SoVote

May/2/23 10:20:43 a.m.
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I will remind the Speaker that we will decide what is relevant to our speeches and that he should not shut us down. We think it is an emergency when any member of Parliament faces threats against his family related to the votes conducted on the floor of the House of Commons. Nothing is more basic to our democracy than the ability of members to vote for their constituents' interests and to not have to vote in order to protect their family members from threats and violence.

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The Speaker

May/2/23 10:21:13 a.m.
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The hon. member for Winnipeg North is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/2/23 10:21:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member knows that we are not supposed to be challenging the Speaker and he continuously challenges you, as the Speaker, by not sitting down—

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The Speaker

May/2/23 10:22:03 a.m.
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We are fine; we are good. Resuming debate, the Leader of the Opposition.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

May/2/23 10:22:09 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Parry Sound—Muskoka. What we have today, with the Prime Minister's housing crisis, is double trouble. Since the Prime Minister took office and since he promised to make housing affordable, the average cost of a mortgage payment has doubled, from $1,400 a month to over $3,000 a month. The average cost of rent in Canada's 10 biggest cities has doubled, from about $1,100 to over $2,000 every single month. The average required minimum down payment for a house in Canada has doubled, from $22,000 to $45,000. This is all since the Prime Minister became Prime Minister and promised that he was going to make housing affordable. This is not just an inconvenience. This is not just a case where politicians stand up and say that Canadians are having trouble making ends meet or putting food on the table, as politicians always like to say. This is becoming possibly the single biggest socio-economic crisis in my lifetime, as an entire generation of young people have come to accept, for the first time in Canadian history, that they will not be able to afford a home. Let me share with members the mathematics of hopelessness. I was speaking to a young lady who is 28 years old and is a CATSA screener at Toronto Pearson Airport. She calculates that, at her current rate of savings, about $5,000 a year, it will take her somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 years to save for a down payment in Toronto. That means she will be well over 40 and unable to have kids. The hopelessness is not that she cannot afford a home; it is that her calculator tells her she will never be able to afford a home. It would be nice and comforting for the Prime Minister if he could claim that this problem is out of his hands and that it is the result of some crazy global phenomenon that is not in his grasp, and therefore that he is once again just a passive observer in the misery that the Canadian people are living, as he so often tries to portray himself. The stats prove otherwise. This problem does not exist in the vast majority of countries in our peer group around the world. For example, last year, Fortune magazine concluded that the standard home in Canada now costs twice as much as it does in the U.S. Can the Prime Minister explain this? Prices are determined by supply and demand. The U.S. has 10 times the demand because it has 10 times the population. It has a smaller supply because its land mass is more confined and less than ours. It has 10 times the demand and less supply, yet, according to Fortune magazine, the prices in the U.S. are half what they are here in Canada. Around the world, we see other examples. Vancouver, in NDP British Columbia, is now the third most overpriced housing market in the world according to Demographia. Toronto is the 10th. Both are more unaffordable than Manhattan, Los Angeles, London and even Singapore, an island where there is literally nowhere left to build. All these are places with more money, more people and less land, yet their real estate is more affordable than ours. The practical consequences of this are that, for example, almost one-third of homeowners with a mortgage will pay off that debt over more than a 30-year period, due to higher interest rates, a significant increase over the once-standard 25-year amortization. The average rent for a spare bedroom, just the bedroom and not the overall housing unit, in a home, condo or apartment in Vancouver was $1,410. Let us put this into perspective. There are now couples who consider it a bargain to move into a townhouse with two other couples, each couple renting a single room, often sharing a bathroom, always sharing a kitchen, and paying $1,500 a month just for that room. Here in Canada, this is true housing poverty, and it has happened after eight years of the Prime Minister's policies. Why is housing so unaffordable? First, government deficits are driving up interest, which increases the mortgage rates for people with debt. Second, we have the fewest houses per capita in the G7 even though we have the most land to build on. Why is that? The answer is that government gatekeepers block housing construction. It takes up to 10 years to get a building permit. We rank 64th in the world for building permit delays. We rank second-last for the speed at which we approve building permits within the OECD. Every other country but one in that group is faster to deliver permits and allow houses to be build. This blocks construction and prevents Canadians from owning a house. We know this problem is worse in NDP-controlled British Columbia, where hard-left, woke mayors who stand up for the wealthy mansion owners in leafy, ritzy neighbourhoods block the poor, the immigrants and the working class from ever owning homes. Therefore, we do not have enough homes, and that is why Canadians do not have a place to live. The government wants to bring in half a million people per year, which is a million people over the next two years, and it has no plan to build the houses to go along with that. In fact, since the current Prime Minister took office, we have fewer houses per capita than we did eight years ago. In other words, this problem is metastasizing and worsening every single day. The only party with a common-sense plan to fix it is the Conservative Party, and this is the plan. The government has put $89 billion into housing programs. Government housing is not the solution. It is not working because, if there is a confined space of permitted land to build on, we could pour as much money as we want into it and we are not going to get more housing; we are going to get more expensive housing. Worse still, the Prime Minister has announced $4 billion more, not for housing, but for the gatekeepers. The money is literally going to go to the zoning and permitting departments of the big cities that are blocking the construction in the first place. In other words, it is a big, fat reward for those same bureaucrats who are blocking our youth from having homes, and that will build out the bureaucracy and slow down the construction. Here is my common-sense plan. We will link the number of dollars big cities get for infrastructure to the number of houses that actually get built. Those who block construction will be fined. I will cut back their infrastructure. Those who speed up and lower the cost of permits to build more will get a building bonus from my government because incentives work. I will require every federally funded transit station to have high-density housing on all the available land around and even on top of the station. We will sell off 6,000 federal buildings to convert them into affordable housing for our young people to live in. We will speed up immigration for building trades. We will shift more of our education dollars over to the trades, rather than just to the white-collar professions. We have seen the way. We can look at what the Squamish people have done in the city of Vancouver. They have their own land and do not have to follow the rules of the gatekeepers. They are building 6,000 units of housing on 10 acres of land. The Squamish have shown what can happen when we get the gatekeepers out of the way. That is exactly what we are going to do right across the country. We will clear the gatekeepers. We will remove the privileged class inside the castle walls and open the gates of opportunity up to anyone who is prepared to work hard. If people work hard in this country, the rules should allow that they have a decent home where they can start a family and raise kids. It is common sense, the common sense of the common people united for our common home, their home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.

