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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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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice

Dec/9/21 11:55:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to hear him say those words. My colleague proved that I was wrong and that the Conservatives can say the words “social housing”. However, they cannot commit them to paper because they forgot to put them in their motion. The problem is only partly solved, and there is still a long way to go. If my colleague is concerned about truly affordable social housing, co-operatives and an indigenous housing strategy developed for and by indigenous people, I hope that he will act accordingly and vote in favour of the NDP amendments.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

Dec/9/21 11:56:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am delighted to enter into this debate. As members may know, housing is one of my deepest passions. I got into electoral politics back in 1993. Why? Because the federal Liberal government cancelled the national affordable housing program at that time. I was working as a community legal advocate in the Downtown Eastside. I was absolutely devastated because I saw first-hand what it was like for individuals who could not get access to safe, secure affordable housing. I worked day and night to find people housing, sometimes inadequate housing. That was back in 1993. Look at what is happening today. Things are even worse. I have never seen it so bad as it is now. During the election campaign, believe it or not, the Liberal candidate came after me and asked me what I had done in the last six years, having been elected as member of Parliament. I told the Liberal candidate to ask the Prime Minister, the leader of his party, what he had or had not done to deliver housing to those in greatest need. Vancouver East had the largest homeless encampment in the country. For months this went on. From the summer to the fall to the winter, it persisted. I begged the Minister of Housing to come to my community and see for himself what was going on. I offered solutions day and night whenever I saw the minister. Sometimes it was at the airport, while we were waiting for our flight. Sometimes I would walk across the floor of the House. I wrote countless letters to the government. I even wrote a joint letter with Mayor Kennedy Stewart and the local MLA, the Hon. Melanie Mark, begging for the government to come to the table. The provincial B.C. NDP government had said that it would match the funding from the federal government to address this crisis. Did the federal government come to the table? No, it did not, and yet the Liberals sit here today and talk about what a swell job they are doing with their national affordable housing initiative. Let us be clear about what is going on with the national affordable housing initiative. The reality is that initiative is not producing the housing needed most by those who are unhoused and by those who are living precariously with their housing conditions. The co-investment fund that the parliamentary secretary talked about, yes, is a great program, with the exception that it is so riddled with red tape that it is almost impossible for non-profits to make applications. They literally have to hire consultants to get through the stack of pages and reams of questions. Worse than that, after they are able to answer all the questions and submit their applications, CMHC barely has the wherewithal to process them expeditiously, and we wonder why housing is not getting developed. We wonder why things are not changing on the streets. With regard to the co-investment fund, I must also take a moment to say where the problems lie with smaller communities, rural communities and northern communities, communities that do not have the large infrastructure as my city does in an urban centre to make those complicated applications. They are left out in the cold. That is the reality of what is going on. Prior to and during the campaign, the Liberals bragged about the largest program within the national housing strategy, the RCFI. The RCFI has constructed housing that is simply not affordable. Housing experts have looked into this program and have found that the developments are way above market, somewhere between 30% to 130% above market. This is the kind of housing they are building. How will that help the people on the ground? One would think the government would want to bring in a program to support private developers in developing housing that is below market, but no, not this government, not the Liberals. The Liberals go on to say, “What a great job we are doing,” and they send out reams and reams of press releases making these announcements. Holy moly, I almost fell off my chair. In what universe, in what sane perception could one possibly accept the notion that housing builds 100% or more above market are acceptable? Even 30% above market is not acceptable. In addition, there was a project in Quebec where the Liberals made the announcement but then reporters found out that the project was not even built. Money had not even flowed to it. The Liberals are not embarrassed about that at all, and they just send out those press releases bragging about it. My goodness, I do not know what planet people are from. In my universe, truth matters, and what matters even more is action, because people on the ground need that housing. It makes me want to weep. When I came to Ottawa this week, our flight was delayed because of the snow. It was around three o'clock in the morning, I cannot remember exactly now, but I was in a cab. As the cab drove up to my apartment, I saw that there was a homeless man outside at three o'clock in the morning in Ottawa, in the bitter cold. I said to the cab driver, “Oh my God. That is a homeless man at this hour on this night, on the street.” I walked up to him, and he did not even have a piece of cardboard on the ground to cover the sidewalk for him. I just cannot imagine that situation. It is not just in the Downtown Eastside that we have a homelessness crisis; we have it everywhere across the country. Please could the Liberal government stop talking about what a great job its members are doing and actually do the job and deliver the housing for the people in the greatest need? To our Conservative friends, I will say that the motion in and of itself could be a good one, except that all the Conservatives are thinking about is supply and how to get that “gotcha” moment with the government. The motion proposes to make federal lands available without any stipulation whatsoever to require that residential development be tied permanently to affordable, non-profit, social and co-operative housing. That is not acceptable. It is exactly how the Liberals get away with driving a truck through the loopholes with their arguments about what a great job they are doing, which is producing housing that is way above market and still saying they are producing affordable housing. We have to do better and we must do better, because people's lives depend on it. I support the other aspects of the motion, such as the call to say to the government that we should never charge capital gains tax for people who are selling their primary home. I absolutely support that, no question. I also support the second component of the motion, which is to say that we need to ban foreign investment. We absolutely need to do that, and we need to do more than that. We need to stop the financialization of housing and stop treating housing as though it is a stock market. We need to deal with REITs and bring in measures to stop those kinds of investments, because all that does is drive up the cost of housing for those who need affordable rentals. I am not saying there is no place for market rentals; there is, but there needs to be some limit, and it cannot be at such a rate that people cannot live there. I move that the motion be amended in paragraph (a) by adding, after the words “available for” the following: “permanently affordable non-profit and co-operative”; and by adding after the words “primary residences”, the following: “(d) commit dedicated funding in the December 14, 2021 fall economic statement toward the development of the urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy promised in 2017, including the creation of a fully funded 'by indigenous, for indigenous' national housing centre; and (e) build 500,000 additional new homes that people can afford, including co-operative housing.” If the Conservatives would accept this amendment, it would be a fulsome amendment and we could make a difference. Let us do it.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/9/21 12:07:03 p.m.
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It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion. Therefore, I ask the hon. member for Edmonton Riverbend if he consents to this amendment being moved.

