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May/2/23 5:03:33 p.m.
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Never assume.

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Assume
Never

May/2/23 5:03:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I said in my preface remarks, once again, I am concentrating on the business of government. We are talking, this evening, about home ownership and renting affordability. What I am speaking about is affordability, whereby we are making it more affordable for Canadians to deal with the market conditions that are before them when it comes to housing by investing in other areas that, in fact, will make it more affordable for them to enter into the housing and renting market. My colleague across the floor should recognize that, as I am sure he does have some business astuteness in terms of offsetting the cost of living with respect to some of the investments that the government is making.

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Mr. Vance Badawey

May/2/23 5:08:18 p.m.
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I know that I should never assume. I will move on. Budget 2023 also announced that the federal government will increase the number of Canadians eligible for “auto-fill my return” to two million people by 2025, almost triple the current number. We are also addressing affordability with our students, our younger generation, preparing them for the next stage in their lives and the adventures they are going to embark on, whether it be through co-ops and apprenticeships or student loans, and ensuring that they have the ability to enter the markets once they are finished with the hard work they are doing at either college or university. The Canada workers benefit, which we committed to both in the 2022 fall statement and in the 2023 budget, provides up to $714 for single workers and $1,231 for a family, split between three payments, again, allowing for the affordability in some of the challenges that people are actually recognizing with homes, with groceries, with gas, etc., once again concentrating on the business of good government versus the business of good politics. That is our priority. Regarding health care, I want to be very clear that in exchange for the new funding that we are providing the provinces, in the amount of $198.3 billion over 10 years and $46.2 billion to the provinces and territories, what this is going to do is create more affordability for Canadians when it comes to housing and home rentals, not to mention what it is going to do to provide equitable health care and ensure that the provision is given to all Canadians. I will give an example. In Niagara, this will ensure that urgent care centres in the town of Fort Erie and the city of Port Colborne stay open to provide equitable services for their residents. This will ensure, once again, keeping, maintaining and enhancing all the services that are currently provided by the urgent care centres in Port Colborne or Fort Erie, as well as the hospital in the city of Welland. This is extremely important for those communities, not only adding equitable access to health care services but also, with the investments being made by the federal government in partnership with the provincial governments, ensuring affordability so that people are receiving these services while at the same time creating equity with respect to offsetting the higher cost of living. This government is investing in Canadians, and by doing that, with the myriad of different services that we are embarking on today and well into the future, we will, in fact, offset the financial challenges that many of our neighbours and our families have to endure in the market conditions that are before us today.

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Mr. Tony Baldinelli (Niagara Falls, CPC)

May/2/23 5:08:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for his comments regarding budget 2023 and the budget implementation act. He has spoken to a lot of the issues, but has not really spoken to the issue we are dealing with today, which is housing. Perhaps he can respond to some of the issues we are bringing forward. The government's approach with its national housing strategy, this “everybody gets a pony” approach, has failed to deliver the results Canadians need, which is to get housing built. Housing prices have doubled. Monthly mortgage costs have doubled. The average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Canada has more than doubled. How would the member ask his government to respond to those issues?

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Mr. Vance Badawey

May/2/23 5:09:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that is a great question from my neighbour in Niagara, specifically because of some of the challenges we are enduring in the Ontario. I will give an example. At the current time, the Conservative Government of Ontario has now taken away the ability for municipalities to charge full development charges to builders to offset growth-related costs such as fire, police, community services, public health, infrastructure, roads, gutters, sidewalks and the list goes on. They are now defaulting on the property taxpayer or the water bills. To answer my colleague's question, it is incumbent upon the federal government to not only encourage, but demand that the Conservative Government of Ontario ensure those development-charged dollars go where they belong: to the property taxpayers and water/waste water ratepayers.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/2/23 5:10:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let us put aside today's Conservative motion and talk seriously about housing. One week after the budget, the National Housing Council stated that the national housing strategy is a failure, that it is not working and that in 10 years in Canada, between 2011 and 2021, a total of 550,000 affordable housing units were lost, while the strategy only produced 115,000 units. Since the Liberals have been in power and the strategy was launched, we have moved backwards. I would like to remind members that the National Housing Council was created by the federal government to provide advice on the national housing strategy. It has reported that the strategy is not working and it is a failure. One of the Bloc Québécois's recommendations, and one that has also been made by the council, is to establish an acquisition fund. As it is difficult to build quickly at this time, the government should follow the lead of British Columbia, which has created a $550-million fund to help organizations or cities to purchase private housing stock, remove it from the market and ensure that it remains affordable. That is what the National Housing Council is proposing and what we are proposing as well. Does my colleague agree that we should move quickly to do that?

