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

May/2/23 11:49:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think, at least in the province of Manitoba, non-profit housing units have been in that range of 25% to 30% since 1988, but closer to 30% nowadays. The federal government, through the years, continues to contribute a majority, from what I understand, of those operating costs. I could be a little off on that, but I believe that to be somewhat accurate. It is really important for us to recognize the need to increase the size of Canada's housing stock, and it is not going to be one government alone, nor should it be just Ottawa giving a pile of cash. We do need to see provinces, municipalities and other stakeholders step up to the same degree that Ottawa has been for the last number of years. I am wondering if the member could provide her thoughts on other jurisdictions also playing a critical role in dealing with the housing crisis.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

May/2/23 11:50:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to remind the House about jurisdictions. It is Quebec and the provinces that have jurisdiction over housing, not Ottawa. The funds in Ottawa's coffers come from Quebec and the provinces. Ottawa itself is not a province. Yes, there are programs, but as I was saying, they do not cover all the blind spots. Then, there are projects that are ready to go but that cannot move forward because of a lack of funding. Quebec has 700 such projects. The problem is that the funds ought to be transferred directly to the municipalities, to Quebec and to the provinces, to those that know how to manage them.

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Ms. Lisa Marie Barron (Nanaimo—Ladysmith, NDP)

May/2/23 11:51:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. When we are talking about affordable housing, I think about constituents in my riding, Robin in particular. She is a senior constituent in my riding, living off a fixed income, who is currently paying 75% of her income on housing. So many others across Canada and in my riding are also in this same situation. I am wondering if the member could clarify whether she agrees that simply adding more affordable housing supply without affordability criteria would do nothing to address the housing affordability crisis for Quebeckers trying to find an affordable home.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

May/2/23 11:52:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague mentioned several issues in her question that need to be addressed. For starters, seniors' pensions need to be increased. Right now, they are fixed, which is a good thing, but the fixed amount is too low. Next, simply increasing the number of housing units might have a positive impact on rents, if all needs are met. However, if companies are the only ones building housing, we end up with a situation where these companies want their housing or apartment building paid off in five or six years, so prices will keep climbing. This is unacceptable.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/2/23 11:52:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to inform you at the outset that I am proud to be splitting my time with the biggest and strongest proponent of affordable housing across the country. I am of course referring to the member for Vancouver East. We are in a crisis, which has been brewing for many years. I will come back to that. The reality is that even though the Conservatives moved this motion today, they do not put forward much in the way of solutions. For example, they blame the municipalities. However, I know that many municipalities are doing everything they can to ensure they have affordable housing. What is often lacking is the federal contribution. The Conservatives also say that municipalities should plan. Back home, in the greater Vancouver area, municipalities are already doing that. The Conservatives are also proposing that federal buildings be converted to housing. I would just like to mention that, during the Harper regime, the Conservatives sold off federal government assets. It is a bit rich to hear them say today that they made a mistake during their 10 years in power, that they really ripped Canada's social fabric, but that they now want to make amends and turn the federal government's assets into something useful. What is missing from their motion? There is no mention of co-operative housing, which has been a long-standing solution in Canada. There is no mention of community housing, which is foundational in helping people access affordable housing. There is also no mention of the role that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC, has played over the years. The fact is, it has been very slow to provide adequate funding, and instead, it has often served to increase banks' profits. During the financial crisis, the Harper government made sure that tens of billions of dollars went to maintaining bank profits, rather than building affordable housing. We saw the same thing more recently from the Liberals during the COVID-19 crisis. Some $150 billion from the CMHC was used to prop up our big Canadian banks, rather than invest in affordable housing. These are not solutions. One solution would be to change the aspect of our tax system that encourages investors to buy up affordable housing and convert it into housing units for the rich and wealthy. This is a terrible aspect of our tax system, one that has to change. We need to prioritize and fund affordable housing, ensuring that at least one-third of the new units built are affordable. All the things I just mentioned could improve this motion and ensure that we have a policy based on common sense. I know my colleague from Vancouver East will speak to that later. We are in a crisis. There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who cannot find affordable housing, and we have had a federal government that has been very slow in the pickup. The NDP has been pushing, in this minority Parliament, as we did in the last, to force the government to make these investments. We are making some progress, but it is not at all on the scale that is required. For a time in my life, like so many other Canadians, I simply could not afford housing. I had to couch surf. I fortunately had a second-hand car that I was able to sleep in. These are the kinds of things that Canadians should not have to struggle with. There should be that right to housing, and this is something the NDP has brought forward repeatedly over the course of the last few years, which is to put in place housing policies that actually make sense. The Conservatives are bringing forward a different motion today, and this is something that we are all rejoicing in. They normally do the carbon tax for every one of their opposition days. Today, they are finally tackling housing. However, what I was hoping to see was the member for Carleton standing up to say, “We are sorry, Canadians. We are sorry about our contribution to the housing crisis. We are sorry that we almost doubled housing prices during the Harper regime.” Yes, the Conservatives can point to the Liberals for doing the same thing, but this tit-for-tat does not provide the affordable housing that Canadians need. I thought that the member for Carleton would stand up to say that they were so sorry that, in the last five years of the Harper regime, they lost 322,000 affordable rental units. I thought he would say that they are sorry they did that to Canadians, that they contributed, over the course of the 10 years of the Harper regime, to stripping apart the social safety net and allowing the destruction of affordable housing, with so many housing units converted to higher-priced units, so people could not afford them. I was hoping the member for Carleton would do that, but we have not had any apologies from the Conservatives for their absolutely lamentable record over the course of that dismal decade of the Harper regime, where they stripped apart all of the protections that Canadians needed. The Conservatives basically amplified a despicable decision made by Paul Martin to end the national housing program and, instead of saying it was developing as a crisis and that they needed to address it, we saw the results. We saw that the Conservatives did not protect those affordable housing units and did not make the investments in social housing, co-operative housing or community housing, which Canadians, seniors, students, families and people with disabilities need. The Conservatives did not do any of that. They had an appallingly bad record. The first step the Conservatives need to take, as a party, is to recognize what a deplorable, appalling record they have. They nearly doubled housing prices with respect to market housing, and they basically did not protect hundreds of thousands of rental units that were affordable, and those that were lost to higher-priced units in conversions. These are things that Conservatives should acknowledge. These are things for which Conservatives should step up to say that they are sorry, to Canadians, for their very large part in provoking the housing crisis that exists today. However, not a single Conservative has done that. No Conservative has stepped up to say that they were wrong to do what they did during that dismal decade and to acknowledge their contribution to this housing crisis. Yes, the Liberals are culpable as well, but the Conservatives played a significant, major and disappointing role in the housing crisis that we know today. After the Conservatives allowed those rental units to be converted, and people with disabilities, seniors, students and families lost their affordable housing, the most reasonable person in this country would say that, really, when the Conservatives are raising in the House on the issue of housing for the first time ever for their opposition day, they should have started off by saying that they are sorry for all the neglect and everything they did that has contributed to so many people being homeless today.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/2/23 12:02:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to rise to apologize. I am going to apologize to say sorry to the Canadians who voted in 2021 for a minority Liberal government. I am sorry the NDP signed a deal with the Liberals, with their coalition agreement, that effectively gave the Liberals a majority. I am sorry that the NDP is complicit to many of the failed policies, including housing, which we are now debating in this House. I am sorry that the House leader of the NDP feels like somehow he needs to support the government when, in fact, he was voted for as a fourth party. Therefore, I will say to Canadians that I am sorry they did not get the government and the opposition they elected. Will this member do the same?

