44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 20, 2023 02:00PM
- Sep/20/23 2:32:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister admitted that he could have and should have done more to build affordable homes in Canada. Now, the reality is that we have a situation where we are losing more affordable homes than we are building as a nation.
What does the Prime Minister have to say to a renter who is living in a home he can afford right now but who lives in fear that one day that home will be renovicted or demovicted and he will lose it? What does the Prime Minister have to say to ensure that people will be able to stay in the homes they can afford?
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- Sep/20/23 2:33:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I share the hon. member's concern about making sure some of the most vulnerable Canadians have a safe and affordable place to call home. That was in fact the motivation for the national housing strategy where our government re-entered the social housing space after decades of governments, I should say of different partisan stripes, vacated it.
In reality, we know we need to do more. That is why we moved forward with eliminating GST on apartments that are going to be rented to Canadians. Part of the solution to the housing crisis is to build more homes, and that is exactly what we are going to do.
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- Sep/20/23 2:34:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, people unable to find a home they can afford are struggling. That is why we started implementing national housing strategies decades ago. These investments are necessary. We are starting to build affordable homes again.
In addition, he wants to see action. Last week, we eliminated the GST on the construction of apartments in this country. This is going to add to the supply. This is going to reduce the cost for people to rent and will provide protection for people who are struggling to find a place to call home. It is the right path forward. We are going to continue.
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- Sep/20/23 2:37:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, with enormous respect for my hon. colleague, when her party leader was the housing minister, he advanced a program with $300 million that he said would build 25,000 homes. Fewer than 100 were built.
We have advanced programs that are going to build homes and that have been building homes. The reality is that we know we need to do more. That is why we are eliminating the GST on apartments to be constructed. That is why we are advancing a plan to change the way cities build homes. It is working.
We cannot do it alone, but we will bring communities and provinces with us. It is the right path forward. I hope the Conservatives join us.
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- Sep/20/23 2:38:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the cost of a home has doubled in this country. The minister who made international students sleep on the streets and lost track of a million people is now in charge of building homes in this country. How does one lose a million people? He is recycling broken campaign promises from eight years ago that will not fix the fact that buying a castle in Europe is now cheaper than buying a family home in Kitchener.
Are Canadians supposed to trust the guy who broke immigration to fix housing, or anyone over there to fix inflation?
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- Sep/20/23 2:39:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, welcoming an ambitious level of newcomers is not breaking the immigration system, and we want to make sure communities are equipped to welcome them. We are not going to take lessons from the Conservatives, who failed miserably when it came to housing, by doing absolutely nothing. We have removed taxes on home construction. We are changing the way cities build homes.
We are going to build Canada and we are going to advance the measures to make it happen.
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- Sep/20/23 2:50:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I share my hon. colleague's perspective that we need to build more housing in this country, including subsidized housing for low-income families. I also agree with the NDP that the reason we find ourselves with such an extraordinary housing shortage is that federal governments of different partisan stripes for decades have vacated the space.
We re-entered the sector in 2017 with the advancing of the national housing strategy. We are seeing hundreds of thousands of subsidized homes provide safety and security for low-income families. We will continue to advance more measures to build housing stock, including tax incentives to get builders building and to change the way that cities build homes, but we will not forget the most vulnerable along the way.
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- Sep/20/23 3:40:58 p.m.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-356, An Act respecting payments by Canada and requirements in respect of housing and to amend certain other Acts.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to introduce the building homes not bureaucracy act, and now, more than ever, it is necessary. After eight years, the Prime Minister had doubled the national debt, which has ballooned mortgage rates, and he has funded local bureaucracies to block homebuilding. We have the fewest homes per capita of any country in the G7, even with the most land to build on. Now he has a program that will add even more bureaucracy. It has taken a year and a half for the first announcement and has not built a single home.
My common-sense plan is based on the success I had when I was minister, when housing costs were half of what they are now. The approach that I take in this bill is to keep the existing GST rebate on purpose-built rentals, but also extend it to all new construction of rentals for which the rent is below average to encourage affordable home building, not $2-million penthouses.
Second, we will cut the bonuses of CMHC officials if they do not provide decisions on financing new homebuilding construction within the promised 60 days.
Next, we will make it a legal requirement that municipalities approve and allow construction of affordable housing around every single federally funded transit station, and the dollars will not move until people are moved into those apartments.
Finally, we will incentivize cities to speed up and lower the cost of building permits and free up land by linking the federal dollars they get to the number of homes that actually get completed. There will be a target of 15% more homebuilding per year, which would double home construction within five years at a compounding rate. Those that beat the target by 1% will get 1% more money; those that miss it by 1% will get 1% less. It is a simple mathematical formula for which no new forms, no new bureaucracy and no new delays are required.
It is common sense of the common people united for our common home. Now let us build some homes.
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