44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 16, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/16/23 11:12:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, no matter how much the Liberals like to pretend, things are not easy for Canadians right now. Buying a home has never been so unaffordable. Food bank usage has doubled for the unemployed and for the employed. Over the last ten years, Canada has experienced the worst economic growth since the Great Depression.
The cause of these problems is no great mystery. Liberal deficits have led to Liberal inflation, which has driven a cost of living crisis and is now driving up interest rates, making the housing market a ticking time bomb. The government's low-growth, high-spend agenda has imposed austerity on Canadians.
It is time to change that austerity into prosperity, and the path to that prosperity is clear; it is the common sense of the common people for your home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.
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- Jun/16/23 11:20:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
However, I would like to remind him that members of his own party say one thing but think another. I think that, before they even talk to Canadians, they should agree within the party on what they want to do about housing.
On our side of the House, we have a national housing strategy. We want to work with the provinces and the municipalities, certainly not insult them.
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- Jun/16/23 11:21:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is very important that we do not start to believe that the solution to our housing challenges is to close the door to more newcomers. We need to use our immigration policies to help bring in the people who have the skills we need to help build more homes.
I think that all members of the House, hopefully, support continuing to integrate newcomers into our society. We need to adopt policies to allow us to build more homes to ensure that people do not just arrive here but that they are also set up for success. This is something we have been working towards over the last number of years with the national housing strategy, and with new policies, we will have dedicated draws for skilled workers who have the talents we need to build more homes for Canadians who have been here for generations and for those who arrive in the future.
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- Jun/16/23 11:22:13 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the solution is to build more homes, yet since the Prime Minister took office, the number of houses per capita in this country has dropped. The average mortgage payment is up 122%. The average rent is up over 100% and the average down payment is up over 100%. That is his record of doubling housing costs, after eight years of running deficits that drive interest rates up and of funding local gatekeepers that block construction.
Will the Liberals balance the budget to bring down interest rates and inflation, and link dollars for cities to the number of houses completed?
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- Jun/16/23 11:22:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to hear my colleague talk about working with the municipalities. I am happy that the tone has changed and that the municipalities are no longer the target of insults.
As a former Montreal city councillor, I think we want to make sure that the municipalities build more housing. This is exactly what the housing accelerator fund is doing for municipalities.
What the leader of the official opposition is proposing is exactly what we said we would do last year. I am very pleased to see that we were able to inspire his party's messaging today.
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- Jun/16/23 11:24:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know the opposition leader's policy when it comes to housing; it was to do nothing. For 10 years, the Conservative government did not invest a dime in housing; it did not prioritize or even talk about housing. It left it to every other level of government. What we have done instead is to say that the federal government has to be a leader in housing.
What Conservative members have done, frankly, is to come up with ideas that we have already been doing for years. While they insult mayors, throw slurs at them and talk about how incompetent municipal governments, elected in their own right, are, we will stand up and get the job done.
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- Jun/16/23 11:24:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, what we delivered was affordable housing. The average house cost when I was the minister responsible was $450,000. Today, it is well over $700,000. The average mortgage cost was $1,400; now it is over $3,000. The average rent was $1,000; now it is over $2,000.
The member is right, though, that our programs cost far less to taxpayers. We spent far less to achieve far more. Housing was cheap. The way we can make it affordable again is by requiring that cities get out of the way and let builders build.
Why do they not bring in place a “dollars for doors” policy that gets things—
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- Jun/16/23 11:58:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier this year, the Liberals own officials predicted a major decline in new housing construction thanks to inflationary spending, interest rate hikes and labour shortages. They were correct. Yesterday we learned that new housing construction is down 23% from this time last year.
That does not sound like the life-changing housing plan that Canadians were promised by the government, so when will it admit that its borrowing of billions of dollars is actually making the housing crisis worse?
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- Jun/16/23 11:59:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague on one thing: Canadians across the country are having a hard time finding the housing they need. Not only do we need to increase the supply of housing, but we also need to work on the right to housing.
I am curious to know whether my colleague agrees that his party should finally recognize the right to housing as a human right.
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- Jun/16/23 11:59:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, just yesterday, we heard the housing minister talk about how they are getting the job done. We built more houses in the seventies than we are building right now, and they have this accelerator fund, where they are basically promising money for municipalities that just promise to get the job done but are not doing so.
My question is this: Why do they not promise dollars for doors instead of promises that never get fulfilled?
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- Jun/16/23 12:00:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to see the Conservatives have a renewed interest in housing, because for the 10 years while they were in government, they actually underspent and cut programming when it came to affordable housing. I will just quote something: “Housing insecurity is widespread and homelessness is on the rise”. Oh, that is a quote from 2012.
Let us change the topic and see what we are doing today. We have invested billions of dollars, refurbished and built hundreds of thousands of units and supported vulnerable Canadians with the Canada housing benefit. We are bringing forward the housing accelerator fund to work in partnership with municipalities to build more housing units for those who need it the most.
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- Jun/16/23 12:00:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the dream for Canadian families is to own a home so that they do not end up living with their parents. That dream has become inaccessible because of this incompetent Liberal government's inflationary policies that keep driving up construction costs.
Canada needs more than 100,000 new housing units a year, and housing starts are down across the country.
As July 1 approaches, what does the Prime Minister intend to do to address the housing crisis as quickly as possible?
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- Jun/16/23 12:01:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.
Since taking office in 2015, we, on this side of the House, have put in place the national housing strategy, which provides direct support to those who need housing and helps to build more housing. We made historic investments in the housing accelerator fund for municipalities and with the $1.5 billion for co-operatives. What is more, we will work on the right to housing.
On this side of the House, we believe that all Canadians deserve to have a roof over their head.
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