44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 16, 2023 10:00AM
- May/16/23 2:29:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple and direct question for the Minister of Housing. I am going to give an example of a single mom with two kids in the city of Toronto, paying the average rent, which is $3,300 a month for a two-bedroom, and earning an average salary, which in Ontario is $62,000 a year.
How much money would this single mom with two kids have left over, after paying her rent, to buy groceries for her kids?
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- May/16/23 2:30:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, helping that single mother with two kids is a priority for our government. That is why we have invested in early learning and child care, and brought the fees down by 50%. That is why the grocery rebate is so important, and I am glad people will get their cheques on July 5. I absolutely agree with the member opposite that housing is a very significant challenge for Canadians. That is why I am glad we have delivered on the tax-free first-time homebuyers savings account. That is why we have guidelines to protect Canadians with mortgages who are facing—
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- May/16/23 2:31:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as the member opposite knows very well, supporting families with children is one of the greatest priorities of our government, and for that single mother in Vancouver, child care fees coming down by 50% is meaningful. That single mother in Vancouver, depending on the age of her children, could be getting $12,000 a year through the Canada child benefit. I bet that helps.
I do agree that we have more work to do on housing. That is why I am glad that, in the budget, we created an additional $4 billion to implement a co-developed urban, rural and northern indigenous housing strategy.
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- May/16/23 2:40:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government knows that a lot of people are going through tough times. That is why we have responded with a range of programs for child care, health care and more.
Here is the real issue. Where exactly are the Conservatives, who have a habit of leaving Canadians to their own devices, going to make their cuts? It is all well and good to say we are spending too much, but when they say that, what they mean is that they are going to spend on their programs.
What program are they talking about? Support for seniors, for youth, for families, for housing? Which is it?
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- May/17/23 12:13:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals do not understand the housing crisis in this country. The Prime Minister said this week that “we have taken significant steps on supporting low-income renters, including a $500 housing benefit top-up”. Five hundred dollars is is supposed to end the housing crisis in Canada? I could not believe my ears. I have some news for the Prime Minister, the price for an unfurnished one-bedroom rental home in Metro Vancouver has climbed to $3,000 a month. Families, persons with disabilities, single mothers, students and seniors in Vancouver can no longer afford to live there. The housing crisis has only gotten worse under the Liberal government.
A study out of UBC this week says that B.C. renters are the most likely to be evicted, 10.5% of B.C. renters have been forced to move in the last five years due to sales of their rental home and renovictions. That is compared to 5.9% in the rest of Canada. The Prime Minister said, “We are introducing measures to end rent evictions.”. News again to the Prime Minister, whatever those measures are they are not working and they are doubly not working in B.C.
At Winsome Place apartment building in Surrey, the low-income residents got a surprise in their mailboxes this month. The landlord delivered them a document labelled "agreement to above guideline rent increase". The landlord said that if they did not sign and accept a $400 increase in their rents their units would be sold in the next few months. These were seniors who have lived in that apartment building for a very long time. This is the reality in the rental housing market right now.
The government is more than halfway through its 10-year national housing strategy, with more than $31 billion spent, yet the costs of housing are not going down. More people are going homeless and CMHC says that we need more financialization of housing to solve the problem. Really, more financialization of housing? They want more investors to use the luxury condos as investment vehicles? The government is subsidizing developers and corporate investors with its low-interest loans. This is not a solution to the rental housing crisis for mid- and low-income Canadians.
What the Liberal government continue to not understand is that this is a housing crisis and it is causing other social crises in our communities. It is causing homelessness. It is causing opioid overdoses and it is increasing social problems in the lives of Canadians. The lackadaisical attitude of the Liberals to truly fix this crisis and instead hold on to their market-driven solution of trickle-down “condo-nomics” is hurting people. Just consider the disgusting comments in QP today from the Conservative leader in regards to ending clinically proven safe supply. If the government does not get serious about creating affordable housing and getting Canadians into homes, more people will die.
When are the Liberals going to take the housing crisis seriously and make housing truly affordable for all Canadians?
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- May/17/23 12:17:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. Housing affordability is one of the most important challenges in the country today, especially for the most vulnerable people.
Everybody needs and deserves a place to call home. It is why we have made housing a priority since the beginning of our mandate. It is why we launched Canada's first-ever national housing strategy in 2017, and it is why we have continued to add new programs, new approaches and new adjustments in subsequent budgets since then.
One of our newest programs, the housing accelerator fund, is designed to reduce the turnaround time on new housing. It provides incentives to municipalities to cut red tape and streamline their processes. Applications are being accepted as of this month, but as a former mayor and former councillor, I say we have to work with municipalities.
I was incredibly disturbed to see the Conservatives' demands toward municipalities, with respect to what they needed to do for housing funds. That is not the correct approach. We need to work with our municipal partners.
What we need is a systematic change to how housing is built in this country and to introduce changes that will pay off long into the future. The program I am talking about is built on collaboration with our municipal partners, and we are continuing that collaborative approach with a new co-operative housing development program. We are working directly with the Co-operative Housing Federation Of Canada and others in this sector on this initiative, and we are backing that work with $500 million in contribution funding and $1 billion in loans. That amounts to the largest investment in building new co-op housing in this country in more than 30 years.
These are just a couple of examples of activity happening now through the national housing strategy, and adjustments are being made to build on its success. I can stand here tonight and throw out numbers that show that the plan is succeeding, numbers that show that, generally, we are ahead of schedule on most of the strategy's metrics.
I would rather stand here though and tell members about lives that have been touched through the strategy's programs. I would rather talk about Canadian Forces veteran Bill Beaton, who went from being homeless to living in a veteran's house, a supportive housing facility constructed with funding from the national housing co-investment fund, or Krystal in Surrey, British Columbia, who experienced poverty as a child. As an adult, she is helping the next generation of indigenous people in Surrey through the Skookum housing solutions project.
There are real people who have benefited from the government's work on housing across the country. We will continue this work in partnership with our friends in the NDP, in pursuit of housing affordability for all, and I hope we can count on the support of the other parties in the House to do that.
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- May/17/23 12:20:33 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, certainly, my colleague across the aisle and I can agree that some of the language we are hearing from the Conservative Party right now is harmful to Canadians.
I just wanted to mention that, last night, there was an opportunity to speak for almost four hours on housing. The housing accelerator fund came up by the Minister of Housing tens, if not hundreds of times, last night, yet at the same time the government continues to talk about the housing accelerator fund, more and more people are going homeless in the country. Really, what we need is some real investment in social housing and in low-income housing for Canadians. It has been almost 40 years since there has been investment.
I am going to close by just following up on something that the member just mentioned, co-op housing. I cannot get a meeting confirmed with the minister and a co-op housing organization in my riding. It was promised to me 19 days ago. Can the member reply as to whether the minister will make this meeting that he agreed to?
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- May/17/23 12:21:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will close with this thought. First of all, we absolutely share the desire, the hon. member and myself, as well as, I think, people from all of our parties, to make sure that everybody in this country has a home, that everybody in this country who is vulnerable is given the chance to have affordable housing. That is what we all need to strive for.
As to the question from the hon. member, I will be very happy to go back to check with the minister's office on the status of her request. I will come back to her tomorrow at question period, when I can find out the answer to that question.
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