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Mr. Matt Jeneroux

Dec/9/21 12:07:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no, I do not.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/9/21 12:07:23 p.m.
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There is no consent. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85, the amendment cannot be moved at this time. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.

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Mrs. Karen Vecchio (Elgin—Middlesex—London, CPC)

Dec/9/21 12:07:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Vancouver East for her speech. I know her passion. I have watched her work on this file for a number of a years for those who are in need of social supports. To any candidate who has ever questioned how hard she works on this, I would say they should look at her record, because she has made many speeches on these types of actions. Some of the greatest concerns I see, though, are with home ownership, recognizing the difficulties of getting a down payment. My son has about $30,000 in the bank, which does not give him much of an option to try to get into the housing market. I believe that the inability to save money is because of inflation and the cost of living. Everything is going up. How can someone afford to get into a home if they cannot afford to save money? I do not mean to sound silly, but does the member for Vancouver East believe this is because of “justinflation”?

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Dec/9/21 12:08:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my thanks to the member for her kind words. There are many, many factors impacting home ownership. There is no question that there is a hot housing market and that people cannot afford to get into owning a home. Some of those issues tie into people flipping land, such as the Liberal member for Vancouver Granville, who actually, prior to the election, would not even answer the question of when he was participating in flipping land to make a profit. How much money did he make? What impact did that have, for example, on the cost of housing and on people who wanted to get into the housing market? Banning foreign ownership is also one step that can curb this, but it is not the only step. Addressing the issue of financialization of housing is a key factor within that. I wish the motion the Conservatives tabled would include that piece as well. If we want to have—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/9/21 12:09:41 p.m.
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Questions and comments, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

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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 12:09:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always think that when the federal government has surplus lands available for the opportunity to be used, in particular by community and in this case by housing, those lands should be made available through the proper process. What we are hearing from the Conservatives is a bit of a story on 41 million hectares of land, which includes 37 million from Parks Canada alone. The numbers they are throwing out do not really represent the reality in terms of the federal land available. I am wondering whether the member knows of any federal land within her riding that would be in close proximity to the services available in order to build housing and, to her passion, affordable housing more specifically.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Dec/9/21 12:10:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is true that the amount of land that is available is not to the tune the Conservatives have suggested. Having said that, it does not mean to say there is no land available. What we should and could do, of course, is look and see what land is available and then make it available to the non-profit sector to develop affordable social and co-operative housing. I am not here to get market luxury condos developed. That is not what I am interested in. That may be what the Conservatives are interested in, but I am not. That is why I moved the amendment to change the motion and include that stipulation.

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Ms. Lindsay Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, NDP)

Dec/9/21 12:11:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I truly appreciate the incredible work done by my colleague from Vancouver East, who is such a strong advocate for those in need of the affordable housing piece that New Democrats fight for on a daily basis. In my riding, in the city of London, there are 5,000 people on the waitlist for affordable housing. It is indeed at a crisis level. One of the things I am always upset with regarding what has happened through government inaction over the years is the role the federal government has played. It used to be that the government would build en masse affordable, co-operative housing. This was done at the provincial and federal levels, but—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/9/21 12:12:34 p.m.
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The hon. member for Vancouver East has five seconds to answer; it is all the time that is left.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Dec/9/21 12:12:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know New Democrats will always fight for safe, secure and affordable housing for all, and we strongly believe adequate housing is a fundamental basic right. That is why my colleague—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Dec/9/21 12:12:55 p.m.
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Resuming debate, the hon. member for Calgary Midnapore.

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