44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 25, 2022 11:00AM
- Apr/25/22 12:16:41 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, before I start today, I would like to wish our Orthodox community a happy Easter.
Today, I will be addressing the Liberal government's recently proposed federal budget for 2022. The budget presented an opportunity for real action on serious issues facing Canadians when our country is in desperate need of prudent financial planning. The cost of living is sky rocketing, the housing market remains out of reach for families, and vulnerable Canadians are in serious need of support.
In the community of King, home prices from February 2020 to February 2022 have increased by 142%. In Vaughan, prices increased by 57%. My community of King—Vaughan has become unattainable. The Liberal tax-free savings plan is not going to benefit first-time homebuyers with the rising cost of homes, and the Liberal finance minister has proposed a strategy described by Scotiabank's economic director as “spend, tax and pray”.
With the new NDP-Liberal coalition, Canada expects a $52.8-billion deficit for the coming fiscal year, and the finance minister apparently has no plans to balance the books until 2027. This comes as no surprise. With the Liberals in power, we have grown to count on excessive debt and the instability that comes with it. Having to appease the NDP, fiscal responsibility has gone out the window, further fuelling the affordability crisis. Only a few short years ago, the Prime Minister was praising the value of balanced budgets. Who would have thought the Prime Minister would return to his old ways of thinking and would favour budgets that do not balance themselves?
The central bank has started lifting its benchmark interest rate to combat record inflation exacerbated by the Liberals' financial incompetence. Although the increase in rates will help slow inflation, it has already hiked the cost of paying off the enormous debt we have accumulated. We are presently paying over $2 billion each month to service the national debt, and this burden will continue to expand with each hike.
Higher liability payments will make it more difficult for the federal government to weather new storms, follow through on promises and invest in Canadians. If the bank continues increasing rates above 2.5% as some predict, families that recently secured a variable-rate mortgage could see their payments increase by over 30%. The Liberals have been promising since 2015 to make housing prices more affordable, but the average house price has doubled since they took office. More expensive mortgages will not help anybody afford a new home, and the Liberals' plan of a new tax-free first home savings account will not assist Canadians with achieving their dream.
This NDP-Liberal budget also failed to address the needs of our seniors. Seniors 75 and older recently received a one-time $500 payment as part of the Liberals' election strategy campaign. A question remains, though: Why were seniors aged 65 to 74 excluded from this benefit? Seniors who planned on retiring now may be forced to continue working as the cost of living makes the prospect of retirement unattainable. Our seniors have contributed to our economy their entire lives and are now faced with the tough choices of their next employment opportunities in an effort to combat the cost of living.
As the primary health care providers, the provinces have asked the federal government for an additional $28 billion in health transfer payments, but this was not included in the budget. Instead of more money for hospitals and nurses to help care for our elderly parents and our children with disabilities, there is no option available to them once their parents are no longer able to care for them. The Liberals are caving in to the NDP's outrageous multi-billion dollar dental proposal. Dental care is under provincial jurisdiction, but not one province has asked for the federal dental care program, including the NDP in British Columbia.
In addition to physical health, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a massive toll on the mental health and well-being of millions of Canadians. I have personally spoken with parents of children with disabilities who say they are in dire need of support. On top of letting down adults with disabilities by failing on their promises to reintroduce a disability benefit, the Liberals are failing to address the needs of children with special needs. Although funding for mental health support is being expanded in general, the Liberals are seriously missing the mark when it comes to caring for the physical needs of our country's most vulnerable.
Finally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that Canada will be the worst-performing G7 country over the next 40 years. Based on this estimate, young Canadians entering the workforce today should expect to spend the majority of their working life in the slowest-growing economy. Is this the expectation we now have of our federal government?
Conservatives understand this is shocking, depressing and utterly unacceptable for the resource-rich nation we call home. The Liberals and their NDP colleagues are squandering our hard work and our children's future, as there is no serious plan for long-term growth in this budget. Conservatives will stand up for Canadians who want a better future, as the government's budget is not the best road ahead for our country.
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- Apr/25/22 12:25:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, before we broke I was able to take a look at the tax-free savings home plan. It does not work. If we take it in today's dollars, using the same example as in the budget, a young couple earning $90,000 will be able to afford a house at $355,000. I do not know where they are going to find a house in my riding for that money, let alone in Ontario.
If we take that same example for 2027, they will be able to afford a house worth $500,000, hoping that interest rates stay the same. One cannot buy a house for $500,000, so how is this plan going to help first-time homebuyers? I do not see it.