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Mr. Vance Badawey

May/2/23 5:11:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that is a great point and it is part of the discussion that we are having with those very partners. An example of that is the billions of dollars that we have provided in the budgets, not just budget, in the past two years. We are also working with the indigenous communities to ensure they get equitable access to that funding as well, with respect to the housing needs they have. My point is the balance that we, as a country, have to have in ensuring that we address this challenge. I think the member is correct. Moving forward, we do have to work with our partners to find different creative ways to meet this challenge because it is bigger than the country. I think we have to come to that realization and we have to find those ways to meet that challenge by working together with our partners.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

May/2/23 5:12:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have to say what we need is for the federal government to show the kind of leadership that is necessary. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been calling for a national acquisition fund for a couple of years. The government has been talking about this and consulting about this. NGOs in the community have been calling for this. The NDP has been calling for this. However, it was not in budget 2023. Will he support the NDP's call for the government to charge landlords for the financialization of homes, such as real estate investment trusts, for them to pay their fair share of corporate taxes, and take those resources and invest them in an acquisition fund for non-profits?

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Mr. Vance Badawey

May/2/23 5:13:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again, it is the same answer as for the question prior. This is the dialogue we are having. It is a great question. Of course, I have to confess it was a tough budget this year. The government really tried to strike that balance between fiscal responsibility, especially after what we went through the last three years with the pandemic and of course getting a handle on that, while at the same time hearing what our partners are telling us and really being a part of that dialogue. To the member, those are some of the options this government will consider moving forward.

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Mrs. Brenda Shanahan (Châteauguay—Lacolle, Lib.)

May/2/23 5:14:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to see that, like us, our colleagues across the floor are concerned about housing affordability, but concern is not enough. Since 2015, our government has been turning our concerns into actions, producing real results for real people in this country. When we entered office, our government saw the crisis in housing affordability looming and we knew that bold action was needed. We made history in 2017 when we launched the national housing strategy, the first of its kind in this country. The strategy is a 10-year, $82-billion plan that offers grants, loans, innovation support, research funding and more. The strategy addresses the needs of people across the housing spectrum, from homelessness, to rental housing, to home ownership. It takes a human rights-based approach to housing, focusing particularly on the people who are most vulnerable to housing needs. We are halfway through the national housing strategy timeline, and we are on track. Better yet, in delivering on most of the measures, we have disbursed more than one-third of the strategy's funding. With this funding, we have achieved at least 50% of most of our targets. These results include supporting the repair of more than 298,00 units, just short of the 300,000-unit target; maintaining the affordability of 234,000 community housing units, which is 60% of the target to date; and supporting the creation of nearly 120,000 units out of a target of 160,000 units. It can be hard to comprehend such large, abstract numbers, so I am going to talk about one of those 120,000 units that were built. That unit is occupied by Bill Beaton. Bill is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran who was living on the street before being welcomed into Veterans' House, a supportive housing facility for homeless veterans in Ottawa. The 40-unit project was created through the national housing co-investment fund, one of the strategy's flagship affordable housing programs. For Bill, Veterans' House is not just a statistic. It is much more. It is a safe place to live. It is stability. It is a home that he would not be able to afford otherwise. His story is similar to those of many thousands of people across Canada who have a place to live thanks to the national housing strategy. It is the story of people who were given a helping hand to access housing that they can afford and that meets their needs. The situation has changed drastically since the Government of Canada launched the national housing strategy in 2017. Since then, we have been dealing with the pandemic, global inflation, supply chain disruptions and a war in Europe, among other things. During that time, our government, through the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, updated, improved and expanded the strategy's programs. We did so in response to the changing situation and the input of our partners. We recognize that housing is a shared responsibility and that the federal government will not meet its ambitious housing objectives alone. For example, we have simplified processes that were found to be too cumbersome and bureaucratic, cutting processing times in half. We have made changes to better meet the needs of the not-for-profit housing sector. This includes a special stream of the national housing co-investment fund that turns approvals and agreements around in as little as four weeks. That feedback on turnaround times led to a new program, the rapid housing initiative, a program that is very important to the riding of Châteauguay—Lacolle. It was designed to build homes more quickly for people who need them most and has consistently exceeded its targets. We have since extended it twice, helping even more people. One of the things we have heard from our partners is that the cost and availability of land is a persistent barrier to building new homes, and so in 2019, we launched a direct solution: the federal lands initiative, a streamlined process to make surplus federal property available for use in building affordable housing. This 10-year, $200-million program is supporting the transfer of federal property to eligible proponents at discounted rates or no cost. So far, we have committed $118 million of that budget and nearly reached the target of 4,000 new affordable housing units. Still, we must do more. The magnitude of Canada's housing challenges is bigger than any one program can address. The national housing strategy and its programs are supporting action, inspiring innovation and providing a platform for the public, private and non-profit sectors to come together. It is through collaboration that we would build a better and fairer housing system. I am not standing here today just to talk about these programs and their success; I am here to make a request. I ask each and every member in this House to work with their constituents to help connect them to the programs and funding available. The national housing strategy approaches housing affordability from every angle that would have an impact. We believe there is something in there to meet every type of housing need. Every community can benefit from the provisions of the strategy, and together we can ensure that everyone in Canada has a place to call home.