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/2/23 12:03:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not even know where to start. That was such a strange intervention. It shows that Conservatives are still struggling with the housing issue. They know a talking point, which is that the price of housing has doubled. That is true, except that the price of housing almost doubled on their watch. When that is pointed out to them, they get very sensitive and react. They like to accuse, but they do not like to resolve. In this corner of the House, New Democrats pushed the Harper Conservatives during that regime. As we know, it was a majority government; unfortunately, a Conservative majority has absolutely appalling results for Canadians. When they basically allowed seniors, people with disabilities and families to have their affordable housing stripped away from them, we fought back. Of course, in this Parliament, we have been fighting for affordable housing. We make sure that we push the Liberal government to do the right thing and make the investments; in this way, we can hopefully catch up on the years of neglect. The reality is that this housing crisis is a product of Paul Martin, the Harper regime and the current government. New Democrats are going to continue to speak up for Canadians from coast to coast to coast to make sure that housing is built. Canadians have a right to a roof over their heads at night, and we are going to continue to fight for just that thing.

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

May/2/23 12:05:25 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-31

Mr. Speaker, I somewhat disagree with what my colleague just said about the NDP always being prepared to support housing measures. Before Christmas, we voted on Bill C-31, which sought to send a $500 cheque to everyone who earns less than $20,000 a year and puts more than 30% of their income toward housing. Most tenant advocacy organizations in Quebec criticized this measure, saying that it was the kind of thing a right-wing government would do. The government was just sending out cheques so that it could say that it was helping people. That does not build housing. The government spent a lot of money sending out those one-time cheques. Obviously, they were good for people who need housing and who do not have a lot of money. However, the government could have taken that money and built housing units so that, in a few years' time, more disadvantaged people could have a roof over their heads and a place to call home.