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- Apr/25/22 12:26:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is a lot of talk about housing in the budget. I think that is to be commended, because there are some significant investments in there. The government is talking about doubling the number of housing units built in Canada from 100,000 to 200,000. However, it is not clear where they got this 100,000 figure from, since the National Housing Council said in a study two months ago that only 35,000 units had been built since 2017, the year the national housing strategy was launched.
In this budget, the government is revamping two housing construction programs: the rental construction financing initiative and the national housing co-investment fund. These are not bad programs, but they are known for producing housing that is not particularly affordable. The government may say that it is going to build housing, but unfortunately, what is in the budget will not make it any more affordable. What does my colleague think?
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- Apr/25/22 12:45:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the occasion to comment on the 2022 federal budget includes an opportunity not only to highlight certain aspects of the government's plan that people in Fleetwood—Port Kells and indeed right across Canada will find of great value, but also an opportunity to illustrate the budget as yet another sign of a choice Canadians have in their relationship with the federal government.
Prior to 2016, we had 50 years of social and economic ideology that counted a great deal on the free market lifting us to prosperity. The results, though, have been economic and social inequities and gaps that have become more deeply rooted.
The legislation our government has shepherded through Parliament, including our budgets, has sought to address the gaps that the free market cannot or will not address. These are economic gaps between those few who have the leverage to grow their wealth much faster and the rest of us, social gaps that threaten the well-being of too many marginalized people, and gaps in the security of achieving and maintaining a quality of life that those who work hard should reasonably expect in a nation as wealthy as ours.
The highlights of budget 2022 I will cover today are the ones chosen by independent third parties. It is all right for us, as government, to say that this or that is important, but it is really interesting to see what people at street level, and the commentators and observers, have to say. My own thoughts will focus on areas where perhaps the budget itself has been silent.
In the time available, I am going to concentrate only on the number one issue at home in Fleetwood—Port Kells: The budget's measures concerning housing.
Budget 2022 takes steps to return some semblance of equity for first-time homebuyers. Here is an area where the underregulated laissez-faire free market has left the dream of home ownership entirely out of reach for too many and has left some Canadians literally out in the cold.
The Edmonton accounting firm Hahn Lukey Houle highlighted the tax-free first home savings account, which would help first-time homebuyers save up to $40,000 to help with their down payment. Money going into the account would be tax-free and money taken out of the account to buy the home would be tax-free.
The market could not offer something like this. Only the government could do it, and this one is. The market has been unwilling or unable to deal with practices that disadvantage homebuyers and distort prices along the way.
The Vancouver legal firm Clark Wilson, the most named firm in rankings by the publication Business in Vancouver, highlighted the concept of a homebuyers' bill of rights in budget 2022. Over the next year, this bill of rights would put an end to blind bidding, where buyers have no idea what has been bid by others for a property. That is a key driver of higher housing prices.
Prospective buyers would have the right to get the property inspected. Too often, it is a corner now being cut by people forced to rush some kind of a home purchase. There would be more transparency on the sale price history of properties and a new disclosure agreement for real estate agents if they happened to be working both sides of a transaction.
The bill of rights could also include a requirement for lenders to offer a six-month deferral of mortgage payments when families experience a job loss or other major life event, such as a pandemic.
Most media outlets have identified the provision in budget 2022 of a two-year prohibition in Canada on the sale of non-recreational residential property to foreign commercial enterprises and people who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents. Exemptions to this ban are expected to include refugees, individuals in Canada on work permits and international students who could be on the path to permanent residency. That last group has been identified by people I have spoken with as one that needs to be carefully monitored, because many believe the treatment of international students creates loopholes for foreign capital to buy up real estate.
Most commentators expected something on property flipping, and the budget delivered. Any individual selling a property that has been held for less than 12 months would be subject to full taxation on any profits as business income. The measure would apply to residential properties sold on or after January 1, 2023. There would be some exceptions to this for Canadians who sell their homes due to certain life events or hardship circumstances.
Another version of speculative trading in the Canadian housing market has to do with assignment sales. Those occur when someone reaches a deal to buy a housing unit that has not even been built yet and then flips the right to buy the unit for a profit. This can happen multiple times as a townhouse, condo or home is under construction, and each time, the ultimate cost goes up for the family who will eventually actually move in. GST will apply to all assignment sales of newly constructed or substantially renovated housing. That is going to happen very soon. It will be a week from Saturday, in fact, on May 7.