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

May/2/23 5:20:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, for many families and workers, having access to affordable housing is the best way to lift themselves out of poverty and have a decent life. Unfortunately, we still have a major housing crisis. The NDP believes that we need to speed things up. In her speech, my colleague stated that concern is not enough. I completely agree, but unfortunately we are finding that things are moving slowly. Social housing is the most effective solution, but there are more than 35,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in Quebec. On the Island of Montreal alone, there are more than 23,000 people on the list. What are the member's suggestions for accelerating the construction of social housing, first and foremost, co‑operatives and truly affordable housing?

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Mrs. Brenda Shanahan

May/2/23 5:21:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question. I am very proud to say that we have a rather large inventory of social housing in Châteauguay—Lacolle. It is not enough, but we have quite a lot of social housing units on Montreal's south shore. That is thanks to the experience and expertise that has been developed over the years. We have many organizations that work with community groups. They are also involved in the construction of low-income housing at the municipal level. They know how to make use of the programs when they are implemented and they make sure that social housing gets built. We have had some success stories lately in terms of low-income housing. That is also thanks to the rapid housing initiative and our partnership with our neighbour, Kahnawake.

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Mr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC)

May/2/23 5:23:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the problem we have on this side is this. I will reiterate what our hon. colleague from Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies brought up earlier on. When he had the minister and the officials before committee, he asked the minister how many houses had been built in the Yukon and how many houses had been built in the Northwest Territories. The minister could not answer that and neither could the officials. Then, we had our hon. colleague from the NDP, the member of Parliament for Nunavut, give a powerful message yesterday, saying that the lack of housing and the lack of action by the government in developing affordable housing in our most marginalized communities are keeping some of our most marginalized indigenous women and families in very dangerous situations. The government has had eight years to follow through with it. Why should we wait and see, and trust that it will do it now? It has been eight years, and the government has done nothing.

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Mrs. Brenda Shanahan

May/2/23 5:24:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I find that rather brutal. We are five years into a 10-year strategy. In my speech, I talked about how we are meeting different objectives. I would like continue my answer to that question by continuing my answer from before. We have increased the funding available through the CMHC. We need capital to build housing. When we are talking about social housing and affordable housing, that capital needs to come from public funding, which we all share so we can help each other equally.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/2/23 5:24:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this day has not been easy. All day long, the Liberals have been playing us the same tune about how things are not so bad and the situation is not so dramatic. We do not agree with the Conservatives' motion, but at least they brought this debate to the House today. I thank them for it because it is truly an important debate. I would like to set the record straight on the situation in Quebec. A CMHC economist I talked to recently said that we need to build 1.1 million housing units in the next 10 years. The private sector will build 500,000 that the government will not need to get involved with. To safeguard affordability and allow people to have access to housing they can afford, the governments need to step up directly or indirectly to build 600,000 housing units. It is believed that in the past five years, under the great strategy, 115,000 units were built. When will the government really get to work for this society's less fortunate?