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

May/2/23 10:31:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, when the leader of the Conservative Party sat around the cabinet table, the Harper government did absolutely nothing when it came to housing. If we contrast that with the current government, we have invested literally billions of dollars into housing, developed a housing strategy, and worked with the different provinces and the many different for-profit and non-profit stakeholders. My question for the leader of the official opposition is this. Will he not recognize that, although Ottawa has stepped up to the plate and contributed in virtually every way, even though the Conservative Party has opposed many of those measures, the provinces, municipalities and other stakeholders also need to step up in order to resolve Canada's housing issues?

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/2/23 10:32:23 a.m.
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I want to remind members that I know the Leader of the Opposition is very capable of answering the question, and he does not need his MPs to help him on this. The hon. Leader of the Opposition.

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Answering

Hon. Pierre Poilievre

May/2/23 10:32:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, first, it would have been better if that government had done nothing. Nothing would have been better than what it did in reality. If the member wants to compare records, when I was the responsible housing minister, housing costs were half of what they are today. The average mortgage payment required on the average house was $1,400, and now it is $3,000. The required amount of a person's paycheque to make monthly payments on a house was 39%, and now it is 70%. The average rent was $1,100, and now it is $2,200. The average down payment was a modest $22,000, and now it is $45,000. These are just the results. It is true that the Liberals have far more expensive housing programs, but that is a double loss. It means that not only are homebuyers paying more; now taxpayers are paying more. Under the Conservatives, both of them would pay less.

