serious. It is catastrophic. In Quebec, 38,000 people are waiting for social housing, for truly affordable housing. In Montreal, 23,000 people are waiting, and that number is growing. I recently had the chance to take part in an event organized by the Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain, or FRAPRU, which is well known in Quebec, as well as a coalition called the National Right to Housing Network. We spent a long while listening to testimony from people who live in unsafe housing, who were victims of renovictions, or who are living in housing that is too small, ill-suited to their needs or poorly lit. All of this was detrimental to their mental, and sometimes physical, health. It was heartbreaking to hear these stories in a country as rich as Canada, a G7 country that could be doing so much better. We heard stories about five people living in a one-bedroom apartment because it was all they could afford. Every night the parents would pull out the sofa bed to sleep, but it blocked the path the kids would take to go to the bathroom during the night. There were five of them in that one-bedroom apartment. We heard from people who have kids with disabilities but do not have the resources or the means to adapt the entryway for their child, who has to come in the back door. It is dangerous and not well lit. These people are living with mould, with fungi, and their health is affected. This, in turn, overwhelms our health care system, because people are living in unsafe conditions in inadequate housing. It is a big problem. We were talking about the 1.7 million households that spend more than 30% of their income on housing in Canada. In Rosemont—La Petite Patrie, some people spend more than 40% or 50% of their income on housing. Then, when the price of groceries goes up, they are stretched to the limit. It makes no sense. Three thousand households in Rosemont—La Petite Patrie have to spend more than half of their income on housing. It is completely unacceptable. This has been a failure of the Liberal strategy for years. The motion before us speaks to this real housing problem and to the issue facing young families and young couples who want to buy their first home. It is becoming increasingly difficult. Condos and houses often sell for more than they are listed on the market for. This creates a kind of bubble of speculation that is completely crazy. The Conservatives may be identifying a real problem, but they seem to be unable to say certain words. For example, they are unable to say the words “social housing”. It seems that social housing is on their lips. They just cannot say it. The proposed solutions in the motion before us are extremely ideological. That being said, some aspects of the motion make sense. The NDP is also against taxing capital gains on the sale of a primary residence, but the motion does not offer any real solution to this problem. Everything in the opposition motion is highly ideological and tied to market forces. If there is greater demand then we simply need to increase supply and, like magic, the prices will automatically drop. Anyone who knows this file and works on the ground, including groups and organizations, knows full well that although part of the problem can be solved by the lucrative market, in other words the supply of profit-driven products, the most effective solution is indisputably more non-market housing. Such housing does not generate profit. It is community housing, low-income housing, co-operative and social housing. This kind of social housing has to be incorporated in project plans. A developer proposing a project should be required to build social housing, and the federal and Quebec governments should have to provide money to get that social housing built. There is no solution that does not include not-for-profit housing. Social housing is crucial. That is why the Conservatives' solution is flawed and fails to address what really needs to be done. The Conservatives have their ideological blinders on. They are all about capitalism no matter the cost, and nothing else is even worth considering. Regarding non-market solutions, members touched on the fact that new co-ops are not being built. That is essential. I had a chance to be at the Montreal premiere of a documentary called Le coop de ma mère by filmmaker Rosemont Ève Lamont. The documentary made it clear just how well those solutions have worked. Co-operatives that were built in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are still around today, and they are great places to live. Anything considered profit is reinvested in maintaining and upgrading the co-op spaces for the people who live there. This is also a lesson about working together, participatory democracy, and collective empowerment. The residents of co-operatives become collective owners of the co-operative, and that changes their lives. Without these co-operatives, these people would not be able to live in these neighbourhoods or in these communities. This is something that the NDP is calling for. I would like to tell my Bloc Québécois colleagues, who seem to want to vote for the Conservative motion, that the NDP is going to move an amendment that I think is in line with the speeches we have heard. We want to add the following to the motion: investments for non-market, non-profit affordable housing; investments to create co-operatives; and the construction of 500,000 new homes, affordable housing, and social housing over the next 10 years. The Liberals are promising 160,000 social housing units, but the NDP is proposing half a million. We are also proposing to create a “for indigenous, by indigenous” housing strategy, which is not in the Conservative motion or in the Liberal’s national housing strategy action plan, even though they have been promising it for years. These are concrete things that the NDP is putting forward in response to the flaws in the Conservative proposal. I really hope that there will be consistency between what is said and what is done, and that we can count on the support of the Bloc Québécois. These NDP amendments would make for a much more meaningful and logical motion, when it comes to practical solutions. In this regard, as I spoke earlier with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing and member for Hochelaga, based on the rules in place, which were set by the Liberals, housing that is considered affordable is not affordable at all. We recently learned that, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, a Montreal home that costs $2,200 a month is considered affordable. People are being taken for fools. We need to put our heads together and we need to consider the right to housing as a fundamental right for which someone could go to court when housing is inadequate. It is a life-changing thing, and I think that as parliamentarians we need to make a significant effort to invest in social housing and truly affordable housing. That is a priority for the NDP.