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Mrs. Brenda Shanahan

May/2/23 5:25:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can simply answer that I agree that the federal and provincial governments must work together. As far as the province of Quebec is concerned, we have worked very well in the past with the Société d'habitation du Québec, and we continue to work with that organization and with the municipalities.

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Quebec
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Mr. Martin Shields (Bow River, CPC)

May/2/23 5:26:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are talking about a very important topic today. We need homes for families. We need homes for dignity and homes for a purpose. The Conservatives want to bring homes for those reasons. Under the Constitution, and we know the federal government and the provincial government know the roles, but it is the provincial governments that create municipalities. They are a creature of the provincial government. The Liberal government, in its programs on housing, has not worked well with all the levels of government partners, which has been mentioned by the Liberals. For example, there is the big city mayors' group out there. I do not remember the city mayors' group being here in Ottawa to work on this crisis, so there are partner problems. In eight years of the Liberal government, housing costs across Canada have doubled, and Canada has the fewest homes in the G7 but the most land to build it on. We have a lot of land. However, the regulatory burdens, the impact assessments and the red tape have increased delays and costs over the last eight years. Municipal people tell me about the number of forms they need to fill out. When I was mayor, we hired a grant writer, a grant finder. Even being a small community of 15,000, we hired a person to try to find the grants and then fill out the forms. The red tape has increased for housing, so there are greater barriers. There is more staff in Ottawa, but dealing with applying for grants in the programs the government has set-up has not become more efficient. There are a couple of problems. There is not a clear definition. We see the words “affordable” and “attainable”. Affordable housing refers to it costing less than 30% of a household's income before tax. Attainable housing has a few more points to it and applies to a broader population in our country. Attainable housing refers to being adequate in condition, which means it is not on that renovation show where they are fixing up a house that is falling apart. It is a house that is liveable. It also means it is appropriate in size, with the number of bedrooms, the kitchen or whatever living space is needed. Also, it is accessible to services, meaning it is located in areas where people can get the services they need. Attainable housing is available in a range of housing types. If some of the pieces for attainable housing are missing, then we have a problem. We are not just building for affordable, we are building attainable housing. Under the government, and because of its policies on a range of files, the principles of attainable housing have been out of reach for so many Canadians. I can remember when I was mayor we developed certain kinds of lots. I was speaking at a conference with developers, and I told them we were going to have 60-foot lots in the community. The planners were going nuts and saying that we needed 30-foot lots. I told them how things worked. If one builds a bigger lot, people would build a bigger home on that lot instead of going out and building on an acreage. If one builds that more expensive house in one's town, the domino effect is going happen, where that person moves out of a more affordable house, leaving it for someone else, into a bigger house. Attainable includes a whole range of items. The whole range is needed, and municipalities can do that if one works with them. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, within CMHC's national housing strategy programs: ...there is no standard definition of affordability. Rather, each program uses its own unique definition, which can lead to the construction of units presented as “affordable” but which in reality may require households to devote more than 30 per cent of their income to housing. That is problematic. There are organizations that really need more partnerships. Many people in the House know what Habitat for Humanity is, and it is one of those great non-profits out there that does a great job of providing housing through working with families and communities. For example, I was just at an opening of a project, where the town donated the land, paid the fees and put in the servicing. The company these people work with supplied a lot of help, such as manpower, to work with the family. Habitat for Humanity is a great example of a non-profit. That is the kind of partnership that needs to be developed. Those work because the people are very much involved with them. Another one that I have run across in my riding is called Life at Key. It is an innovative program. Instead of increasing the down payment, which we often see as a huge barrier, this model works with a payment that requires only 2.5% to 5% initial payment. It involves co-ownership, equity in the property and making additional payments at one's own schedule. That is an innovative process. That is now happening in three or four communities in Alberta, and it is moving east with this proposal. That makes housing attainable, and we need those kinds of programs. I have a community in Taber, with a housing initiative, that went out with a piece of land. They have great land in their community. They built a lake, pathways and then modular homes that they purchased, or homeowners could purchase modular homes. There are large lots. They have worked at this. It is another step for attainable homes. They have done a good job of that. I have communities such as Standard and Arrowwood. They have gone out and built serviced subdivisions within an hour of Calgary. The demand is now there. Those communities have gone out and built those service lots and roads, and all of the things. That is what municipalities could do if the federal government worked with them. Somebody mentioned the concern about a clause that says there is a penalty. Well, if they have worked in municipal government, they have gotten grants that may have been for one year, maybe two years. Sometimes those projects are complicated, and in two years it has not gotten done. There is a mechanism to go back to the grant funding and say, “We are this far through it, but we need an extension for a year.” Absolutely, but that is working with partnerships, and that is what we are talking about doing. Municipalities are the partnerships that need to be worked with, but the government has to be a partner in the room to get it done. When we talk about some of the challenges that municipalities have, it is getting harder to do all the things they need to do for approvals. For example, to change a culvert under a road, it used to be that there could be a plan to go ahead and do it. It would take so much money, and if they had the equipment, they could go do it. Now, there has to be an environmental study one year, and the culvert cannot be replaced until the next year. It is those kinds of costs that keep increasing on the municipalities. There is a challenge that the bureaucracies keep building above them. It makes it problematic for municipalities to do what they need to get done with the money they get in grants, and that is why the federal government needs to work with them. What we need to do is spend money in the right direction. This is a crisis. Earlier, the crisis in Nunavut was mentioned. In 1942, somebody built the Alaska Highway in a very short period of time because there was a crisis. They got that highway built from Dawson Creek all the way to where they needed to have it in Alaska, over territory where they said nobody could build a road. How can we not get housing materials to Nunavut now? This is problematic. I listened to our MP for Nunavut talk about the housing crisis they have, and we cannot figure out how to get materials there at the appropriate time to build the appropriate housing they need. This is a crisis. We have the capability to do those things. We are not getting them done because we do not view it as a crisis. This is problematic. Let us look at the flooding on the Lower Mainland that occurred recently. It wiped out bridges. It wiped out roads and railways. How was that fixed? They got all the construction people together from municipalities in a month. It was a crisis because we needed the rail, the roads and the bridges going. In a month, they had those things repaired to have things moving. When it is a crisis, we need to get all the people in the room. The federal people need to get the big city mayors in the room. The municipalities and provinces need to be in the room. They need to be in the room, and they can resolve it. It is not just building programs and shipping it out. We want homes for people. This is a crisis. We need it now.