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Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ)

May/2/23 10:33:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I closed my eyes at times during the Leader of the Opposition's speech, and it felt like I was listening to an NDP member. It shocked me to hear such words coming out of the mouth of the leader of the official opposition. It is no secret that housing is an area of provincial jurisdiction. Who could manage housing needs better than the municipalities themselves? Let me double-check something. I hear the Conservatives talking about penalizing municipalities that do not build enough new properties, new houses or new housing units. Does that not seem centralizing? Is it not the opposite of what the Conservatives usually preach? Can the Leader of the Opposition tell me if he agrees that no one knows housing needs better than the municipalities? Would he agree that what they need most from the federal government are adequate funds?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

May/2/23 10:35:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what an ironic question from the centralist Bloc. BQ members say they want to be independent, but what they really want is to be dependent. Every day, they rise in the House to call for a bigger, stronger federal government. We do the exact opposite of that. The member asked whether the federal government should give the municipalities money. At the federal level, we are responsible for the money we spend. Yes, I will make sure the money we spend is used to build affordable housing for Canadians, not the overpriced new builds we are seeing now. Are municipalities actually in the best position to handle this? Unfortunately, big cities like Toronto and Vancouver have done a very bad job. We are done saying yes to everything these incompetent mayors and local politicians ask for. They are the ones causing this housing crisis. The Conservative government will demand affordable housing. We will get rid of the guardians of privilege and get more houses built. That is plain old common sense, and that is what we are going to do.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

May/2/23 10:36:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the opposition for raising the motion today. I hope the member actually apologizes. I saw him become unhinged in this chamber before and call the Speaker a damn disgrace. He actually apologized to me in the past— Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/2/23 10:36:18 a.m.
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This was dealt with a while ago. I would ask the hon. member to ask his question, because we are running out of time. It should be reflective of the motion before the House. The hon. member for Windsor West.

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Mr. Brian Masse

May/2/23 10:36:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do think it is relevant; it sets the tone in this chamber. At the same time, I will ask, quite quickly— Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

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Tone
Chamber

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/2/23 10:36:40 a.m.
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Order, please. I would ask members to allow the hon. member to ask his question. The hon. member for Windsor West.

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Windsor

Mr. Brian Masse

May/2/23 10:36:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will go directly to the question. I will simply ask this. When he closed veterans' offices in my riding, was that a benefit to them getting housing or was it a distraction? I would like to know what he says about that.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

May/2/23 10:37:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the average veteran could buy a house for half of what he or she pays right now. Housing was actually affordable when we were in government. When I was the responsible minister, people could get a house with half the mortgage payment, or rent an apartment with half the rent, or make half the down payment or spend a third less of their paycheque on monthly payments. That was the reality. What we have now is a costly coalition of the Liberals and the NDP that protect the privileged by blocking housing construction. That is why the working class, the good, decent working class people who used to support the NDP, are abandoning that party as it has joined with the elitists over in the Liberal Party, and they are now standing for the common-sense Conservatives.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/2/23 10:37:52 a.m.
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There is no doubt that there are differing views, but I would ask everybody to be respectful during the debate, especially when someone has the floor. The hon. member for Parry Sound—Muskoka.

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Mr. Scott Aitchison (Parry Sound—Muskoka, CPC)