Storeys, a real estate news and industry publication, noted that the housing accelerator fund will apply $4 billion in 2022 to help municipalities speed up their development permit and approval process. I know this is a huge issue in Surrey, one of Canada's fastest-growing municipalities and soon British Columbia's biggest city, but the long lag to get construction approved by city hall is driving up the prices of finished homes because labour and material costs increase over time, especially during the long lag that it takes to get something built. Add the flipping and assignment sales and the development cost charges, and the cumulative impact on prices is significant.
I have heard stories too about another area that we really have to pay attention to. During the two weeks we had away from Parliament, I had a chance to touch base with a lot of people. I heard stories of people who leveraged the lift in their own home's value to qualify for another mortgage to buy a revenue property. Then, using the rise in that property's value, they got another mortgage for another property and so on. Is this actually going on? It would be worth finding out, because it sounds like the whole thing is a gigantic bubble, and if it pops due to mortgage rate increases, the banks could end up owning a lot of property.
Then there are trusts. The Globe and Mail, in an article focused on money laundering, noted the still unresolved issue of large, suspicious transfers between lawyers' trust accounts. These transfers are shielded from reporting requirements that are in place for banks, accountants, real estate companies and securities dealers. Even casinos have to report, but lawyers do not. In 2000, the federal government passed a law that allowed FINTRAC to carry out warrantless searches of law firms and seize materials. The Federation of Law Societies lawyered up, and by 2015 it was ultimately deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which told us to go back and improve the language. One would hope an improved version of that legislation is somewhere on someone's to-do list.
More broadly, trusts are perceived as offering perfectly legal loopholes to avoid taxes and obscure the real ownership of property. Watchers at street level say there is a fairness problem here. While budget 2022 aims to tackle the long-standing need to identify the beneficial ownership of real estate through a public registry, right now it is only going to apply to federally chartered companies. This is a good start, but for the provinces it is voluntary, a gap that knowledgeable people say needs to be closed.
Our government is attacking affordability issues that have been allowed to grow and mutate for decades. Fixing them is going to take time plus the talent and commitment to adjust and refine measures as we move forward. That said, all of us here should not underestimate the talent and commitment out there in the community to find ways around any step we take. This is more than a high finance or sound legal game of whack-a-mole. To the people faced with no prospect of qualifying for a mortgage, much less actually owning a home, this is not a game. It is in their interest that we get to the heart of a question our citizens ask at every election: What should government's role be when things are tilted against people?
Just over a year ago, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney spoke about what the role of government should be if Canadians believe in free enterprise but with a social conscience. Mr. Carney called our free markets “the most powerful instruments we’ve ever created. Their energy and dynamism can be...directed to serve great purposes, but the market is also indifferent to human suffering, and it can be blind to our greatest needs.” That's why politicians who worship the market tend to deliver policies that hurt people, and those who default to laissez-faire, or who leave the free market to its own devices, leave us unprepared for the future. Put simply, as he goes on, “Markets don’t have values, people do. And it’s our responsibility to close the gap between what we value and what the market prices. That’s the work of politics.” Or, in a view well represented in budget 2022, it should be and it will be.
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- Apr/25/22 12:56:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy sitting with my hon. colleague on the fisheries committee, and I have a fisheries-related question for him.
I am looking at the minister's mandate letter, and it says, “and develop a conservation strategy to restore and rebuild wild Atlantic salmon populations and their habitats.” However, I studied the budget, and I did not see any reference to Atlantic salmon whatsoever.
I just came back from two weeks in my riding, and I had a quite a few questions asked of me on this. People are wondering why Atlantic salmon were left out of the budget. We want more conservation and we want salmon enhancement.
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- Apr/25/22 12:57:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is no small question, and indeed it is an important one. We cannot forget that the budget is a snapshot in time. It is like a movie going by at 64 frames a second. There are things that were put in place beforehand and things that will follow as the dollars stacked up in any given ministry are allocated according to the needs. As we know, those needs will shift and change.
The member, another one over here from the fisheries committee and I are all going to get together to talk about the science. I think we share the view that the science either is not what we need or is not being used the right way. One way or another, we are going to get to the bottom of this and cast a way forward that would make the difference the member is looking for.
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- Apr/25/22 12:58:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the budget can be faulted for not including a lot of different things. There are only so many lines and there is only so much room, but that does not mean to say that things are not going to happen.
Our government has laid the foundation for a very strong agricultural sector, with the assistance that it has needed in various areas, including the whole business of sustainability in the environment. We are committed, by the way, to supply management, which I know is a huge force not just in the economics of farming, but also in the strength of communities where farmers live.