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Mr. Jeremy Patzer (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, CPC)

Dec/9/21 11:51:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing we quite often miss when we talk about housing is seniors housing. We have a golden opportunity for this with our motion. We talk about the 37,000 federal buildings and how we can utilize some of them for housing going forward. Would the member agree that maybe we should be focusing on using those spaces for seniors housing, for those seniors who are looking to move out of their single dwelling homes and into a condo setting or an assisted-living facility?

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice

Dec/9/21 11:51:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again, it is the same thing. Is housing a problem for seniors in this country? Yes, it is. These individuals are often on a fixed income and they are seeing rents go up. It is a real problem. However, the Conservatives offer no real solutions. If the federal land they want to free up is used by developers to build condos for the wealthy, that will not help impoverished seniors who are struggling and have very minimal resources. In Montreal, the Peel Basin is federal land and it has potential. I hope it will be used for affordable social housing and not for a baseball stadium, which would be a waste of space. I at least hope that neither government, Quebec or Ottawa, puts a penny into that, because it would be madness.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Dec/9/21 11:52:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we look at the motion before us, one of the suggestions the Conservatives have put forward is that a minimum of 15% of federal real estate and properties in Canada be converted. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage pointed out, 35.7 million of those hectares are from Parks Canada. Let us keep in mind that the figure the Conservatives are talking about is 41 million. If we do the math and add Parks Canada, Environment Canada or National Defence together, it adds up to 39 million or 40 million hectares. The Conservatives are talking about 41 million. Their numbers just do not make sense. Would the member opposite agree that some fundamental flaws in the Conservatives' basic arithmetic just do not seem to make sense? Could he provide his thoughts on that?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Dec/9/21 11:53:40 a.m.
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It is the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie who will be answering the question, so I would ask the members of the official opposition to hold off on any questions or comments they may have. They will be able to ask a question or comment when it is their time. The hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice

Dec/9/21 11:53:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is looking at this all wrong. The problem is not the amount of land. The problem is that people are spending too much money on housing and living in poverty. I am less interested in the 12% or 19% of available lands than I am in the 23,000 Montreal households on waiting lists for social housing. We have to take care of people first. If more land is needed after that, fine. The problem is the 1.7 million people in this country who spend more than 30% of their income on housing. The problem has nothing to do with physical space.

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Mr. Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, CPC)

Dec/9/21 11:54:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech and the ideas he has shared about the housing crisis. My colleague stated earlier that the Conservatives cannot say the words “social housing”. I am therefore going to say them: “social housing”. In 2009 and 2011, when I was here in the House of Commons under a Conservative government, funding was made available for housing co-operatives in my riding. Members cannot say that Conservatives never did that. On the contrary, we did so several times. Regardless of the percentage of land available or not, what we proposed in our election platform was to make land available to volunteer oragnizations or co-operatives in order to create social housing. I will say it again, “social housing”. Does my colleague think that is a good solution?

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