May/2/23 10:38:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, having a place to call home should not be merely a dream in Canada. It should not be a distant memory from generations past. It must be an achievable reality for all Canadian families. Canada cannot reach its full potential until everyone has a safe bed to sleep in and a welcoming place to come home to at the end of the day. I have had the privilege of visiting many communities in Canada, and there is a despair that too many Canadians are feeling, an emptiness that many of our fellow citizens are dealing with as the dream of having a home of their own slips further and further away from their grasp. Canada needs leaders who will turn rhetoric and words into real tangible action to get shovels in the ground now. The housing situation in Canada is in crisis, and times of crisis require bold action and real leadership. I have spoken in the House before about Kim Doughty. She was the catalyst who motivated her husband Claude and me to get an emergency shelter in Huntsville, six beds of emergency shelter and 10 units of transitional housing. The community rallied to the cause and we got the project built. We were justly proud of the accomplishment. We also knew it was just one step, that much more to be done. After I was elected as mayor, I met with Kim again, and some of her housing colleagues, and she told me some heartbreaking stories about suffering and struggle. Most of it was in hiding right in our picturesque Muskoka. What Kim told me that day years ago is the same thing we hear today in our communities all across the country. Housing is more than economics. It is more than shovels, dirt and wood. For too many, it is literally life and death. If the leaders of all levels of government took up the cause of combatting this crisis, we would do more than just make our communities more affordable; we would literally save lives. At that time, our council and administration set to work to change policies. We made land available to developers to build, and so did the community take up the cause. The Table Soup Kitchen was working hard at the time to open a shelter for men in Huntsville. It was very near completion when an issue arose over the fire code and access and entry points, so we were not quite ready to open it. In the midst of all of this was a young man named Paul. Paul had his struggles, but he was a joyful fellow and well-liked in the community. He requested to stay in the shelter one night, but he was turned away because it did not have its occupancy permit yet. Therefore, he stayed in his old beat up Volkswagen van that night. When police later found Paul's van, their investigation concluded that the candle he lit, presumably to create a bit of warmth on that cold November night, had tipped over as he slept. Huntsville lost Paul that night, and our community was devastated, as was I. I received emails from residents who were shocked and angry, some charging that Paul's blood was on my hands. Paul's father later wrote a letter to our community to thank us for welcoming his son and for making Huntsville the place Paul called home, quite proudly. He assured us that Paul's death was not anyone's fault, that Paul made his own choices and that no one was to blame. Yet, were we not? Was I not, just a little? What more could I have done to resolve the occupancy dispute? What mental health supports were not there that should have been there? Are any of us in leadership doing enough right now? Tragically, Paul's story is not unique. It is one that is repeated in every corner of our country. On average, in Toronto, three homeless people die a week. The vacancy rate for rentals in Canada is 1.9%. That means there is nothing to rent. Rental rates have doubled in the last eight years of the current government. Home prices have doubled in the last eight years under the government. For the 35-year-old living in their parents' basement unable to start a family, the entrepreneur thinking of moving to another country or the company passing off the opportunity to grow in Canada because it simply cannot find a place for their workers to live, the problem is getting worse. It is a crisis. It holds our country back from economic opportunity and prosperity. It holds Canadians back from being able to achieve their dreams. It stops us from building communities. In many cases, it is life and death. The problem is that we do not have enough supply. Years of bad policy have left our country without enough homes for Canadians. We are not building fast enough to keep up with the rising levels of immigration. The result is that too many of the homes we have today are too expensive for too many of the Canadians who live here. The solution is to get more shovels in the ground and build more homes faster. We must make it easier to build, easier to get permits, easier to source the skilled labour and building materials needed to get the job done. We must make it harder for the NIMBY activists and politicians who hold development up to stop them from doing that. Unfortunately, what we get from the government is a lot of talk and no real results. We see a Minister of Housing who attends a lot of announcements, but not a lot of ribbon-cuttings, groundbreakings or grand openings. In fact, a few weeks ago, I asked the Minister of Housing if Canada was in a crisis, something his provincial counterparts, economists, housing experts and his own officials agree upon. He rambled on about political talking points and spoke about his government increasing their ambition. In a crisis, we devote every possible resource to addressing an issue. It means bringing every single partner to the table and taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to face the challenge head on. Not surprisingly, the minister has not done this, because he does not seem to be aware of the magnitude of the problem. Canadians deserve better than that. They deserve a country where if they work hard and play by the rules, the dream of owning a home will always be in reach. Our country deserves a government that will work hard to get shovels in the ground, as those Canadians who work hard every single day, saving and sacrificing, do their part to build a brighter future for them and their families. This crisis is real, and the solutions we put forward must be bold. The old way of doing things simply does not work anymore. For years, housing providers from social housing, co-op housing, community groups and market-based developers have found it nearly impossible to access CMHC programs. Its procedures are convoluted, its decisions often do not even make any sense. The Auditor General's has reported that they are not entirely sure if what it is doing is having any impact. Canadians do not need the Auditor General to tell the truth. The fact of the matter is that it is not working. Just last week, the CMHC raised insurance rates on multi-unit purpose-built rentals. It raised those premiums by almost 200%. The government's out-of-touch housing policies will continue to drive up the rent on the most vulnerable Canadians and further stall the construction of new units. However, there is good news. The Conservatives are ready to clean up the government's mess. We are going to get the big government inaction out of the way and ensure that the federal government is no longer a barrier to getting more homes built. We are going to make available a minimum of 15% of underutilized government properties and clear the way for homes of all kinds to build on land that the government has not been using. While we are at it, we will stand up to the NIMBY activists and cowardly politicians who plague our system, the folks who fight tooth and nail against new homes being built in our communities. The Conservatives understand that if we are ever going to ensure that the next generation, that new Canadians and that young families have the same opportunities that every person in the House has had, then we cannot allow the NIMBYs, the naysayers and the critics to stand in the way anymore. That is why we are going to tie federal funding on all infrastructure projects for municipalities to how quickly they can clean up their act and get homes built faster. We will require that any major transit project to receive federal funding must have the land around that transit ready to go for high-density housing immediately. Let me be clear that the Conservatives are loudly and proudly saying yes to building more homes in Canada's backyard. The days of municipal councillors being able to hold up projects and vilify homebuilders must come to an end. The days of talk, delays and deferrals must be a thing of the past. Come the next federal election, the days of having a Minister of Housing who does not even have the courage to admit that Canada is in a housing crisis, let alone take the actions to fix it, will be done too. As a former mayor, I can tell members that homes do not get built without leaders who have the courage, the fortitude and the conviction to make the tough decisions, some decisions that are not popular but must be made. From coast to coast to coast, the housing crisis is claiming lives and shattering dreams. Canadians are living out of trailer parks and taking on crippling levels of debt. Sadly, too many are dying in the streets of our communities, big and small. It is time for bold action and tangible results. Working with all levels of government, trade unions, the private sector and community organizations, we will get things built. I ask every Canadian who has ever dreamed of having a place to call his or her own, the single mom working relentlessly to build a better future for her children, the entrepreneur thinking of leaving Canada, the new immigrant dreaming of coming to Canada, the young people locked out of the housing market, the parents with young people still living in their basements, to not lose hope because we hear them loud and clear and help is on the way. After the next federal election, the Conservative government will hit the ground running and work on day one to ensure that having a place to call home at the end of the day is not just the privilege of a few, but the reality of every single Canadian from every walk of life. A home of one's own in this magnificent Canada must no longer be just a dream; it must be a reality. The Conservatives will get our country building again. The Conservatives will bring it home.