While I cannot speak directly to the point that our hon. colleague raises, I would say that it is worth a look and is worth following, and where we can make improvements on what is planned, we will do that.
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- Apr/25/22 1:21:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleagues' passionate discourse on this and the fact that they were more or less agreeing with what I was saying. When the Liberals were out selling the budget and travelling around Canada contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, the Parliamentary Budget Officer issued a report on Friday that was quite troubling with respect to the budget. He flags several downside risks in the recent federal budget, the biggest being big-ticket campaign promises that have yet to make an appearance in the government's fiscal forecast.
What they've forecasted is in the budget, but there are things that are not forecasted that are going to cause some significant costs later on. The PBO's largest concern is expenditures looming outside of the budget, including some of the Liberal campaign pledges and lobbying by provinces for big increases to health care transfers.
On the spending side, he said there could be a significant delta. This is the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux. He went on to say some of those election promises were slated to start up in the current fiscal year, most notably the commitment to increase annual payments to seniors receiving the guaranteed income supplement. He said many of these costs, including a promised increase to Canadian mental health transfers, do not appear in the budget. Universal pharmacare, which is of course a large part of the NDP-Liberal alliance, could cost billions of dollars a year. The Liberals pulled up short of a commitment to a full-blown program during the campaign, but the agreement struck with the NDP last month says that the government will make continuing progress toward such a program. However, there is no forecasted cost to that. Those costs will come up later on.
When the Parliamentary Budget Officer is warning about this particular budget, then I think all Canadians should heed those warnings. As I said earlier, I spent the last couple of weeks in the riding, and I heard from a lot of people. I know the Liberals' argument, because I have heard it a couple of times this morning, has to do with some of the geopolitical problems happening around the world being a cause of current inflation, whether it is supply chain issues or others. However, as I said at the onset, this was predicted to happen when the money printing presses were going at full steam a year and a half to two years ago. Even then, people were concerned about the cost of living. Some emails I received August 25, 2021, almost eight months ago, begged me to do something about this, if not for them, then for their future children. They say the government needs to fix this broken situation as it relates to housing.
One from August 25 reads, “I'm not sure who I would send this letter to, but I wish to express my concern with current rental and housing shortages in Barrie and surrounding areas.” This is a serious issue and many people are struggling as a result. I know there are billions allocated toward housing, but there have been billions allocated in the past, and we have not seen any measurable increases.
There are affordability projects right now that are waiting for approval from the government. I wrote a letter to the Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion three or four months ago. Still, no decision has been made for an already existing project that is waiting to go through the rapid housing initiative. It is to be a joint partnership between Simcoe County and what we hope would be the province and the federal government, but we have not heard anything at this point. There are a lot of announcements, but the list is long.
The emails and texts about the anxiety and the affordability crisis people are facing right now are long. Adding on billions and billions of dollars for more long-term, unsustainable programs, from the affordability standpoint, is awfully difficult for Canadians.
The last thing I will speak to is my profound disappointment about Lake Simcoe. In 2019, Conservatives were promised $30 million for the re-establishment of the Lake Simcoe cleanup fund. Just two or three days before the election in the advance polls, the then deputy prime minister, the now finance minister, came to the shores of Lake Simcoe promising $40 million for the reinstatement of the Lake Simcoe fund. Just a couple of days after the election, my colleagues and I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister about it.
In this budget, only $19.7 million was allocated, and it is not for direct funding for Lake Simcoe. It is to be spread across the country. There was $60 million spent to clean up Lake Simcoe. We saw measurable improvements. I am extremely disappointed that the commitment made in 2019 was not lived up to in this budget. We are going to continue to fight for Lake Simcoe.
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- Apr/25/22 1:26:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite made reference to the issue of taxation. Within the budget, it is being proposed that there would be a tax, for example, for our banks, and there is an expectation of over $1 billion in 2021. I believe it is somewhere around 15%.
Could he provide his thoughts regarding that? Does he believe there are exceptions where government should be applying some sort of a tax increase?
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- Apr/25/22 1:27:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention. I would like to know what he thinks of the agricultural component of this budget. In his speech, he stated that people need to know where they are going and they need a certain predictability. That is what the farming community needs, but unfortunately the government continues to disappoint with respect to the NAFTA compensation. The government keeps announcing that the compensation is coming within the year. People have been waiting a long time. This issue must be resolved.
This type of unwarranted insecurity is affecting the next generation of farmers. It was announced that Bill C-208 would be reviewed. This bill was democratically passed in the House. This creates insecurity in the sector and, as a result, tax experts are recommending—and this is important—that our farmers delay transfers, because they are concerned about what the Liberals will do. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.
