44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 1, 2023 11:00AM
Mr. Speaker, I will build upon my colleague's question earlier to the minister about the resources that have been provided to St. Thomas in terms of the Volkswagen plant. At lot of people in my area are excited about that for sure. There is a lot of conversation about job creation. However, within this budget, there were not many announcements about housing and supports for the people who are excited about those jobs, to be able to work and get to the plant.
I wonder if the minister could expand on that in terms of government resources and allocations into the specific housing that would be required for people to live in order to work at that Volkswagen plant.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, the Volkswagen investment is an important step forward for St. Thomas, for Ontario and for Canada as we move toward building an economy that is going to create prosperity for our children and for our children's children in an environment that is sustainable. We certainly need to continue also to work on other issues, including the housing issue that my hon. colleague talks about. That is why this government has committed almost $90 billion under the Canada housing strategy to ensure that we are building the kind of housing that will enable folks to have a place to call home and to ensure that they actually have a good job to go to.
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Mr. Speaker, as usual, my colleague is gushing over her government's budget.
Let us talk a little about the housing crisis. According to CMHC and Scotiabank, Quebec alone will need 600,000 housing units in the next 10 years to deal with the affordability and accessibility crisis we have right now. There is just one page on this issue in the budget. That is ridiculous.
I would like to know how my colleague believes that her government can reconcile this demand for housing over the next 10 years with its $700‑million investment over five years for Quebec's anglophone community, which, as we all know, is threatened with extinction.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague that we must fight the housing crisis. That is why we have a plan to invest historic amounts to build new housing.
I would also remind my colleague that, on April 1, the new tax-free savings account became available at financial institutions across Canada. Quebeckers should use this savings account to help them buy their first house.
I hope that my colleague will also speak to the provincial government, because we are negotiating with the Government of Quebec to ensure that we can provide further financing to build housing.
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- May/1/23 3:08:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadian veterans have served and sacrificed in the name of our country, and should never be without a safe and affordable home. As a proud supporter of our veterans, I was pleased to see, last week, our government launch a new veteran homelessness program to help ensure every veteran can have a place to call home.
Could the Honourable Minister of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion please elaborate and tell the House how this program will help veterans get the essential housing and services they need?
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Madam Speaker, I am going to go back to the early nineties, when all political parties in the House ultimately advocated that the national government should not be playing any role in housing.
For the first time in generations, we have a government that has committed billions of dollars, developed a national housing strategy that is investing in things such as housing co-ops and non-profit housing, helped municipalities and supported organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. The government is going out of its way to ensure that Canadians are able to have that first home. Would the hon. member not recognize that the federal government can only do so much?
It is important that we demonstrate leadership, which we have, but we need the other stakeholders, in particular our municipalities and our provinces, and other stakeholders as well, to step up to the table so we can provide the type of housing that Canadians expect. We need to all be working together. Would she not agree?
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Madam Speaker, I agree that all levels of government need to tackle this crisis. I am very proud of the work the City of Victoria and the Province of British Columbia have done on housing.
However, the Liberal government has had eight years in power. My community is seeing skyrocketing rents. When I sat down with non-profit housing providers, they told me that CMHC is where projects go to die.
This is unacceptable. We need a government that takes the housing crisis seriously, that acknowledges that we have people who are living on the street, people who are struggling just to make ends meet and people who are afraid of losing the roof over their head. So many people have given up on the idea of ever owning a home.
This is unacceptable. In a country as wealthy as ours, we need our federal government to do better.
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Madam Speaker, at the very beginning of his speech, the hon. member spoke to the housing crisis. New Democrats are going to be in agreement with him on that problem. However, I think the solutions are where we differ most.
It is a fact that there is a housing crisis in Canada. It is also a fact that we are seeing houses being built, but they are only being built for those who can afford them. The market is guiding housing toward increased housing prices, creating a bubble. New Democrats have tabled a solution to ensure that there is non-market housing available, such as social housing, for example.