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/2/23 12:06:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what I am saying and that is exactly what the NDP is doing. The member is well aware that, for years, the NDP has done more than any other party, and even all of the other parties combined, to promote and and push for the right to housing and the right to affordable housing. We are working and fighting for funding to be granted. That is part of our role and our mission here in the House. We will not stop until everyone in Canada has affordable housing and a roof over their head every night.

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

May/2/23 12:07:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my friend can provide his comments regarding the important non-profit sector. I think of Habitat for Humanity, which has built brand new homes and made them accessible to people who would never have the opportunity otherwise. It is a group we have invested in and supported. Could the member provide his thoughts on both the need for additional housing and the growth of the housing co-op industry?

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/2/23 12:07:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, New Democrats have been saying all along that we need to put in place a non-profit acquisition fund. The federal government needs to step up with core funding to ensure that we build and acquire not just non-profit housing but also co-operative housing, social housing and community housing. This is the housing mix that Canadians are looking for and that we had in this country before Paul Martin decided to rip up the national housing program and give that money to big corporations instead.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

May/2/23 12:08:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise to engage in this debate today about housing. In fact, I could talk about housing all day long. The motion before us today is indeed an interesting one. In the Conservatives' approach, per usual, they focus only on issues where they could actually put out buzzwords to rev up the community about a situation. The solutions they provide often have tremendous gaps and, interestingly, they always miss when it comes to targeting the corporate sector. I wonder why the Conservatives always think the corporate sector will take care of things, that somehow things will magically be okay, including the situation with housing. If the market were going to take care of the housing crisis, or, in fact, if the market were not going to escalate the crisis, then we would not be in this situation today. The reality is this: When we look at the housing crisis from coast to coast to coast, we do need government intervention. I am a strong proponent of that, saying that the federal government needs to show leadership. It does not matter who is in government. Whether it is the Liberals or the Conservatives, government needs to be there for people to ensure housing as a basic human right. The reality is that the government has not been there. That is why we have the housing crisis we face today. The Liberals cancelled the national affordable housing program back in 1993. Our country lost more than half a million units of social and co-op housing that would otherwise have been built had the Liberals not cancelled the program. Now, I have to say that the Conservatives also did not do their part. They were in government as well. They did not invest in housing as they needed to do. More to the point, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives invested in housing to meet the needs on the basis of housing being a basic human right. Not only that, but they allowed the market to go rampant in taking advantage of Canadians who need housing. What happened after the federal Liberals cancelled the national affordable housing program? We started to see real estate investment trusts come into the market. They started to buy up housing stock in the community. Not only did they start to buy up the housing stock, but the government of the day also allowed them to walk away with a free pass to boot. They did not have to pay the corporate tax rate, even though, for all intents and purposes, they operate like a corporation. As a result, the seven largest real estate investment trusts did not have to pay taxes at the corporate rate to the general revenues, to the tune of $1.2 billion. This tax should have been collected, and then the government could have reinvested that money into housing by creating an acquisition fund for non-profits, which the Liberals say they support. They should have funded it so that we could hold the housing stock. However, the Liberals did not do that. It was not just the Liberals; the Conservatives did not do that either. They allowed this to go on and on. Now, the Auditor General and the Parliamentary Budget Officer just issued a report indicating that Canada will lose another $300 million over the next four years if we do not change the tax policy. The NDP has said on the public record that we need to stop fuelling the housing crisis. Corporate landlords need to pay their fair share, and real estate investment trusts need to pay the corporate tax rate. The money that we collect should be reinvested back into housing. However, we do not see any of that language in this motion today. The Conservatives are saying that local governments should pre-emptively upzone a parcel of land for the development of housing. Now let us be clear: When they do that, what is happening is that the Conservatives are saying to the local government to just write developers a blank cheque. Every time a parcel of land is upzoned, that land value increases exponentially. I am not saying we should not upzone land for further housing development, but my question is this: Why did the Conservatives not put in language to say that there needs to be a return back to the community? When we give value in land to the developers, there has to be a return back to the community to ensure that the increased value in land that they receive from the upzoning is actually going to the community in the form of community contributions, more social housing, day care spaces and green spaces, as examples. The Conservatives consistently and persistently give a free pass to the private sector; according to the New Democrats, that is wrong. We also want to see “affordability” defined. What has happened over the years is that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have eroded the term “affordability” to the point where it is meaningless. In fact, if we talk to people in the non-profit sector, they think that when the government says “affordable housing”, it is a four-letter word. It does not actually amount to being affordable by any stretch of the imagination. Once upon a time, core-need housing was deemed to be affordable when it was geared to income. That has now disappeared. It no longer exists. It exists only in theory, and that should stop. This motion should have incorporated language on affordability and defined it better. We want to tie federal infrastructure dollars for municipalities to the number of new homes built, impose clawbacks on municipalities that delay new home construction, and ensure that there is federal funding for major transit projects to cities that pre-emptively upzone lands around transit infrastructure for higher-density housing. The NDP is calling for amendments to this motion. We are calling for the Conservatives to accept three amendments. Specifically, we want to ensure that at least one-third of the new homes built meet core affordability needs and that at least one-third of the new homes are set, at a minimum, at 20% below market housing rent. We need to ensure that upzoning provides tangible benefits to local communities, including additional affordable housing, additional green spaces and child care spaces. We also need to ensure that the underutilized federal properties made available for housing to create new social co-ops and community housing guarantee the affordability of those units and that the value of the upzoning goes back to the community and not into the hands of the developers. That is what we need to do. I hope that the Conservatives will support these amendments and that the language of the amendments fits what is required in this House. I move that the motion be amended as follows: “(a) in paragraph (a) by adding after the words ‘new homes built’ the words ‘to ensure at least 1/3 of the new homes built meet core affordability needs of Canadians, that at least 1/3 is set at minimum 20% below market housing rent’; (b) by adding the following paragraph after paragraph (b): ‘ensuring that this “up-zoning” provides tangible benefits to local communities, including in the form of additional affordable housing, additional green spaces, and child care spaces, so that “up-zoning” does not just benefit developers’; and (c) in paragraph (c) by replacing the words ‘housing while guaranteeing’ with the words ‘social, co-operative, or community housing to guarantee.’” That is the motion that I would like to move in order to amend the Conservative motion; it can ensure that we are clear in what we are talking about, that “affordability” is clearly defined and that there is a return back to the community when we upzone land so that the benefit is not just a blank cheque for the developer; rather, it is a community benefit going back to the people.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/2/23 12:18:55 p.m.
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It is my duty to inform hon. members that an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion, or in the case that he or she is not present, consent may be given or denied by the House leader, the deputy House leader, the whip or the deputy whip of the sponsor's party. The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/2/23 12:19:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Vancouver East shared with the Conservatives a copy of this motion a number of hours ago, and so I am sure there will be somebody provided from the Conservatives. They do have a number of House officers, all paid by taxpayers, and so I am sure one of them will step up in just a moment. They have been given plenty of notice. Hopefully they will have their tie on. They should not be taking their tie off, quite frankly, but that is up to them; it is a free country. I am sure the Speaker will get a response given the notice the NDP provided several hours ago on this amendment.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/2/23 12:20:29 p.m.
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I will read it again. It is my duty to inform hon. members an amendment to an opposition motion may be moved only with the consent of the sponsor of the motion, or in the case he or she is not be present, consent may be given or denied by the House leader, the deputy House leader, the whip or the deputy whip from the sponsor's party. Since the sponsor is not present in the chamber, I will ask the deputy whip if he consents to the amendment being moved.

