44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 2, 2023 10:00AM
- 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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- May/2/23 10:50:22 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, who said in his speech that he was once the mayor of a municipality. I will build on that.
In today’s motion, it is surprising to see the Conservative Party claiming that the federal government knows more about the housing needs and priorities of Quebec and the provinces than the Quebec government and the municipalities do themselves.
As a former mayor, he is aware of the importance of the municipal level and municipal politicians and how close they are to the people. Would it not be better, rather than cutting ribbons left and right, to trust those who know their citizens’ needs?
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- May/2/23 1:49:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been an odd debate to follow today because we have consistently heard the message from the party opposite blaming municipalities for a lack of supply and lack of affordable housing support, and many of them are former mayors and councillors.
What I have not heard today is any one member of the Conservatives single out a municipality or tell the government which municipalities are the gatekeepers, which ones have the red tape and are blocking supply. Not one of the Conservative members have referenced that, and I hope the member opposite can assist right now in identifying a geography in Canada that is not playing its part.
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- May/2/23 1:55:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today I am going to share my speaking time with my hon. colleague from Davenport.
I have to admit it, I love opposition days. We get to debate issues and policies from the opposition's point of view.
It is too bad that the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka did not win the Conservative Party leadership race, because even though I do not agree with his ideas, they are a lot more sensible than the ideas of the member for Carleton. We would be better off if his party supported this member's brand of conservatism.
I believe in some parts of his motion, but I see weaknesses too. First off, provision (a) mentions “imposing clawbacks on municipalities who delay new home construction”. What would constitute a reasonable delay? Would it be based on decisions about public safety, related to drainage, for example?
That is important because it is easy to say that there are unreasonable delays by municipalities. What standard do we set for that? How do we look at smaller municipalities and what their capacities are to deliver reasonable timelines for developers versus larger cities?
I have before me an example from Huntsville of drainage work that delayed Sabrina Park attainable home construction. This is in the member opposite's riding, and he is the housing critic for the Conservative Party. The project was delayed for a year because of drainage that had to be reditched and repurposed because of concerns from the municipality.
Is the member for Parry Sound—Muskoka suggesting that the Government of Canada should claw back some of the money that we would be sending fro infrastructure after those types of delays, or not? That is a question that needs to be asked and to be figured out. It is easy to talk about this in principle, but what does the member actually mean by a reasonable delay.
An hon. member: He wants to add gatekeepers.
Mr. Kody Blois: Who are these gatekeepers? We have heard that during the debate. I would like to see the Conservative Party start to name the individuals in question. I am not against the principle of trying to reduce red tape whatsoever, but the principle of how we go about this has to be a little more nuanced than what the Conservative Party is throwing forward right now.
The next part on provision (a) is allocating infrastructure dollars to municipalities based on housing built. Does the town of Kentville, which might build 25 houses a year, have a reasonable standard? Where do we go? Is it based on a percentage? If the City of Toronto builds 500, is that a reasonable standard? Who determines this? With the different nuances and sizes of municipalities across the country, how would we even go about this?
What about municipalities that are doing a good job and are above the average? Let us say one of the standards was to try to give municipalities money, as is in this motion, on the basis of the success of building new houses. If a municipality was a laggard, we would give more money to it versus municipalities that had been doing a good job, which might not be able to demonstrably show they are improving their housing stock in the same fashion because they were doing a good job before. Is that really the position of the Conservative Party right now? I have my concerns.
The Conservatives are essentially suggesting that, if there is local leadership, and that is in their view, not ours, but I will speak for them, they think we should punish Canadians where local leadership is not being lived up to and we should somehow cut federal infrastructure support to those communities. Again, I want to know who they think has poor leadership at the local level so I can know whether or not they are suggesting that the Government of Canada should be pulling back infrastructure dollars in my community. I would certainly like to know where they stand, other than just creating these arbitrary words about gatekeepers and creating these villains without naming who they are. Let us pull back the mask and see who we are talking about.
The provincial governments are in the best position to issue construction permits, considering their constitutional authority over municipalities. However, they must use this authority in a reasonable manner.
I do think the provincial governments, because of their constitutional relationship, are better arbiters of being able to help intervene, where necessary, in a reasonable fashion.
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- May/2/23 4:53:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives keep going back to punishing municipalities that do not build affordable housing and taking away their infrastructure. How can they build more housing if they do not have money for the infrastructure from the federal government, as a partner in it? They are defeating the very purpose of what they are trying to do.
I came from the municipal level before I got here, and the municipality has to be involved in any home-building projects in a community, whether it is issuing permits or making sure they are inspected properly for the Canadian building code. We cannot eliminate the so-called gatekeepers that they keep referring to as municipalities. They have to be a part of it. They have to be a part of this equation.
Again, punishing them and taking away infrastructure defeats the purpose of trying to get more housing built in any community.
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