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Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)

May/2/23 10:48:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I come from metro Vancouver, and we have had use planning there for a long time that respects and maintains agricultural land, which of course then constricts the amount of land available for housing. I would like the hon. member's thoughts on something we saw in our home community of Surrey, where the city rezoned land for multiple-dwelling units instead of single family. The neighbourhood rose up because it was concerned about having adequate space, the schools, the rec centres and the traffic management problems of putting that much more density into what was a single-family neighbourhood. What is the member's thought on that and on how to best resolve that kind of issue.

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Mr. Scott Aitchison

May/2/23 10:49:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a former mayor, and I was a chair of planning for many years before that. I guarantee the vast majority of these complaints come from people who just do not want change. Many, many times in planning committees we would have people come to say they did not like something, it would negatively affect the value of their property or there would be too many people. The fact of the matter is that municipalities have official plans, governing documents that say how the municipality show grow. There is professional planning staff who recommend in favour of things because it makes sense and is good planning. Then there are the cowardly local politicians, and trust me because I dealt with lots of them, and I chastised many of them many times, would say that the people of the community do not like it. They are worried about getting re-elected. We need to do what is right, and we need to challenge municipalities that are not doing what is right to get the job done because they are holding things up. They are making it more expensive, and it is harder and harder for young people to get into a home of their own because of their delays and tactics to stall these projects.

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