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Mr. Chris Warkentin (Grande Prairie—Mackenzie, CPC)

May/2/23 12:20:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we do not consent.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/2/23 12:21:03 p.m.
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There is no consent. Therefore, pursuant to Standing Order 85, the amendment cannot be moved at this time. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Fleetwood—Port Kells.

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

May/2/23 12:21:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary gymnastics demonstration was very good. As a fellow resident of Metro Vancouver, we have also seen a lot of pressure on industrial land. In fact, Vancouver is almost out of it. Does the member see the motion by the Conservative Party as further complicating or disrupting the balance we need between industrial land and residential land?

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

May/2/23 12:21:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the motion talks about housing and not industrial land. There is another whole debate I would love to get into about industrial land, but for the purpose of this discussion, what we need to focus on is the housing crisis. I call on the Liberal government to do the right thing and show leadership by investing in social housing back to the level when the government was doing it in the seventies and the eighties. The other thing I say to the government is to stop the corporate sector from fuelling the housing crisis, stop the special treatment that real estate investment trusts get and make them pay their fair share. The government should make them pay the corporate tax rate and reinvest that money to non-profits into an acquisition fund.

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Mr. Dan Albas (Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, CPC)

May/2/23 12:22:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a fellow B.C. member, but I need to contest some of the rationalization the NDP has, the virulent hatred of real investment trusts. In places like Westbank First Nation, real estate investment trusts have offered some of the most dense purpose-built rentals that allow for workers to stay in our communities so we can have places for nurses and long-term care aides, and it is all very affordable. It seems like the NDP is somehow saying that Westbank First Nation should not be able to put on this stock. DCCs, or development cost charges, rising taxes and CMHC raising the cost of insurance only make housing more expensive. Why does she want to stop real estate investment trusts in places like Westbank First Nation, or does she somehow believe she knows better than Westbank First Nation does?

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