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Mr. Chad Collins (Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, Lib.)

May/2/23 5:36:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know if the member opposite knows this, but his leader, today and for the last number of months, has been blaming municipalities, small town mayors and big city mayors. He has been critical of mayors and councillors across the country for not doing their part as it relates to assisting with the affordable housing supply, and the housing supply in general. Our government, as members know, has taken a more collaborative approach, working with municipalities to provide support in building supply. I wonder, as a small town mayor, whether he feels that a more collaborative approach is better than the one that his leader is taking, which is to demonize municipalities that are, in large part, trying to help all levels of government with the challenges we face.

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Mr. Martin Shields

May/2/23 5:37:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing municipal people know is that the red tape that comes from both levels of government above them, provincial and federal, is huge. That is the red tape we are talking about. That is what we need to free up so that municipalities can get done what they need to do. They can do it, as in the example I mentioned before. We need to get that done. If we can get rid of the red tape, it will free those people up. Major cities, for example, have staff getting projects shovel-ready in hopes that the federal government will put something out they can apply for. What a waste of resources that is, but it is because of the bureaucracy of the federal government.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/2/23 5:37:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative motion accuses cities of being gatekeepers that are blocking construction. It is absolutely ridiculous. Part of the collateral damage of the federal government's withdrawal from housing in 1993 is that we have seen the emergence of something called the financialization of housing, in other words, big national or international conglomerates owning large apartment buildings. This is problematic. According to one study, in 1996, just a few years after the federal government withdrew from housing, the rate was 0%. The ownership of large apartment buildings by big corporations did not exist. As we know, these groups are not interested in the right to housing. They are only interested in making a profit. The same study noted that, by 2021, 22% of the rental stock in Canada was owned by large groups. This poses a serious problem in terms of affordability and accessibility. Can my colleague suggest any solutions to this major housing problem in Canada?

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