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- Apr/25/22 1:30:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the latest report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, which I know my colleague would have read, it calls into question the ability, and it is a fair question and I say this respectfully, of the CRA to actually go after these tax dodgers, as the NDP calls them. There is still a problem that exists there that needs to be addressed.
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- Apr/25/22 1:31:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak on yet another budget from this administration. Since 2015, we have seen budgets and legislation that, in many ways, have been there to invest in real people, economic growth, and a clean future. From day one, this government has ultimately been there to support Canada's middle class. At the start of and during the pandemic, there were budgets to support Canadians through that very difficult time and ultimately to now.
Before I go any further, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.
I want to pick up on a few points that were raised already today in the debate. I am very sensitive to the issue of the cost of housing. It is of great concern for me and, I believe, for all members of this House. As we serve our constituents, we want to provide them the assurance that all politicians, at all different levels, are in fact listening.
I put this in the form of a question earlier today to a member from the Conservative Party. When we talk about the issue of housing, I believe the national government has been playing a very strong national leadership role. Never before have we seen a national government invest as much as this government has into housing. There are a number of programs. I often see the Minister of Housing in the province of Manitoba announcing yet another program, whether it is a specific program where a project is being announced, or a more general announcement that everyone could benefit from, such as the benefit for first-time homebuyers, where there was a doubling of the tax credit.
The multi-generational home renovation tax credit is one that I really would encourage people to get a better understanding of. I believe it is around $7,500. That program is there to encourage people to construct live-in suites for family members. I can see how, in many ways, that would be of great value and benefit for many of the residents of Winnipeg North. We have seen legislation and budgetary actions to deal with issues such as people abroad purchasing homes but not living in them. There will be a special tax in one situation and, in another, an outright ban.
The point is this: As we have made these investments, we have also worked with municipalities and provinces to encourage a holistic approach when dealing with the issue of housing, because as much as the national government can provide that strong federal leadership, we need to recognize that the way to overcome these types of prices is with the different levels of government working together. All of us have a role to play.
A local city or municipality, for example, can zone properties to make more lots available for individuals to acquire. Today, in the city of Winnipeg, if one tries to purchase a lot, it is virtually impossible because it has to be done through the developers. Allocating 150 acres, 300 acres or 400 acres in a municipality like Winnipeg would go a long way to making lots available. In order to increase the supply of housing we need to recognize that it is not just Ottawa that has to play a role, and that is a good example.
I say that because I believe that what we have seen over the years is a national government that has recognized the importance of working with other jurisdictions. We have seen excellent examples of that. The CPP comes to mind and the increase for the first time in many, many years. It was one of the first actions we took a number of years ago.
With respect to the health care accords, today we have record amounts of transfers going over to the provinces. Provinces are always going to want more money when it comes to health care, but let us recognize that no government in the history of Canada has given as much money to our provinces and territories toward health care. We did get health care accords with the individual provinces.
Let us look at the most recent huge development and financial commitment in terms of a national child care program. There are even, from what I understand, some Conservative leadership candidates who actually support this initiative. It is not all of them, so we do not know where the Conservative Party will land on this issue yet, but the bottom line is that it took the different levels of government to work with Ottawa in order to make it happen. The minister responsible did a fantastic job in terms of pulling it together and making it happen.
I say that because, when we went into the pandemic, we saw provinces, municipalities and Canadians as a whole take a team Canada approach to taking on the coronavirus, and we worked together. As a result of working together, what we see is that Canada is probably, I would ultimately argue, one of the best countries getting out of the pandemic. One just needs to look at the job numbers. Job creation and economic growth are important. When we look at how Canada is faring, we see the unemployment rate is around 5.5%. We would have to go back generations to get that kind of unemployment rate, and that is where we are today. We were able to do that because there was a high sense of co-operation taking place.
The government, in particular the Prime Minister, has been very much focused on Canada and how we can make our country a better place for all. We have seen much attention given to the issue of inequities in taxation policies. We have seen a deficit of social programming, and we now have a Prime Minister who is committed to addressing some of that.
We have seen expenditures in things such as infrastructure. We have seen areas of our society, such as seniors, where there have been historic amounts of investment to ensure that, for example, our seniors have a better standard of living. These are the types of programs that have made a difference in a very real and tangible way. It is about investing in people, in economic growth and in a clean future.