Could the member be so kind as to offer the House and his colleagues, who would like to hear some clear dialogue on this, a solution from the Conservatives, a solution as to what they would do, rather than and absent of cutting the carbon tax, the three cents they have been talking about? What is the real solution Conservatives are proposing here?
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Madam Speaker, first of all, we would cut the carbon tax. What is more, we will incentivize municipalities. We will incentivize municipalities to remove the gatekeepers to get permits approved quickly. We will densify the population, building around major transit hubs in larger urban centres and, in smaller communities, such as mine and other rural communities, we will incentivize municipalities to broaden their definition of affordable housing to ensure that all Canadians have a place to call home. We need to bring it home for all Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for you and the office you hold. However, my colleague's behaviour is completely unacceptable. I hope that you are taking note of it. My colleagues in the House noticed it, as have I.
Here is the question that I have for my colleague. We are currently experiencing a housing crisis. There are no new investments in the most recent federal budget to address that crisis.
In Rimouski, in my riding, we have a record vacancy rate of 0.4%.
I would like my colleague to tell us why the government has not done anything or invested anything in the most recent budget to create—
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- May/1/23 6:57:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the fact is that promises matter. It is why a few weeks ago I asked the Prime Minister about an important promise made last April, just over a year ago now, that would have helped address the housing crisis.
I should pause to talk about that crisis that we are in the midst of. It is one that has led to the unsheltered population in my community more than tripling since 2018. It is also why we are seeing house prices across Kitchener and Waterloo now being eight times the median family income, whereas back in 2005 it was only three times as much. The fact is that house prices have gone up 275% and wages have not only not kept pace, but they are not even close; wages have gone up 42%. We can look at the fact that for every one new affordable unit being created across the country, we are seeing 15 affordable private units being lost.
Obviously, those investments are not adding up, so here is that promise from budget 2022, released last April. It said:
...that the government will engage with provinces and territories over the next year to develop and implement a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights and bring forward a national plan to end blind bidding. Among other things, the Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights could also include ensuring a legal right to a home inspection and ensuring transparency on the history of sales prices on title searches.
These are good and important measures. The right to a home inspection, for example, would help protect buyers and give them assurance before making a purchase at a time when multiple bids are coming in and many are getting squeezed out; and eliminating blind bidding would help ensure that others know the other bids that are being made and would help reduce the inflated prices when homes sell; and yet, it has been silence over an entire year until budget 2023.
Here is what was promised in budget 2023 this past April: “The government is also working with provinces and territories on the development of a Home Buyers’ Bill of Rights,...”. Therefore, a whole year has passed and what do we have to show for it? We have actually gone backwards. We have lost the commitment to blind bidding being eliminated altogether; that is just gone. We have also lost a commitment for a date to actually do anything. This is at a time when other levels of government are moving with urgency.
Here is what the office of the federal housing advocate had to say in assessing the last budget. She said:
The newly unveiled Federal Budget is a sorry disappointment. It completely misses the mark on addressing the most pressing housing crisis this country has ever seen.
When I asked the Prime Minister when this promise would be fulfilled, he went on to tell me how great the promise is. Well, it is not good enough. We are in a crisis. It is one that is affecting neighbours of mine and, in fact, defining my community today and into the future. Therefore, tonight I would like to hear from the parliamentary secretary. In light of not having any commitment for a timeline for action being taken and the fact that it is now removed from this budget, will the parliamentary secretary answer my question and tell us when the federal government intends on actually introducing and moving forward with the homebuyers' bill of rights?
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- May/1/23 7:06:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for his advocacy. We want to make sure, as he does, that everybody in this country has a home and that it is affordable.
As for his question, I would gladly sit down with him to talk about all the measures this government is doing, in particular, on the homelessness front, the homebuyer front and the foreign ban. I think all these measures at some point will help address the shortage of affordable housing we have in this country.
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