When I think of our environment, I think of recent announcements by the government, in co-operation with the private sector and other levels of government, in regard to zero-emission vehicles being manufactured here in Canada. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars combined between different levels of government and the private sector in order to ensure that we are on the right road in terms of investing in zero-emission vehicles. We see that in terms of public policy, whether from our Minister of Environment or our Minister of Natural Resources, who are saying the same thing in all the different regions of our country.
This is a government that recognizes the true value of having a budget that provides hope, and budget 2022 does just that. It is a budget we can all be proud of. It deals with all the different sectors, whether it is business or individuals, to ensure that we will be able to continue to grow our economy and support the many different social programs that are there and that Canadians value.
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- Apr/25/22 1:42:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I guess where I am coming from is that to acknowledge that everybody is happy with the budget, that it is a great budget and that things are going great is pretty insulting to the thousands of emails that I have from constituents.
I am curious to know, with housing, if the member opposite thinks the housing program is so great, why has the Prime Minister acknowledged that young homebuyers should just give up on home ownership?
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- Apr/25/22 2:46:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me remind the members opposite that S&P and Moody's have reaffirmed Canada's AAA credit rating and that we have the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7.
When it comes to making life more affordable for Canadians, our budget has done so much. We are doubling the support provided through the first-time homebuyer's tax credit. We are introducing a multi-generational home renovation tax credit. We are providing $500 payment to those facing housing affordability challenges.
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- Apr/25/22 2:47:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, budget 2022 actually does four things. We are seeking to double the supply of new housing in the next decade by introducing programs such as the housing accelerator fund. We are helping first-time homebuyers with a tax-free savings account of up to $40,000, by doubling the first-time homebuyer tax credit and by extending the first-time homebuyer incentive.
In addition to that, we are tackling speculation by banning foreign ownership of Canadian residential real estate. We are building more affordable housing by investing in co-op housing, extending the first-time homebuyer incentive and extending the tax-free homebuyer savings account.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/25/22 2:52:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadian housing prices have surged over the last two years. The average cost of a home in the GTA rose more than 50%. The government blames the lack of supply for the price hike and pledged to double the pace of home building over the next decade, but that plan seems to be missing from the budget. We will not see a single additional house built this year, not one.
Canadians are not giving up on their dream of home ownership, so why is the minister giving up on them?
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- Apr/25/22 2:53:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I invite the hon. member to read the entire budget, because the budget actually doubles down on so much more housing supply in Canada: 6,000 more co-op housing units, new housing—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/25/22 2:53:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our budget contains a lot of measures to build more housing supply: 100,000 new homes through the housing accelerator fund, 6,000 more homes through new co-op buildings, 6,000 more homes through the rapid housing initiative and 20,000 more homes through the national housing co-investment fund. That is the supply we are taking about.
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- Apr/25/22 3:44:07 p.m.
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Then, Madam Speaker, I would retract the words “just” and “inflation”. I thank you for that.
We cannot spend our way out of this historic inflation. This budget before the House is a classic Liberal tax-and-spend budget. Canadians know that they are the ones on the hook for this $50 billion of brand new Liberal spending in this budget. This is not what Canadians signed up for when they voted Liberal this past summer. Canadian citizens did not vote for an NDP-Liberal government. They voted for a Liberal government, sadly, but now they are getting an NDP-Liberal budget. No one voted Liberal-NDP on the ballot box, yet this is exactly what Canadians have at this moment. It is shameful.
In Miramichi—Grand Lake, we rely on something to get things done: trucks. We rely on trucks to get things done. I live on a street with about 17 houses. There are at least four truck drivers and one transport company right on my residential street in Blackville, on Digby Street. That is why my office has been inundated with constituents concerned about the net-zero advisory body's annex of the Liberals' 2030 emissions reduction plan, where on page 192, it chooses trucks, vans and SUVs as public enemy number one. This NDP-Liberal government is doubling down on the people who drive trucks, vans and SUVs.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Jake Stewart: The member across knows that, and he should be ashamed because he has constituents who drive trucks and SUVs and vans. My constituents cannot afford inflation, paired with a tax on trucks. What my constituents and I believe all Canadians want is for the Liberal government to get its hands out of Canadians' pockets, take them out of there and give people the break they deserve.
When I reviewed this budget with my staff, we were floored by the exorbitant amount of new spending that the Liberal-NDP government is planning on handing out. This is despite the fact that Canadians are experiencing a 31-year inflationary high. How bad does it have to get for the government and its multiple prime ministers, at this point, to address the reality that Canadians are facing every single day? I know the people of Miramichi—Grand Lake cannot afford another inflationary budget that adds to the crisis we are facing across this country. The fact that home prices have doubled since the Liberals formed government should be enough to call for a non-confidence vote, a vote that could never happen now that the NDP has been, what do we call it, bought off by the Liberal Party of Canada.
After seven years of Liberal policies, Canadians are facing record-high inflation and a skyrocketing cost of living, leading to higher grocery and gas prices and a growing housing affordability crisis. More than half of Canadians are $200 or less away from not being able to pay their bills or rent, with three in 10 already falling behind at the end of the month. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of families, in Miramichi—Grand Lake and across the country, being forced to go from shopping at the grocery store to now visiting the food bank. These are hard-working Canadian parents, struggling to feed their families.
Now is not the time to add an emission tax on to farmers, yet that is exactly what the government is doing. What is this fixation on farmers, construction workers, oil and gas workers, and people who drive trucks, vans and SUVs? This is the type of government that is literally zeroing in on certain groups of Canadians and making their lives twice as miserable as the inflationary times we are already faced with because of the government's decision-making to begin with.
These costs are being passed on to the consumer, driving higher costs in the grocery store aisles, and Canadians are feeling it. People in Miramichi—Grand Lake are feeling it.
History is repeating itself. As we saw in the late 1970s and early eighties, Canada's government is spending outside of its means, and Canadians are paying for it at the gas pumps, grocery stores and every time we buy anything. Inflation is currently 6.7% nationwide, but in my home province of New Brunswick, inflation is 7.4%, with no sign of slowing down. Moncton, New Brunswick, has the highest MLS listing hike in home prices year over year, at almost 60%. At what point will the government start working with the different levels of government to get a proper solution, instead of trying to spend its way out of the crisis? That just does not work.
The Liberal-NDP spending solution is one of the major reasons we are in this mess in the first place. This budget is adding $3,500 per household in national debt. How is passing the buck on to taxpayers having their backs? I would like the explanation for that.
When looking at the budget and seeing how the government is planning on approaching the housing crisis, all I saw was a macroplan that will take many years to see any results. Many of those results will not be positive, if there are any, and there is no plan for immediate action. This will only add fuel to the inflationary fire, with no immediate help for Canadians trying to buy their first home.
There are constituents calling me asking how a new registered savings plan would help them get into their first home when they are scraping by to pay their current bills. The Liberal-NDP government currently does not have Miramichi—Grand Lake's back. It does have its hands directly in both of our pockets, and probably the front pockets too. It is a government focusing on the perfect headline. What it really needs to be doing is focusing on a solution that will work. The government needs to get off its high horse, roll up its sleeves and get to work.
I am thankful for the opportunity to speak. This is a bad budget for Canadians. The Conservatives have a better plan, as always, and I am happy to speak against this budget. The Liberals do not have Canadians' backs.
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- Apr/25/22 3:58:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise, as it always is, in this chamber to talk with my colleagues. We are talking about the budget today, so it is helpful to first ask the question and set where we are: Does the budget meet the expectations that Canadians had?
Gas prices have almost never been higher. Our food prices are going up and up. Retail prices are continuing to increase. Construction material prices and housing prices are going up too, and that includes rent, so both home ownership and rental accommodations are becoming incredibly more difficult to obtain for Canadians.
On the day after the budget, Canadians woke up. There was no immediate relief, no tax holidays and no tax rebates. In fact, on April 1, the government increased the carbon tax, which we know causes inflation. The Bank of Canada has been so kind to tell us that it has provided at least 0.5 of a percentage point to the inflationary measure that StatsCan puts out every year. The real question is, why is the government not doing everything in its power to reduce inflation?
I will give it to the government that all the inflationary pressures are not domestic. We have supply chain issues. We now have a war in Ukraine. However, the government has an easy lever to pull with respect to the inflationary pressures that it creates. It is the spending and carbon tax.
Let us talk about spending. Let us go through a few numbers and facts that are irrefutable. These are from the government's own documents. In 2015, the government spent about $300 billion. In 2019, the government spent $426 billion. In 2022, it is projected to spend about $452 billion. That is a 25% annual growth rate for this year compared with 2019. It is 53% growth in annual spending from 2015 to today. All the economists have been telling the government to take its foot off the pedal of spending because it is increasing inflationary pressure, so any assertion that this budget is prudent is comical.
Furthermore, we are led to believe that, while the government has been increasing spending by 7% to 8% every year since 2015, now all of a sudden, from this year going forward, it will hold the rate of spending growth to 2% to 3%. The only problem is that nobody believes the government. Absolutely no one thinks that it is possible for the current government to hold spending growth to 2% to 3%. In fact, in this budget, we do not even have projections for spending on the promise of pharmacare. We do not have projections for the spending on new health care transfers. We are just coming out of a pandemic and the government is saying that it is not going to increase health care transfers.
However, we have a fiscal anchor, we are told. The debt-to-GDP ratio is going to continue going down. The only reason the debt-to-GDP ratio is going to go down is inflation. The entire government's fiscal plan is based on inflation. It is the only way it is going to work. In fact, in just one year, from last year to this year, the government is projecting $170 billion in new revenue that it did not project last year. That money is coming from Canadians in the form of higher prices. That is money people are having to pay. Their dollar is not going far enough. It is a silent tax and it hurts the most vulnerable in our society.
In fact, in the tightest labour market in a generation, the government has spent money on hiring 10,000 civil servants a year every year since 2015. What do we have? In the tightest labour market, the government still wants to spend money and hire new civil servants. Where are these people going to come from? All of our small business owners across the country are crying for more people, so the government's decision is to hire some more people. Those are individuals who now cannot work in the private sector, cannot help a business grow and cannot help a business get back on its feet.
They pay taxes and salaries. That is going to lead to private sector growth, but let us talk about some specific measures. I am a balanced person. There are some good things in the budget, no doubt.
Employee trusts set up an opportunity for individuals to pass their business on to employees, and I think that is a welcome measure. What the government proposes to do with the ready, willing and able initiative, which is a policy, by the way, that was started under former finance minister Jim Flaherty, is to give organizations some additional funds to encourage those people with intellectual disabilities to enter the workforce. It should be applauded.
The Great Lakes fishery investments are well needed, and there is some money for freshwater cleanup. On the freshwater cleanup, it was nice to see Lake Simcoe referenced. However, it is a much smaller number than what had been previously promised.
Everyone talks about how Conservatives just like to talk about all the spending and not about what they are going to cut. Here we go. Here are some ideas for the government to consider.
On the infrastructure investment bank, breaking up is really hard to do, it seems. Instead of walking away from something that is not working very well, the government expands the mandate and gives it more money. Not only that, but it is taking the same failed model and saying it is going to create a new $15-billion innovation fund. Again, superclusters are reintroduced, with some expanded money. It would be unparliamentary to say the word I am thinking of right now.
The government is planning on spending money on a buyback program for guns, instead of taking that money and putting it into reducing crime. We need to do much more of a comprehensive spending review. It is nice to see that there was one mentioned, but it is not nearly going to be enough.
Let us talk about young people for a minute. The new, shiny, tax-free home savings account sounds amazing, except when one finds out that it is going to take a full year before it comes into effect, and then it is going to take another five years for an individual to max out on the contributions. Also, the home tax-free savings account cannot be used with the homebuyers plan, so people must make a choice. It is one or the other. Really, one program is going to be gutted and replaced with another, for a shiny new object. It is mostly a marketing ploy, in my opinion.
Instead, what the government could have done was to tell individuals who use the homebuyers plan that they do not have to pay the $35,000 back. That would have been a far more effective way to accomplish what it is trying to accomplish and have an immediate effect.
We asked young people to stay at home for two years. We asked this of all Canadians, but young people in particular put their lives on pause for two years for a virus that represented very little risk to them. Yes, Canada had a very low death rate, and I think that is a positive outcome of the pandemic and some of the responses. However, young people have now come forward and are re-emerging back into the economy. What have they found? The thanks they have found is that they now have a national debt that has doubled and that they are now responsible for, and a housing market that is completely unattainable. The Bank of Montreal released a report and singled out Orillia, which is in my riding, for having a 300% increase in house prices in six years. It is incredible to think of how young people are looking at this housing market and believing it is attainable.
I have talked about the bank tax before in this chamber. If the government thinks there are excess profits in that industry, we should really be revamping competition law. My prediction right now is that we will see an increasing number of bank branch closures across this country, particularly in rural Canada. It is no surprise that just last week, after the budget, banks made closure announcements in small communities across this country, including one in Brechin, which is in my riding, along with others in Pefferlaw, Cannington and Stayner.
I will close on another matter that is very close to my riding: the boat tax. There are 25 marinas and 15 boat dealers in my region. The government thinks that if a person can afford a boat, they deserve to be taxed. With the price of cottages and housing, these individuals are looking for other options for recreation, and boating is one of them.
However, this tax is only going to push jobs and investment elsewhere. These individuals are going to buy their boats south of the border and bring them here. That is going to hurt the people in my community, and that is going to bring in far less revenue than the government believes.
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